Top Fluency Strategies Teachers Love from K–8 Classrooms

Episode 246

Fluency looks different across grade levels, but it always matters.

In this special mashup episode, Melissa and Lori bring together voices from seven classroom teachers, spanning first grade through eighth grade, to show how fluency comes to life in real classrooms. Each teacher shares a best practice they use to support accuracy, automaticity, and expression, always grounded in meaningful reading.

You’ll hear about a range of approaches, including:

• Songs, shared reading, and read-alouds in early grades
• Partner reading routines that build accountability and support
• Performance-based practices like Readers’ Theater
• Using oral reading as assessment and feedback
• Structuring small groups to support different fluency needs

This episode is full of practical ideas, classroom insight, and teacher wisdom, whether you’re teaching in the primary grades or supporting older readers.

Resources: 

• Check out our Fluency Listening Guide for links to all of the episodes! 
• Featured Episodes: 
  • First Steps to Fluency: How Young Learners Become Independent Readers with Virginia Quinn-Mooney 
  • Improving Student Reading Growth in Months with Fluency Instruction and Practice with Lorraine Griffith and Lindsay Kemeny 
  • A Classroom Fluency Protocol That Works with Aaron Grossman
  • Baltimore Secondary Literacy Teachers Talk Fluency with Tanisha Dasmunshi, Emily Jaskowski, and Emery Uwimana 
• Watch Virginia Teach Fluency in this video 
• Let’s bring back the magic of song by Tim Rasinski
• Lindsay Kemeny YouTube
• Partner Reading with Paragraph Shrinking
• 3 Phases for Fluency by Aaron Grossman
• Tim Rasinski's Multidimensional Fluency Rubric
• Aaron's website: Just Two

 
We answer your questions about teaching reading in The Literacy 50-A Q&A Handbook for Teachers: Real-World Answers to Questions About Reading That Keep You Up at Night.

Grab free resources and episode alerts! Sign up for our email list at literacypodcast.com.

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Transcript

A Mashup On Reading Fluency

Melissa 0:01

In this episode, we're doing something a little different. You're about to hear a mashup from seven incredible teachers from first grade through eighth grade, each sharing how fluency comes to life in their classrooms.

Lori 0:14

Our teacher friends will share a variety of approaches, from songs to partner reading to readers' theater to small group instruction and more. All showing that no matter the grade, fluency is at the heart of helping students become strong readers. Hi, teacher friends, I'm Lori. And I'm Melissa. We are two educators who want the best for all kids, and we know you do too.

Melissa 0:41

We worked together in Baltimore when the district adopted a new literacy curriculum.

Lori 0:46

We realized there was so much more to learn about how to teach reading and writing.

Melissa 0:51

Lori and I can't wait to keep learning with you today.

Lori 0:56

Let's start with Virginia Quinn Mooney, a joyful first-grade teacher who intentionally weaves fluency into every part of her day, from her read alouds to shared reading to songs.

Defining Fluency In Early Grades

Melissa 1:08

How would you, as a first grade teacher, how would you define fluency at that primary grade?

Virginia Quinn-Mooney 1:16

So I have to say, I think fluency is a long time coming for this conversation. I'm not really sure why it has data back seat, but it's it's incredibly important throughout the grades. For my, I teach first, and for my little ones, uh I say all the time, if you want to see the importance of fluency, spend a couple of seconds with a disfluent reader. And as you watch them struggle through whatever it is they're trying to read, it's so clear that there's no chance that they're gonna be able to comprehend it. So for in first grade and in the lower grades, it really begins. My biggest job is the foundational skills that I'm I'm directly teaching them. You can't read fluently if you can't read. So decoding is absolutely part of fluency. And my actual goal with phonics and with foundational teaching is to eventually getting them to on phonics for that automaticity part. So fluency in K2, I guess to answer your question, I don't know if I've gotten there yet. But the fluency for even in kindergarten through two is that they are they can read the words automatically and that it it sounds pretty and that they have the prosody of it. And once they can do that, that absolutely, as Tim Rusinski says, it's the bridge to comprehension. Um, but it is. So once they can actually read it, then they can read it fluently and then they can comprehend it better.

Melissa 2:41

And for for most of your kids, though, I mean, they're probably coming into first grade. Most of them, I would say, probably are just fluent readers, like generally.

Modeling, Songs, And Shared Reading

Virginia Quinn-Mooney 2:51

Yeah, I think that's safe to say. And and it's one of the reasons why I'm I'm incredibly partial to first grade. Um, we talked about this a little bit before, but you know, I essentially get kindergartners and I do all that I need to do in first grade, and I pass them off into second grade. So it's an incredibly important year for fluency. Um, but it's not so it it is their decoding, but fluency also begins with me reading those fantastic read alouds with that rich literature and modeling what fluency sounds like. It also has a lot to do with their oral language. It's not an option that the kids don't speak in full sentences with me. All of these things also lead to fluency. You know, when I'm doing the read alouds, I as we all do, what's better than sitting in a rocking chair with a bunch of cute little kids sit in front of you looking up as you're doing the read aloud? And, you know, the voices and what we do with our voice is just a ton of fun. But I also make sure to point out to the kids what is happening with my voice. Like if I'm reading a particular story and I use an accent or just, you know, exaggerate that exclamation mark, I will stop and I'll say to them, like, did you love that? Like, was that just so much fun to listen to? And even that, it's just planting the seed of how much reading fluently will help them down the road. So, yes, when they first come in, it's absolutely the top part of the rope that I'm focusing on with fluency, but it's really the bottom part of the rope that we'll be working on together to eventually, you know, every strand, the very point of every single strand is fluency. So the fact that we don't talk about it more is somewhat bananas because that's truly the end goal for the top and the bottom of the rope. Um but it, you know, it looks very different. So I do teach fluency purposefully. Um, I have a shared reading portion of the day. It is the direct objective is for the kids to read fluently. And it starts off with, as most things do, I am reading to them first, and they are um either poor reading, which means they're reading with me, or they echo read, which means I read, and then they read right after me. So they are practicing fluency with me as they're hearing me and doing it at the same time. And then they uh work with their partner and they read it for several minutes. And by the time they're done, uh every kid is fluent in what they're reading, and they are definitely understanding what they're reading because they're not getting jammed up by being able by being unable to read. And I also with um the um foundational curriculum that I use is I teach the skills that we're learning, you know, we we work on the skills, and then we have the decodable passage. So the big difference is there is direct instruction of what's going to be in the passage. So I'm not I'm not you using the passage as as a reading instrument, I'm using it as a uh reinforcement of what we just learned. So even with the decodable passages, I read it to them first. We I focus on my voice, we talk about how we read, like we talk, and I do a choral read with that as well, even with their decodables, and then they will spend several minutes partner reading the decodable as well. So they are partner reading and practicing with both a decodable and an authentic text. That's just a little bit harder during that shared reading portion of the day.

Lori 6:30

Thank you so much for sharing that. I'm wondering, Virginia, if you can kind of talk a little bit more like how you weave it into each area, right? So I heard you say that foundational skills, you're using decodable text to practice, I assume, phonics patterns, yeah, that you've taught. And you're keeping fluency in mind. And then in shared reading, you're using texts that are rich, that are worthy of reading aloud. Um, are there any specific strategies you use during either your decodable text time or your shared reading time or anything else that you think would be really helpful for our listeners to know?

Virginia Quinn-Mooney 7:07

Sure. So for the partner read, the way that they're partnered is not a coincidence. Um it's typically one student is just a little bit higher than the other, but we've spent a lot of time before they start going over what exactly does partner read look like and sound like, right? So they um, you know, I'll say to the kids before I send them off, okay, when you read, I want you to make your voices, and they say, beautiful. And then we say if there's a question mark, our voices will go, and they say up, and I say, when there's an exclamation mark, we will read very excited and they say very excitedly, and then I say, however, we're not going to, and then they have to reply back with yell at you. That's why, you know, Jan Hasbrook and I love this. She says, read like you're speaking, which I think we sometimes get away from that because you know, when the kids go to read and there's an exclamation mark, it's like the sky is falling. It's like, no, no, mom just said dinner's ready. Like that's it. A voice only really needs to match what we're reading. Uh, and also pointing along is incredibly important as they read. And when they're reading with a partner, I'll say to them, So if you're stuck in a word, you will, and they answer me, take a minute, because oftentimes their partner will just jump right in, but they really just need to take a minute to remember what we just learned. Um, and once they know they're not gonna get it, that's when they ask their partner, and their partner is always more than happy to help. Children are just the best, they're they're generous and kind, and it's in their nature to just want to do what's best for each other, and it really comes out in the classroom all day, every day.

Melissa 8:44

And you know, we just talked to Jake Downs, who told us all about the research behind this kind of paired reading. Um, so look at you doing some research-based activities.

Virginia Quinn-Mooney 8:54

Look at that, research-based. What do you know? And and I will say this is the first time that I've done direct fluency instruction. I've always it's always just sort of been um like, you know, I knew that I was doing it in my mind, but I wasn't specific with them that this is exactly what we're doing. And I and I'm really seeing big strides, particularly my lower kids with their reading. And, you know, if you if you really are stuck on a word, even at our age, um, if I'm reading a book that has characters and I can't read their name because it's got lots of vowels because they're maybe from a different culture than I'm used to, it just I stop and there goes my comprehension. You know, there goes my decoding. And I always try to remember that when the kids are stuck in a word, it's like, well, that's they're gonna stop right there. And they're and their comprehension is gonna stop right there too. So this practice is just truly the bridge to comprehension for them. The one thing I don't give, and I just read an article on this about um tracking the words and pointing along. And I couldn't tell if I'm I should stop or not, but I just it is so important for them to track when they're particularly when they're partner reading, because that's really when they know um, you know, it's the only way this that's how they're gonna know when the other partner is um, you know, stuck or not. But I just I love that reading finger.

Lori 10:20

Do you do you have a song to share with us about that? Or maybe you could sing it to us. Do you want to sing it to us?

Virginia Quinn-Mooney 10:25

Oh, Lori. Listen, literacy community, don't ever doubt my commitment to you. All right. Do I love you or do I hate you?

Lori 10:34

I have sang on this as this is coming from someone else who's also sang on this podcast before. So I hand you the baton, the singing baton.

Virginia Quinn-Mooney 10:41

Go ahead. So it goes a little something like this. If you're eating and you know it, point along. If you're eating and you know it, point along. Let my fingers track the word. Listen carefully to what you've heard. If you're eating and you know it, point along, every song has to end in a white, or else it doesn't count. So just uh to let your listeners know, both Lori and Melissa were dancing for me. So I appreciate both. Cheering you on.

Lori 11:11

Totally, totally.

Virginia Quinn-Mooney 11:12

But it is really important. Uh, you know, we joke, but but but tracking the words really is key for them at this grade.

Lori 11:19

And having a really fun song to do it with is great too.

Virginia Quinn-Mooney 11:22

You know, I have so many philosophies at this stage of my career, and one of the biggest philosophies that I have is if you can say it, sing it. Right? If you can, if you can stand there, dance there. You know, if you can walk, skip. This is we just lean into who they are. And and actually, um, I'm jumping ahead a little bit, but all I I do poems too for their fluency, and we sing all of them. And singing is huge for prosody, and prosody is how your voice sounds, which you know we've already touched on a little bit. And the singing leads so beautifully into their prosody.

Lori 11:56

Yeah, I actually um one of the things you're making me think about is uh an article that Tim Rzinski wrote called Let's Bring Back the Magic of Song. And it's basically about that, right? Like have incorporating the idea of song into building fluency. So I'm so glad that you mentioned that.

Melissa 12:12

Next up is second grade teacher Lindsay Kemeney. Lindsay shares how she uses partner reading paragraph shrinking.

Lindsay Kemeny 12:21

In in whole group, one thing is I love to have all students have access to the complex text. So have everyone in the t in the text, and then, you know, this this can be done with a lot of different scaffolding. And throughout the week, it's going to change where, you know, first I'm going to preview the text and read it to the students, and then we're going to do some choral reading, and then we move to partner reading. And I really love doing partner reading in my classroom. And there's lots of different ways I do partner reading. So what and one of the things with partner reading is you need to really have some clear procedures centered around that, right? And expectations. And so we have rules that we talk about what to do when we are partner reading, and we only talk with our partner and only about our reading and all those kinds of things. And every once in a while we've got to review that, right? So, like we came back from winter break and ah, I gotta rein them back in again. So, and then when I when you set up your partners, I'm really intentional with how I set them up for partner reading. So I take their most current fluency scores, and uh in my district, we use Acadience, formally Dibbles next. And so I will put them in order from the least fluent to the most fluent, and then I divide the class in half, and then I take that like second half and line it up with the first half. So the the strongest reader in one group is going to go with the strongest reader in the other group. So I I wouldn't want to pair my strongest reader with my one who's the weakest, right? Because that's gonna be just miserable for both of them.

Lori 14:01

So Lindsay, can I ask very quickly what type of text are we talking about here? I just want to define that before we go any further.

Lindsay Kemeny 14:10

Well, I do fluency practice with different types of text. That's good. So I have um I have some of my students, especially at the beginning of the year, they needed to be in decodable text. And some of my students did not, and they were fine with a regular, you know, second grade level text. So a lot of times for um well, I'll I'll use this partner reading. I do it both with our second grade. You know, we have like a basal program that our district is supposed to use. So I will do the partner reading just with those texts, but I also pull in text from Readworks. That's a free website you can use, and I'll pull passages off of there. And then I have some students in actual books, decodable books that they're using. So it kind of depends on the student.

Lori 15:05

How do you choose the text? Is it like a random selection? Is it based in knowledge about what you're learning?

Lindsay Kemeny 15:12

Yes. So I love I I don't, my district doesn't have like this knowledge building curriculum right now. I'm really envious of those who do, but I try to pull in knowledge as much as I can. So of course we have our just our, you know, for our basal. So like last week we were reading about the rainforest. So we learned about the rainforest, and our text was about the rainforest. But I will also take the opportunity because I do this procedure kind of protocol that maybe we'll talk more about called partner reading paragraph shrinking that I learned about from Matt Burns. So if you look him up, he has a great some great webinars and videos on that. But for that, I will choose, I will go to ReadWorks and I will choose passages that are all on the same topic because then the the students are getting kind of a deeper dive into that topic and they're seeing similar similar vocabulary, you know, over and over, kind of helps build that network. So, you know, in one session, they have maybe five different passages all on the same topic. This week it's money. So they're learning about money and trading and savings and things like that.

Melissa 16:19

Is it the same passage that they're doing? Each of you said like they hear the fluent reading, they do choral reading, they do pard reading. Is it the same passage that they do all of those with, or is it a different passage? Yeah.

Lindsay Kemeny 16:31

So this is a complicated question just because like I do this several different ways at different times. So if we're talking about whole, like just my whole group where I'm using our district curriculum, we have about two stories that we do a week. So I'm doing, you know, the one maybe Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and another one Thursday, Friday. When I am doing the separate partner reading paragraph shrinking, where I'm using those readworks passages, they when Matt Burns explains it, he has them doing, they never repeat, they have different ones every time. But I also know that there's value in repeated readings, and we know there's a lot of research behind that. Also, just logistics, I can't print off new passages every day that I do this for my for all my students, right? So we usually have kind of the same packet of stories for the week or maybe for four days, and then I switch it.

Melissa 17:34

And I might be jumping the gun, but I was thinking, wondering what the procedure actually was with the partners. Like what are they doing with each other? Um, and that might be what you were talking about with the paragraph shrinking.

Lindsay Kemeny 17:45

And yeah, this is such a great protocol. I just learned it this year. And I'm going to be doing a um speaking at Patton's summer conference, and it's all going to be on this. So if you want even more detailed and visuals, then I'm pretty sure that's free and anyone can register. Uh but and you can also just look up Matt Burns on YouTube. He has this partner reading paragraph shrinking. Don't worry, Lindsay, I've already got it up.

Lori 18:14

Don't worry. I'm linking it. Okay. I'm Googling it too.

Data‑Driven Pairing And Paragraph Shrinking

Lindsay Kemeny 18:18

Well, and let me share, and let me share at the beginning of the year in second grade, you know, we do our Acadience measures and they should be at about 54 words correct per minute. So I took my students, did our, you know, measurement, our assessment, and my class median was 50. So I had a lot, I had like 12 students that were below or well below where they should be at this time of the year. So I knew I needed, you know, to do something maybe a little more drastic than I had done before. And I watched this webinar with Matt Burns, and it just kind of, oh my goodness, I could do this. And there's a classwide need. Do I have a classwide need? Yes. Most of my class is below benchmarks. So I implemented this partner reading paragraph shrinking for two weeks, and my class median was 64. So it was 50, and two weeks it was 64, which was huge. And then, you know, I kept and I kept trying little things and I'd watch, and I kept every couple weeks, I would do a progress monitoring to monitor my students. And I can share, you know, all that, like I said, in more detail in that webinar, because there were certain students where, you know, I had to change their partners because I was like, oh, they're not making a lot of progress. What if I try this? What if I try this? So just really looking closely at the data. But what you do is you give your partners a passage and you set a timer, and and you have a your partner A and partner B. And partner A is your stronger reader and partner B is the little bit weaker reader. And I use the term cookies and milk, right? So one student's the cookie and the other one's the milk, and they don't know. Who is stronger, you know, they don't know that. So my our first one will read for four to five minutes. I set a timer and then I stop. And then the weaker reader is going to, it's now it's their turn, and they're gonna go back and read that same past part of the passage. They're gonna start at the same place. So this is great because the weaker reader got that little listening passage preview. And there is there's a study, it's I think it's Alia Nyun. Uh I think it's 2017. I can't remember if it's 2017 or 2007 now, but they showed that when they had a listening passage preview, they did a little bit better, uh, had you know higher effect sizes with their fluency. So so they get this preview, then they read, and then I start the timer goes off again, and now it's back to the first partner. And now they're gonna start right where they left off, and now they're gonna do paragraph shrinking, which is just uh a protocol that it's kind of like helps them figure out the main idea of what they're reading. And then the timer goes off, and then again the second reader reads and does the same thing. So it's a lot of a lot of practice out loud. And then we do a lot of coaching with the about how to be a good coach and error correction procedure. And I took an error correction procedure right from Anita Archer's explicit instruction. And in fact, I'm not a big YouTuber or anything, but I put little video clips on my YouTube channel. It's just my name, Lindsay Kemeney, because I use those. I made them for my classroom. So anyone is welcome to use them. And it tells students how what to do when their partner struggles with the word.

Lori 21:45

Now we'll hear from Lorraine Griffith, who taught fourth and fifth grade. Lorraine discusses how readers' theater performance gives fluency a real purpose.

Lorraine Griffith 21:55

I do feel like we do a lot of things with kids that feel like practice without really a purpose. And when you do regular performance, not only do they gain confidence standing in front of people, but the students compliment them and they say, I love that passage you chose, or I really liked the way you um made me feel what the character was feeling in the way that you said that. Or I understood the speech better when you read it than when I read it silently. It's like they're they're giving this interaction. It feels much more purposeful than just giving our students endless practice. So I do want to like I do want to talk about that a little bit because David Lieben, when he had his uh school in Harlem, his second graders, I think this is, I think I have this right, he would give them a passage at the beginning of the week. They would practice the passage each evening. And then on Wednesday, he the third, the third day, whether it was a Wednesday or not, but let's pretend it's a five-day week. And on Wednesday, his top third of readers would read aloud and they would perform it. On Thursday, the middle third, and on Friday, the lowest third. And the lowest third were usually better than the Wednesday group. The reason for that is that they got to hear those performances and they had extra days of practice. But he believed that it was those performances of complex passages in second grade that allowed him to send his students. I mean, they also had a very strong systematic phonics, explicit phonics instruction in that school. So I'm not saying fluency alone is enough by any means, but it was the performance of having a point where you have to be able to read these words correctly with porosity, with expression, not with a timer, but where students are are really doing a beautiful job of interpreting the text. That's what got those students ready for third grade. And what, you know, remember that his school scores had like the highest increase in New York City.

Lori 24:23

Lorraine, you're making me think about the not just doing it one time. Like this aspect of performance, I think often can be like, okay, the last Friday of every month. But what I'm hearing you and Lindsay both share is that it's very important to do this weekly, to do it daily, daily, and then maybe do a performance weekly. Um, that it is something that through regular practice, we get better at. And um, so I just I can't underscore that enough, that that is my critical takeaway today as an educator and as a parent, uh, that, you know, how can I continue to do this on a regular basis and include those opportunities for fun, for engagement, for performance, for collaborative feedback. Lindsay, is there anything you want to add?

Lindsay Kemeny 25:12

Yeah, uh one thing is if you're worried about time, like how do I have time to have every student perform, then put them in groups. I do that a lot of times with the vocabulary, I mean, with the poem a week, where I put them in groups of maybe six and they're gonna perform it in the group. And then also I wouldn't force anyone to perform that doesn't want to, because we know that can be really damaging for students if they're struggling readers already and is kind of self-conscious about that.

Text Choice And Repeated Readings

Melissa 25:42

Next, you'll hear from fourth and fifth grade teacher Aaron Grossman, who describes his five-day readers theater protocol. All right, so we know you have a really cool protocol that you told us all about. So we want to know more about um the five-day cycle. So we'll get into like how that five-day cycle changes over the year. But first, just tell us like what do you do in this five-day cycle for fluency?

Aaron Grossman 26:08

Um well, full attributions. So I know that one of your previous guests was Dr. Chase Young, and so my protocol is sort of a bit of a riff from what he created. So uh so let me acknowledge that and also acknowledge that he was a primary teacher. I'm working with intermediate grades, so that's a slight twist. But in general, the protocol looks like the following, which is on Monday morning, I'll have a series of scripts laid out for my students, and either I distribute them or they sign up for a script, um, just depending on uh that particular week and how I'm trying to change things up for them. So on Monday, they get the script, they read all the way through it, um, and then they put it away. On Tuesday, they take back out of the script and then they meet with whoever has the same script as them. In general, these are groups of three to five students. So at that point, they'll negotiate parts. Once they've reconciled who has what part, they'll read all the way through it with each other again. Um, and because of the scripts I'm using, which we can return to in a moment, uh they can get through those scripts at least once or twice in that first reading on Tuesday together. On Wednesday and Thursday, Friday, that's largely about continuing to reread it. Now kids are prompting each other, or I'm prompting them with more prosody, greater expression, smoothness pace. If there's words they can't pronounce, I can assist them, or one of the iPads can also answer questions for them. And then on Friday, that's an opportunity to present. So they've done all that work, um, and then they get to share with their classmates. And as you noted, not to get too far ahead of us, but that presentation can also change throughout the week and throughout the course of the year.

Melissa 27:39

So we're talking about readers theater here, yes?

Aaron Grossman 27:42

Yes. So just a note. Almost exclusively, and I probably should have prompted that. I'm glad you said something. Yeah, I use readers theater as the primary driver for the fluency practice I do in my classroom.

Melissa 27:52

When you give out those parts, I was really curious. Like, do you I could imagine that you like plan out those parts and who gets which parts and who's in which groups. Am I right there, or is it just like a random you get what you get?

Aaron Grossman 28:06

So it's so let's let's divide so there's a there's a bifurcation there. So there's the scripts and then there's the parts within the scripts. The students always negotiate who gets what parts. And sometimes that just becomes raw, paper, scissors if they can't agree on who's in the narrator and who's one of the protagonists. Um with respect to actually distributing the scripts, sometimes um I will put the groups together myself. In other instances, I will literally list the titles of the scripts and how many parts are in each script. And the kids, when they come in in the morning, they will sign up for the script. Um, and then, you know, if I'm sure there are listeners who are familiar with technology where you can randomize groups, and that becomes your group. So throughout the year, just to keep things fresh, I have different protocols for how I decide to distribute those scripts.

Lori 28:53

Aaron Powell You change this protocol over the course of the year, you know, as students become more and more familiar with the routine. So let's talk about the three phases and start with phase one. But if you could just do like a quick overview and then we can dive into phase one.

Aaron Grossman 29:10

Speaking very broadly, um, and I don't want to think that this is always linear, we can return to different phases, but at the very beginning of the school year, and this always takes at least about a quarter, I'm trying to get kids to understand one, why are we even doing fluency? Um, and I do break that down for them. I describe what fluency is, and one of your previous guests, Dr. Tim Rosinski, I use a rubric he created. Um, and so I help them understand what that is. And then that's when I will share scripts and I'll also introduce the protocol. Um, and what's important about the phase one, and I know that many of your listeners know this, one of the great paradoxes for teachers is figuring out how am I always moving forward while also filling any gaps for kids who might come to our classroom with some challenges. And so a lot of those scripts that I'm using in the first quarter, they're either previewing content or they're revisiting things that I just want to make sure they've mastered. So I have scripts around subject and predicates, I have scripts around I'm fourth grade, I'm doing more work around habitats and ecosystems. Um and I want to ensure that they understand animal adaptations, which is a third grade standard. So the scripts can serve that function as well.

Lori 30:29

I love that. That's so helpful. Okay. That like really puts a good framework in my mind.

Aaron Grossman 30:34

Yeah, so we're building some brown work in the first phase, and then the second phase, that's when we can do to iterate. So at that point, I've been doing most of the writing. I've been creating the scripts. Now in phase two, they start writing scripts. They're so familiar with the template and the protocol and the value of having a narrator and how a narrator can do the exposition in a setting. They just have a general understanding. So they're writing their own scripts, but I'm kind of largely speaking telling them which content they're gonna be writing that from. So, you know, 20 years ago, I was probably doing jigsaws with some of this. Instead, now what I'm using is the reader's data script to present a chunk of text to their classmates.

Lori 31:12

Oh, okay. We'll have to dive more into that.

Big Gains From A Classwide Protocol

Aaron Grossman 31:15

Yes. And then also in phase two, we changed the performances. So traditionally it was always us performing with each other, and now they're performing with other classmates. Kids have been presenting so much in the first quarter that now they're seeing, oh, when we stand a certain way, when we use certain gestures, and so we become more theatrical with some of those script presentations. And then in phase three, that's when we get uh much more creative. Um, so very recently we grabbed writing from a second grade classroom, and then the task of my students was to take other students' writing of seven-year-olds and then turn it into scripts and really bring to life what somebody else had written for them. Um, and then there's certain other things we can do in that phase as well, including just write a script on something that is of general interest to you instead of me being the person who's telling you always what to write about.

Lori 32:04

Okay. So let's like backtrack now. Thank you for that overview. I think that's helpful. Let's now that we have this framework in our mind, let's backtrack to phase one. Um, how do you introduce fluency? How do you set the expectations for students? What skills do you focus on? How do students apply them? All this good stuff.

Aaron Grossman 32:23

Oh, well, let me start with slowly. So what we don't want to, we know cognitive load theory, and you've had guests who've spoken on that subject as well. So we don't want to overwhelm them. So, in general, the very first thing is um we describe just what the value of fluency is. And at that point, it's how do we present information that is um at an appropriate rate and we're reading accurately. Um, and that very first script I'll share with them. In general, it's all of my students are reading from the same script so they can see how other students are actually interpreting some of that content. Um then we move into the rubric that uh Dr. Tim Rusinski developed, and I'll be honest, I reformatted that a bit so it's a little bit more student-friendly language. And so we break down things like prosody, and specifically that includes appropriate expression, pace, um, smoothness, and we divide, we we define what those are.

Lori 33:21

Aaron, can I jump in? Because I know everybody listening is gonna be like, where can I get this rubric? We will link it in the show notes. It's a fluency expression rubric. We liked it so much too, Aaron, that Melissa and I linked it in in our book because it's such a great rubric to help students have that reflection on expression. Totally agree. So anyway, just if you're listening and you want this rubric, it's in the show notes. Probably also we'll share it somewhere on social media. So go ahead, Aaron.

Aaron Grossman 33:47

And maybe I should also add the phases that I'm describing for you. Um, I know that's gonna be uh linked in the show notes. And moreover, I actually linked to the Rosinski rubric as well.

Lori 33:56

Oh, you did, you put it right in there, yeah.

Aaron Grossman 33:58

Yes. There you go. And I and you alluded to it earlier um at just2teachers.com, which is my own sort of teacher website. There's a whole section on readers' theater, and then you can see some more student-friendly uh interpretations of uh prosody as well.

Lori 34:13

Now let's move into middle school. Here's Tanisha, who teaches sixth grade. She breaks down how she uses challenging texts to keep practice meaningful, and how hearing students read aloud helps her assess fluency.

Tanisha Dasmunshi 34:27

We decided we would do a quick choral read with our students, an echo read, and then they'd get a chance to practice the passage together. Um, and and that's pretty novel to do with secondary students. What I think is also really novel is to be able to say I've heard each one of my like 147th graders reading out loud, which is something I probably wouldn't have done absolutely process.

Lori 34:53

Tanisha, can I ask when you say that it resonates so deeply with me? Because my first two years I taught high school and I thought this, I then I went back and taught elementary school. I was like, what the heck is happening in elementary school that all these kids are coming to me without being able to read? Um so I'm so curious. What when you say like you you heard them read, like what were you hearing? What were you thinking? What was going on in your mind? And what did it tell you about your students?

Tanisha Dasmunshi 35:20

Yeah, at the beginning of the fellowship, that was the thing that was brand new and really exciting to me because suddenly I was getting all this knowledge about, you know, the the shy seventh grader who usually never speaks up in class. And now I know that it's because actually they're really struggling to read automatically. Um and I think that's knowledge I maybe would have it would have taken me a long time to get to. You know, I had their IREADIS score, but that's a very limited picture of what they are what they're really capable of. And so this was exciting. I feel like I got so much knowledge about kids. Like you can tell now that student A is not a disfluent reader, can read automatically, but reads, you know, without a lot of expression. And so that might be limiting their comprehension, as opposed to student B, who's actually just struggling with like phonics and is struggling to read each uh decode each word quickly. Um and so that kind of information I don't think you can get as quickly with middle schoolers without doing something like an ORF process with them.

Melissa 36:25

I'm wondering if you all can talk a little bit about, you know, the you can definitely talk about data that that that you've seen, but I'm wondering more too, like, what have you just seen in students as in terms of you know how how have they changed, what has changed in students from doing these things that you've done?

Readers Theater Gives Purpose

Tanisha Dasmunshi 36:44

At least, I mean, for me, I everything is brand new. Um, but I I feel like I'm learning that students love performance. And and I was thinking about this because we just heard Tim Rosinski talk to us about performance and and the value of it because it's it's just authentic in itself. Um and students immediately recognize the value in that. So I think part of it is it's just exciting to do something with students that they see the value in. It's not something I have to convince them the importance of. And I I feel that way about fluency and and the whole performance aspect of it. It's it's just fun for students, and it's it's it's exciting to be able to bring them that opportunity in class.

Lori 37:27

Tanisha, how do you get them to perform? I'm curious what that looks like. I'm imagining like a karaoke microphone or something at the front of the room.

Tanisha Dasmunshi 37:36

I mean, I I don't know, maybe it's just seventh grade, but I think they're really excited. At least some kids are really excited about being able to like master the passage. And right now, we're we're the passage they just did was like a squealer speech in Animal Farm, which they found hilarious. And they're they were, you know, super excited to deliver that to the class. So we really just, I mean, we practiced it a bunch of times, and then a ton of kids are excited to to perform it for everybody else.

Melissa 38:05

Next, you'll hear from Emory, a seventh grade teacher who focuses on giving students feedback about their fluency and letting them hear their own growth.

Emery Uwinama 38:15

Like it all started maybe with like one question, and like, how do we improve a certain thing that like this is our outcome, this is our goal? And for me, it was for me, it was just like uh Lori said is like, how how can I use these wit and wisdom fluency passages that are already instilled in our curriculum? But how can I use that to benefit my students in a in a great person, especially in a virtual environment? Because again, this started last year completely in a pandemic. And for me, it started with how am I going to get my students to read out loud online to me virtually? Like that that was the first question. And, you know, I don't we don't have a lot of time, which is kind of the the worst thing is it's like every time I I get to explain this, it's like I never have enough time to give you the processes. But three years later, we I well, the change idea was basically to use existing wit and wisdom uh uh assignments and administer them through different mediums. First it was Flipgrid, now it's Microsoft Teams to hear my kids out loud, to hear them read out loud. And as a teacher, they they always tell you you you assess orally. But now like we have these like very intricate apps that will tell you how many words you're reading correctly in a minute, uh, how many omissions you're you're you're taking away, or how many uh insertions. It's like your it calculates your accuracy, your correct words per minute. Uh, the only thing that uh it doesn't calculate what you're Which Melissa provided me at the time was a fluency rubric to judge or to give you a good accurate score of how your your fluent reading is, your your volume and your expression, kind of that oratory sense. And so that was basically my change idea, and using that data to have conferences with my students, uh maybe twice a month, and then being able to show them and share that data with them, and then track that individually over the course of these cycles. And to me, like they're that's where they took onus of their own responsibility for their own learning. And you saw the improvement once I share that information with them. Teaching is a performance art. And then your kids are works of art, right? And it's like it's it's being able to recognize that in eat in in us and recognize that in our students. And I I always go back to that that uh keynote speech because it's like this is what I love about teaching, right? And it's this is what I love about instilling that into the kids. It's like these for me, it's like these anonymous readings is only because it's anonymous, right? It's like we deal in a population that's they're middle schoolers, they're 12 to 15-year-old. They're very, very self-aware about what that self, that self-reck, you're self, you're realizing what yourself looks like to the rest of the world. And you don't really want to share that with anybody except for somebody that you trust. And so when you allow them to just like it's it just read something anonymously and then track your progress to know that you're getting better, it's like they really, really get into that. They really like, they really respond to that. And I and I and I love what you said. It's because it's like you're a trusted like steward of that, right? And they go to you to say, hey, Ms. D, like, how am I doing? And to hear that, right? Like when you when you hear that, and I have a video that I showed at Carnegie where I was just like they see that and and then they see the improvement, and you see that they see the improvement within themselves, within you, it's it's awesome. It's like that's my favorite part.

Lori 42:26

And it's such a better answer than than like when they say, How are you how am I doing? Like, I mean, kids ask that, right? Like, I remember, and I I remember being a first-year teacher being like, Good, you're doing great. You've you've turned all your words on the right. So yeah, now you can say, Well, you're reading blah blah blah words per minute. And my, you know, what do you think would be a great goal, maybe you know, for to master for in the next couple of weeks. Okay, you're gonna, and it's so much more exciting, I you know.

Emery Uwinama 42:56

Yeah. Imagine if you can hear yourself here, like hear themselves read from the like January, and then in like March, you're like, oh my God, I'm I'm so much better. I'm dope. I'm so dope.

Lori 43:11

Our final teacher is Emily, an eighth-grade teacher, who explains how she structures her small groups so that fluency is woven into daily practice.

Melissa 43:20

Emily, I'm gonna pass it over to you because we haven't talked about what you did, and I know you did some slightly different work around fluency.

Building A Five‑Day Theater Cycle

Emily Jaskowski 43:28

Uh, yes. So I was uh tasked with coming up with a um way to practice fluency in small group, uh, which was actually great because we shifted a lot of the um district priorities to small group learning um as part of our like learning acceleration model. Um but traditionally small group wasn't something that was really emphasized in middle school. I've been teaching in sixth, seventh, and eighth grade for 10 plus years. And so that was something that I was even like, I, you know, I know how to do a writing conference, I know you know these specific contexts in which I can create small group opportunities, um, but hadn't done anything with fluency before. Um and so it the uh last year I was kind of tasked with creating a small group protocol for what is a structured way that you can practice fluency with a small group of kids within you know a 10 to 15 or not 10, I'm sorry, a 15 to 20 minute time frame. Um and so really looking at what some of the best practices for fluency, we're um Tanisha mentioned doing choral reading, aqua reading, um, and taking some of those processes and then taking that Wit and Wisdom Fluency passage, which um was easily accessible and also a high high impact material and taking that fluency practice uh passage and using that for small group instruction. Um, so there was a I created a protocol that I used uh just with five kids that I pulled during virtual instruction, um, and then they kind of graduated out of needing the fluency practice they're getting from that first protocol. And so I was like, well, they've kind of graduated, so now they need a fluency, I called it fluency 2.0. We have a different name for it now, but we have a fluency 2.0 protocol um which concentrated more on okay, now we're reading fluently, how are we making explicit connections to comprehension through that? Um, which I also used another resource from Witten Wisdom, the question sets, um, which already have another high impact passage with uh comprehension questions that are all standards aligned. Um, and so the protocols grew from having, okay, I have one protocol for students that are reading a little bit below um that 50th percentile. And then once they're reading above that, okay, how are we still pushing these students and not kind of keeping them within the same place? Um, so then uh this last year we created uh three protocols so that now, based on students, um we take um two scores that we two data points that we have for students, um and the IRD diagnostic, which um gives students a specific skill score based on their um uh reading comprehension, and then also their ORF score or reading fluency score, their correct words per minute, and based on those two scores, make a decision about which small group protocol would be most appropriate for that student's needs, um, and then have been using those um based on student levels and trying to um you know regroup students as we get data and continue to kind of push uh students and growing their fluency and their comprehension in conjunction with that.

Melissa 46:54

Emily, what what is the difference between the three groups? Like what happens in the three groups?

Emily Jaskowski 47:01

So um so the the uh group A protocol um is typically your students that are are probably reading somewhere below a hundred words per minute. Um, and then these students typically have some deficits in phonics. Um they might be the kid that are just reading really slow, and you can tell that they're not making a whole lot of meaning from the passage because of their rate. Um, a lot of times in middle school, this will look like kids that like um you'll see that they'll read the first like two or three letters of a word and then just fill in the rest of the words so they're not actually looking at the whole word, they're just looking at the first couple of letters and then um trying to create meaning from that. Um, these students might not even know all of their um word word parts or or sounds, um, or how you know, have that like phonemic awareness uh instilled in them so that fluency or the A protocol kind of focuses on um looking at specific vocabulary words and then building um strategies for how am I when I see a word I don't know, what do I do? Um how can I break it into word parts? Uh what word parts are recognizable? So creating some of those kind of early literacy skills, um, but still with grade level text. Um and then the B protocol is more about building automaticity. So these students probably have the full range of phonics that you would hope that a middle school student would have, um, but they're still not reading at a rate that comprehension is quick for them. Um, so we're trying to build up automaticity. Um, so that's actually working on sentence-level work, so taking a complex sentence and practicing that uh to help kind of build the automaticity for the whole passage. And then the uh group C students, these students are probably reading, I don't know, at least 115 to 120 words per minute. Um so they're reading at a rate that comprehension could be expected. Um, so it's not really the fluency, uh, the speed, but maybe are they being expressive and thinking about what the words mean as they're reading them? And that's why we're making that connection to comprehension. So they have a level of automaticity, but they're missing that kind of expression and porosity that's also expected with fluency, that's probably creating gaps within their comprehension because they're reading things fast enough, but they're not necessarily um making meaning as they're reading, and so kind of building out strategies of okay, we read this. How are we making sure that we understand what we read um before we're we're moving on? So those are those are the three protocols.

Melissa 49:50

If you want to hear more from any of the teachers featured in this episode, head to the show notes for a link to their full episode.

Lori 49:57

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Melissa 50:10

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Lori 50:20

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Melissa 50:30

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Lori 50:42

We appreciate you so much, and we're so glad you're here to learn with us.