This week I want to chat about fluency. Fluency is how good readers sound when they read. They read smoothly like a river flows and with good expression. Fluent readers attend to punctuation, have intonation, and read with expression. They make their words touch as they read and they make their characters sound like they are talking when they see "talking marks."
The best way to build fluency is by voracious reading. This is our newest strategy card to be added to our CAFE menu of reading strategies. READ.READ.READ is the main idea behind voracious reading. Find and read as many good fit books as possible. Listen to fluent reading. Model fluent readers. READ. READ. READ.
To help practice voracious reading each of my reading groups will be participating in a reader's theater. The first group to read aloud to the class read the story of The Three Billy Goats Gruff. There are many versions of this tale. Each group member had a role to read. We practiced reading our parts over and over paying close attention to how we sounded. Our goal was smooth reading with good expression. I think we achieved it!
Each group will have a chance to showcase their fluent reading-for now please enjoy our first Reader's Theater!
