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For the past two years, our district has been easing into a guided reading model for reading instruction. It began as a lower grade focus, in grades 1 & 2 and quickly swept up into the upper grades. I haven’t really participated with a whole heart, if you know what I mean in teacher speak. In fourth and fifth grades, for the past ten years now, a focus on fluency has made a dramatic difference in my students’ reading scores. I worked hard on SSR by making my students find books they loved and partner reading until they found the thrill of a great book. Using the reading strategies from Stephanie Harvey in my teacher directed reading seemed enough. I didn’t really feel like I needed to rearrange my focus again, to take time away from what was already effective to try a new tactic.

Then I went to hear Fountas and Pinnell in March. They convinced me. After seeing the videos of students in the reading groups, I understood the power of having students spend a few hours a week with a teacher doing the same types of “Harvey” strategies, but on a leveled text that held both challenge and success.

So where did the focus on fluency fit?

In the first hour of the workshop, one of the presenters (I’m still not sure which one is which) said the word “fluency” 26 times. I tallied it. The goal was for students to reach fluency in a true sense – using appropriate expression, prosody, and interpretation of a text with a smooth rate of reading that sounded like real speaking. But the progress up the levels seemed slow in order to have each student reading on that level and to be able to master the reading skills / strategies that were required.

Now if the instruction at each level is cumulative, wouldn’t we want a fifth grader who is at level L to get to T as quickly as possible so that we can teach him / her at grade level, including all of the comprehension strategies appropriate for success? And if we are using a focus on fluency (not a “Dibels style speed read” but authentically improving fluency), wouldn’t it be a perfect marriage? To take our children to a higher level more efficiently and then to teach them at that level?

I am absolutely convinced we have our “reading remediation coffers” full of students who are “lazy readers” – readers who have simply not had a kick in the pants to read with energy and interpretation. And these readers are bogging down our remediation efforts with those students who need more tactical intervention… students who have phonetic issues or an ELL barrier. I would like to see those guided reading leveled groups containing children who are actually at the level instead of bogged down with students who simply have not had the fluency KICK!

–Lorraine Griffith

Actually Constructing Words is based upon the same idea as the Word Climb page. By doing the clues written in the Word Climb, you will be training to make up the clues on the spot for the Constructing Words section. When Tim teaches this in a workshop, he gives the first word and then gives clues to transform the original word into the next one. The first 14 words are done with clues. The last word (#15) is made up of all the letters in the letter boxes and makes one big word at the end.

The extension words are based upon a rime from the spelling of the first 15 words or a vocabulary collection based on root words / related words in the first 15 words. The idea is to transfer the new knowledge from the spellings or meanings, to other words students will encounter.
Many programs simply manipulate letters for the making of words. For years, Tim has been teaching about the additional positive effects gained when a word is spelled and then actually written by the student. When coding is added to each word to show the phonetic features of the word, there is even more value added to the activity.

If they are visually tracking the words while singing a memorized song they are still reading. So remind students to keep tracking the lyrics even when they think they know the song by heart.

There are a couple ways to deal with the problem of memorization. First, engage in a study of words from the memorized song. Have students select interesting words from the song and post them on a chart in your classroom.  Talk about the words, read the words as a class, and encourage students to use the words in their own oral and written language.

Also, do the word study activities we have included in SingReadLearn — Word Climb, Constructing Words, etc. When students have to deal with words outside of the lyrical context of the song they must virtually analyze the word to read it.

A second strategy is to find other verses to the same song.  When students read a second or third verse to a song they find that the melody and rhythm is the same, but many of the words have changed — so they need to visually follow the words in order to sing and read. The collection of songs in SingReadLearn have multiple verses!

Teachers at my school have definitely used it as a supplemental reading curriculum. We have a pacing guide for teaching comprehension skills in the upper grades. So by using the comprehension lessons that match our instructional strategy for that month, we are able to use the song lessons to supplement other lessons that we are using based on comprehension strategies.

Yes. By finding songs without a copyright that entice your children, (or getting permission from the copyright owners), transcribing the lyrics, and having them focus on the vocabulary in the text, you will have similar benefits. We have simply done much of that work for the busy teacher who has a life outside of school.

No. This is a curriculum that can transform to fit into your areas of need. School schedules are cramped these days with all kinds of requirements. SingReadLearn can fit into a fluency block, a word block, a comprehension block, or a social studies block.

First grade teachers have told us that many of the songs are appropriate for their children in the second semester of first grade. We suggest Kindergarten teachers choose choruses of the songs and print on charts/overheads for tracking practice. For example, kindergarten students in test classes loved the chorus to Goober Peas and Boatman Dance but sang Michael Row the Boat Ashore in its entirety.