Design for Learning

Instructor: Ellen DeWitt

Lesson Title: Expression in Fluency
Curriculum Area: Reading- Fluency

Grade Level/Cooperating Teacher: 1st/Gartman

Date: October 23, 2014
Estimated Time: 45 minutes

Standards Connection: AL 1st Language Arts (23) Read with sufficient accuracy and fluency to
support comprehension.
Read on-level text orally with accuracy, appropriate rate, and expression on successive
reading.
Learning Objective(s): Students will practice reading with expression using fluency sentence
strips, reading four out of five with proper intonation and phrasing.
Learning Objective(s) stated in kid-friendly language: Today, friends, we are going to be
learning how to read with expression by using sentence strips.
Evaluation of Learning Objective(s): After I finish teaching and the students finish practicing
reading fluently, I will assess their fluent reading using sentence strips. I will have different
sentences or short paragraphs cut into strips in a paper bag. Each student will draw five strips out
of the bag without looking. They will take a few minutes to read over their five sentences by
themselves and think in their heads how they will read them with expression. Next, the two
students will partner up and practice reading them to each other. Finally, they will come back and
individually read their sentence strips to me. I will judge their expression using expressive,
semi-expressive, or not expressive. Students must have four out of five scored as
expressive.
Engagement: The teacher will start off by finding her two students around the room and asking
them to come to one of the tables where I have my supplies set up to teach. S, its time for us to
finally begin our first lesson I will be teaching you! Were going to be right over here! A, are you
ready to come join S and me for our first lesson? Once the students are at the table with me, I will
tell them that we are going to start out by me reading a story to them. I will ask them questions
before we read the book Pigs Make Me Sneeze! by Mo Willems. S, can you tell me the title of this
book? After S responds, thank you! A, can you tell me the author of this book? After A responds,
thank you, great job! Have either of you read this book before? What animal is on the cover?
Students will respond with elephant. I wonder why there is an elephant on the cover when the
title seems to talk about pigs! Do you think the main character will be pigs or an elephant? The
students should respond with maybe the pigs make the elephant sneeze. I know this book is
above your reading level, because both of you are such great readers, but for todays teaching
purposes, this is what I will be reading to you. The teacher will read Pigs Make Me Sneeze!, first,
very monotone, with no expression whatsoever. Before reading, she will instruct the students to
pay close attention to my tone of voice vs. the words, punctuation, and capitalization on the
pages. Students, while I read this, please pay close attention to my voice! Look on the pages at the
words, punctuation, and capitalization and see if you think my voice lines up. During reading, ask
questions. Do you guys actually think the pig is making the elephant sick? Do you guys think the
cat is also making the elephant sick? After reading the story, ask the students questions about the
way I read the book. Listening to my voice, did I sound very interested in what I was reading, or
did my voice sound boring? Before teaching anything, tell the students you are going to read the
story to them again, and remind them to pay close attention to my voice. The teacher will read the
story a second time, using a very expressive voice with proper intonation, rhythm, and phrasing.
Alright S and A, now I am going to read the story a second time. Remember to pay close attention
to my voice again! After reading, she will ask the students questions about the story and her
intonation. So, did the pig and the cat actually make the elephant sneeze? What was actually
wrong with the elephant? Did you notice that I sounded different reading the story this time?
What about my voice sounded different? Did it sound better the first time I read it or the second
time? Did the story flow better and make more sense when I read it the second time? Can you
remember a time when you heard maybe a really boring speaker or heard someone read when

they sounded boring or uninterested? Can either of you think of another time when you heard
someone speak or read and the sounded really excited and spoke with a lot of expression?

Learning Design:
I.
Teaching:
The teacher will introduce the concept of fluent reading, focusing on reading with expression.
Students, what I have just demonstrated to you is called fluent reading. Fluent reading is reading
with the proper speed, accuracy, phrasing, and expression. What we are going to be working on
today and for the rest of the time I am here is expression. Who knows what expression is? Can
either of you show me with your face different expressions? If the students do not know what
expression is, explain to them what it is. Expression is a way we show our thoughts or feelings
about something. If they cannot show different expressions, show them with your face. This
expression is happy. This expression is sad. This expression is sacred. This expression is
surprised. If they do know what expression is, instruct them to show a happy, scared, excited,
angry, surprised, etc. face. The teacher will have a piece of construction paper with a few
expressions on them to show the students. When we read, it is really important that we use proper
expression to show what the character is thinking or feeling. It helps us understand and
comprehend what we are reading better. Sometimes, the author uses different punctuation marks
such as an exclamation mark or a question mark so he or she can show us how the sentence or
word should be read. It helps us as readers make the book make sense. Next, the teacher will
show the students a punctuation poster to explain how punctuation helps readers know how to use
their voice when they read. Remember that our voices go up after a question mark, sound excited
after an exclamation point, we pause at commas, and stop at periods. The author uses these
punctuation marks so the reader knows how it is supposed to sound. The teacher will show the
students different example sentences with different punctuation marks using word strips.

II.
Opportunity for Practice: Next, the students will get to practice reading with different
expressions alongside the teacher. The teacher will tell the students that they are going to learn
some different expressions and practice using an expression spinner. The expression spinner has
different expressions on each section of the circle. The students will be given a passage from their
favorite book series to practice with. The students will take a pencil and a paperclip, place them
in the center of the spinner, and flick the paperclip with their finger. Whichever expression the
paperclip lands on, they must read their passage I have selected using this voice. Okay S and A,
now we are going to practice reading with different expressions! I have this expression spinner
here, and it is similar to the spinner we used in our math lesson on Monday. I am going to give
you each a passage I have chosen. A, I chose a passage from Tigers at Twilight, a Magic Tree
House book, since I know they are your favorite! Have you read this one yet? If A has not read
this: Well, it doesnt matter. Today we are just using the book for practicing expression, so it
doesnt matter that you havent read this one yet. Im sure youll get to it! S, I chose your passage
from Junie B., First Grader: BOO and I MEAN It!. Have you read this one? Well, like I told A,
it doesnt matter for todays purposes. Hand the students their passages I have photocopied. You
are going to spin the spinner on the wheel, and whichever expression it lands on, this is how I
want you to read your passage. A, will you please go first? If time is allotted, each student will
spin the wheel twice and read their passage two different ways. If they land on a repeated one,
have them spin again so no expression is done more than once. If the students are not reading
their passage with the correct expression, or they do not know what the expression means, explain
to them so they understand. After the students have practiced using the spinner, choose one of the
two passages and read it correctly to the students. Ask them what expression they think the
characters are feeling. How do you guys think the character feels in this part? After this, tell the
students that we are going to all three read the passage at the same time, together in unison. Okay,
S and A. Now that we know what the passage is actually supposed to sound like, lets read it
together. This is called choral reading. We will use our best expression since we have been
practicing it so much this morning! Read the passage together.
Next, the students will listen to a story on the iPads and rate them using a rubric for how
expressively they thought it was read. Okay students, now we are going to practice by listening to

a book read out loud on the iPads. I am going to give you a rubric, and you are going to grade
yourselves how well and expressively you think the book was read. The teacher will hand students
the rubric and the iPads, with the links to the videos already pulled up. S, you are going to listen
to Olivia and A, you are going to listen to Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very
Bad Day. I want you to take a look at the rubric. When you are finished listening, I am going to
help you fill out this rubric. When the students are finished, the teacher will help the students if
they are confused by the rubric. In this column, I want you to think about if the reader read
clearly and smoothly. If they read very smoothly, give them a one, because they did great! If not
so much, give them a two, and if they did not at all, give them a three. In this column, I want you
to do the same for if the reader read the story with expression. Did they read it with as much
expression as I did when I read Pigs Make Me Sneeze!? If there were different characters in the
story, do the same in the third column. Did the reader do a good job of using different voices for
different characters? Instruct the students that this is a great way to practice and to see expressive
reading modeled, and they should practice at home since we dont have time to do more.
Students, unfortunately we cannot do anymore today since we dont have time, but you can
always practice this at home! I will let you keep these sheets! As you can see here, there are many
more open spots for you to practice at home.

III.
Assessment
Okay A and S, now I am going to let you all work on your own to read some sentences to work on
your expression. I have a paper bag here with different sentences and you are going to each draw
five strips of paper from the bag. After you have your five strips, I want you to each go practice
reading them to yourself. After you have read them to yourself and practiced them really well
with GREAT expressions, I am going to give you a few minutes to practice reading them to each
other. You can give each other suggestions on how to make it the BEST expressive reading you
have ever done. After you are done, I am going to call you back here individually to read these
sentences with the best intonation, phrasing, and expression you have ever used. The teacher will
have a rubric where she will score either expressive, semi-expressive or not expressive.
The students should get four out of five expressive.
IV.
Closure:
Okay S and A, I am so proud of all of your hard work today! Thank you for letting me work with
you! Who can tell me what we learned today? What is expression again? Can you name a few
expressions we practiced today? Why is it important that we read with expression?

Materials and Resources:

Sentence strips
o http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Fluency-Strips-An-activity-topractice-reading-fluently-and-with-expression-1172747
Paper bag
Teacher rubric for sentence strips
Pigs Make Me Sneeze!
Junie B. First Grader BOO and I MEAN It! passage
Tigers at Twilight passage
iPads
Student rubrics for online books
o http://www.barnesandnoble.com/u/online-storytime-books-toys/379003588
o http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Expression-and-Fluency-OnlineActivity-253520
Expression spinner
o http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Expression-Spinner-690839
Paper clips
Pencils
Construction paper
Neon word strips

Glue
Expression faces cards
o http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Fluency-Workstation-Voice-Jarwith-18-Emotions-711233

Differentiation Strategies (including plans for individual learners):

H- If students excel without much instruction about expression, they will read more than just a
passage out of the Junie B. Jones and Magic Tree House books I selected. Students will choose
ten instead of five sentence strips to practice with.
L- Students will practice with the expression wheel more. Students will draw one sentence strip
out of the bag at a time, go practice, and work with me until they have read the sentence with
enough expression. Then, they can continue drawing one sentence strip at a time.

Data Analysis:
After teaching this lesson, I found that both of my students were in the lower part of green. The
students did read their sentences with expression. After teaching this lesson, I realized that I
needed to spend more time on the punctuation portion of fluency. Therefore, I decided to teach
my next lesson with my action research group on combining punctuation and expression. See
attached grading rubric for each student. I think I made the right decision to pull the students out
into a workroom to teach them this lesson. Teaching the lesson in the normal classroom would
have been distracting to the students.

Reflection:
Overall, the lesson went better than I had planned. The students were active, engaged, and
focused. They stayed on task and were really excited both before and after the lesson was taught.
I had no problems with classroom management, as I was only teaching the lesson to two students.
Next time, during my engagement, I would ask more questions to relate back to their own lives.
In my teaching, I would have more examples to show the students of sentences with different
punctuation. That was the area they struggled the moth with during practice and assessment. I
would also ask more questions to promote higher-level thinking. The students loved how I chose
passages from their favorite books, as well.

Samford University
Design for Learning