Content Strategy Assignment

Third Grade Reading Fluency and Comprehension

By: Ashley Campbell and Whitney Suffern
Case: Alex is in third grade and has difficulties with reading because of his
learning disability. In general, his reading is choppy and incomprehensible.
Also, when Alex comes across a word he does not know, he gets frustrated
and gives up on reading. He needs help developing his reading fluency and
using context to read and comprehend new words.

Strategy One: Partner Reading and Readers’ Theater to Develop Fluency

• State Standard: Third graders should “read age appropriate material

aloud with fluency and accuracy” (1.B. 1d).

• What: Alex will be paired up with another child who is also having
problems with reading fluency. In this partner group, they will develop
their reading fluency using Readers’ Theater scripts. The idea is that
the partners will practice reading a short play over and over again for
an eventual performance in front of the class. After they have
mastered one play, they will move onto the next.

• How: Repeated reading has been shown to greatly improve a

student’s reading fluency (Mountford). After reading and re-reading
several times, Alex will become more and more confident with the text
and learn how to use a conversational pace while reading. This is the
key to reading fluency.

• Who: Research shows that students with learning disabilities struggle

more in developing reading fluency (Mountford). This strategy will
certainly help any of those students. However, it can be used for any
child having difficulty with reading fluency.

• Resources:
○ "Readers' Theater." ReadingA-Z.com 2009 10 Apr 2009.
<http://www.readinga-z.com/newfiles/strat/theater_strat.html>.
○ Offers an explanation as to why this strategy works and scripts
adapted to any elementary grade level.

• Evaluation: I have seen repeated reading work very well with

students who have difficulty with reading fluency. I chose to use this
with partner reading and Readers’ Theatre to make it more enjoyable. I
think that if students are motivated to read, especially by enjoyment,
they will perform better. Also, allowing the partner group to perform in
front of the class will surely boost their reading confidence.
Strategy Two: Teacher should model how students can understand
unfamiliar words by using context clues. Modeling done by the teacher will
show students how to re-read the sentence with the unfamiliar word to help
students be able to come up with ideas from the key words that are logical.
The teacher can also show that by reading sentences before and after the
unfamiliar word, students can also figure out its meaning.

• State Standard: Third graders should “comprehend unfamiliar words

using context clues and prior knowledge” (1.A. 1b).

• What: To help Alex with his reading of independent books and not
become frustrated when reading words he does not know there are
two strategies that can be done. To learn the meanings of Clunks
(words that he does not know) it is insistent that a teacher models how
he should go though the paragraph to find out the clunks’ meaning.

• How: By the teacher modeling exactly how this strategy can be used
Alex will have a better understanding of what to do when he reads
unfamiliar words and have a hard time with comprehension of the
words meaning. Alex will immediately know to reread the sentence
the word is in to try and pick up the words meaning then if he is still
having some difficulties with its definition read the sentence that
follows the word and the sentence that is before it as well.

• Who: This strategy is specifically designed to help students in the third

grade who are starting to do a lot of independent reading and will have
trouble figuring out what words mean. Instead of giving up on the
reading or just skipping the word and not recognizing its meaning it is
important for the students to go through a series of processes to
determine word meanings and it fits into the paragraph or sentence.

• Resources: (Video) http://searchlight.utexas.org/content/features-of-

effective-instruction-resources/Third/activities/video-context-clues/view

• Evaluation: I believe that when a teacher specifically teaches a

lesson on a content strategy that will help not only Alex but all
students he or she is recognizing that in independent reading time
there will be words that are difficult to comprehend at first glance. By
modeling how students should approach difficult words, the teacher is
providing a tool of using context clues to help them. Students will be
less likely to get frustrated if they know their entire class is having the
same problems. The students will also use the strategies more often
when they are having problems and will not feel embarrassed when
they need to take their time to understand word comprehension.
Application of Strategy one:
• Using Partner Reading and Readers’ Theater to Develop Fluency,
Standard: Read age appropriate material aloud with fluency and
accuracy (1.B. 1d), Third Grade.
•
•
•
Application of Strategy two:
• Using Context Clues, Standard: Comprehend unfamiliar words using
context clues and prior knowledge (1.A. 1b), Third Grade
•
• Students will be able to:
○ Read the given material
○ Pick out vocabulary that they are unfamiliar with
○ Use context clues with in the sentence to figure out the words
meaning
○ Use context clues to read the sentences before and after the
sentence with the unfamiliar word
○ Discuss the meanings of new words encountered in independent
and group activities

• The teacher will model for the students with examples that will show
them how to read clues surrounding the word and its sentence that will
give an understanding of the words meaning.
Procedure:
○ Ask students when they are reading what are some things that
they do when they come across a word that they do not know.
○ Give students two content strategies that they can do when they
are reading words that are unfamiliar.
○ One strategy is to have the students re read the sentence that
has the unfamiliar word inside it to use key words to come up
with an idea of the unfamiliar words meaning.
○ Another strategy is to read the sentence that is before and after
the sentence with the unfamiliar sentence inside it to figure out
its meaning.
○ While going over the steps students should do the teacher will
give and example of how to practice these steps.
○ While the gigantic dog was taking a nap on the porch,
Susan quietly tried to run towards the back of her
neighbors’ house. As she eased over to the side of the
porch the dog quickly woke up and began to bark
ferociously. His eyes were like a vicious wild animal, his
 teeth were as sharp as knives, and he was getting closer
and closer to Susan as she ran back outside the gate.
○ The teacher will then go through the two steps to show students
how to figure out the meaning of the word ferociously.
○ Students will then have several examples with three sentences in
them that will help them try to figure out what underlined words
mean.
○ Students can partner up with this activity or do it independently.

• I chose this activity because it gives a good example of how students

should approach unfamiliar words and what they should do to
understand its meaning.

References:
• Mountford, Kathy A. "Increase Reading Fluency of 4th and 5th Grade Students with
Learning Disabilities Using Readers." Dec 2007 10 Apr 2009.
<http://www.eric.ed.gov/ERICDocs/data/ericdocs2sql/content_storage_01/000001
9b/80/36/2f/ec.pdf>
•