Consider what you know about your focus students’ literacy learning, and the range of suggestions for differentiated instruction outlined in Tompkins, Chapter 11.
My target student struggles with fluency and intonation when reading. He reads as if there is no punctuation and his voice is very monotone when he reads out loud. In order to meet him in this particular need, we could do a Reader's Theatre. I really liked the Reader Theatre story of the Little Red Hen. We would get into a small group and all have these particular character parts. I would have him read the story to himself, and then I would read the story out loud with lots of different voices and exaggerated intonation. Then I could read it again with no intonation. We could dicuss the differences in both and talk about how they read in their head, and which they liked the best and why, and how I knew how to read with the intonation using the punctuation. Then they could choose their parts and they would practice their lines and then at the end of the week we could have a play in the classroom using this Reader Theatre. The main goal of this lesson would be to get them to understand why it is important, to improve fluency and intonation and punctuation reading.
A letter I would write to this target student's parent:
Dear Mr. and Mrs. Fake Name,
I am writing to tell you two things in particular regarding your wonderful son. First, he has improved drastically the past few months in the difficulty of readings that he is choosing to read in class. We have moved into chapter books, and he is feeling very accomplished when finishing each chapter. Thank you for the encouragement you have given for him in this. He has told me that he has to read one chapter a night before he goes to bed. This has helped him immensly to stay on track.
The second thing that I am writing to you is to ask you if perhaps he could read the chapter out loud to someone in the house before he goes to bed. Although he has proved to fully comprehend the reading he is doing silently, he seems to stuggle with his fluency in reading out loud. He reads as if there is no punctuation and has a somewhat monotone voice. I have a plan where we are going to have a Reader's Theatre and he will have a certain character script to read in the play. In doing this, we will be talking about the importance of making the character come alive through our reading, and that when we are reading out loud we are doing it for the purpose of others listening. I think if he practiced this at home, and even if you read out loud to him at times, this important concept will settle into his thinking even greater. I have a few books that have great characters in them if you would like to borrow!
Please let me know if you have any questions or concerns.
Thank you,
Sarah Rawley
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