Improving Fluency

Today I taught a mini-lesson on breaking bad habits when we read. It all focused on fluency. As a class, we "discovered together" what some bad habits are when we read. We named the "The Freeze," "The Tell Me," "The Mumble" and "The Blooper." Then, we decided on things we could do to help us break those bad habits. This included strategies such as looking at the picture to help solve a word, looking at every part of the word, and then checking to see if the word we read makes sense in context. Addressing the common mistakes students make when reading fluency allows students to recognize and acknowledge their habits as being incorrect, and then have specific strategies to fix them.