Tuesday, April 28, 2015

Record that Reading

Hey friends! I'm Leah from Grasty's 2nd Grade Goodies and I'm so excited to be a part of this collaborative blog.  I've enjoyed reading all the blog posts and have found lots of great new ideas to use in my classroom.  I've been a bit MIA from the teaching and blogging world because I've been spending all my time hanging out with these cool people . . .
We welcomed Mallory into the world only six weeks ago and I couldn't be happier . . . or busier!  

Alright, enough about me! Let's get to the good stuff. 

Every year I find myself continuously discussing proper oral reading fluency (pace, accuracy, and expression) with my students when they're reading aloud.  We talk about it, I model it, they practice it, but the next time I hear them reading aloud, everything we discussed and practiced went out the window. 

I've found that most students THINK they're doing a great job reading with expression or pace, but in reality they have a lot of growth to make.  You can discuss this endlessly, but until your students hear themselves read and then reflect on what they hear, they really won't make much progress.  

You can easily teach your students how to read aloud using appropriate reading skills by letting them record themselves reading.  Just find a passage (or a poem or even a page from a book) that's at their independent reading level and allow them to record themselves reading it.


   Then have students listen to their recording and use one of these sheets to evaluate themselves. 

  
 CLICK HERE to download these sheets for FREE! 

Every time I do this activity with my students, I'm AMAZED with their reflection thoughts. Often times, they're more critical of themselves than I am!  

After my students complete the initial recording (cold reading), I have them take the passage home and practice it for several days. Then I have them record themselves reading the passage again (warm reading) and then reflect on how much progress they've made by filling out the rest of the sheet.

If you have access to iPads you can have your students record themselves on that. And if you're lucky enough to have a Showbie account, your students can save their recording and send it to you.

When I didn't have access to iPads for this activity, I took my students to the computer lab and we used a website called Chirbit. This website was great because it was free, easy to use and students were able to save their recordings. If you use this website, I found it's easiest to create one account and then have all your students log in to that one account. To keep all the recordings organized, have your students save each recording with their name and the title of the text.  

I hope your students improve their reading fluency and have some fun while doing it! 

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