TEACHING READING IN SMALL GROUPS: Reading With Fluency and Expression

In Chapter 6, "Reading With Fluency and Expression," Jennifer Serravallo shows us how, in small groups, we can help our readers become more expressive through

• small group shared reading
• warm-up and transfer groups and
• performance clubs. 

"Imagine reading instruction that depends on the voices of kids, their passions and foibles, hopes, and heartaches, and that depends on the face-to-face interactions between teachers and students around a book." - Lucy Calkins on Teaching Reading in Small Groups

Jennifer Serravallo imagines both.  She shows us how in this chapter on Fluency.

From Striving to Thriving: Chapter 6

“We want all of our kids to become confident, thinking-intensive readers who build knowledge as they go.”  

This quote is a great summary of Chapter 6.  The focus of Chapter 6 is built around eight action steps to building thinking skills in all students.

1)  Teach comprehension strategies explicitily.

2)  Teach with the Gradual Release of Responsibility framework

3)  Use interactive read-alouds

4)  Build fluency, comprehension, and confidence

5)  Attend to signposts: text features, graphic features, and signal words and phrases

6)  Teach with images, videos, graphics, and artifacts

7)  Engage kids in temporary, flexible, needs-based small group instruction and small- group work.

8)  Share pathways to understanding through digital reading, listening, and viewing.

For this blog post, I really want to focus on teaching comprehension explicitly and using interactive read-alouds.