Developing Fluency by Catching a Wave and Spreading Peanut Butter!
I bet that title piqued your interest. 😊
As you know, fluency is an important component in comprehension. If a reader can’t read words or sentences smoothly enough for their brain to pick up the concepts presented, they are left feeling frustrated and wondering what they’ve read.
Here are a couple of fun imagery ideas I suggest to my kiddos to use to improve their fluency. These have proven to be very popular with my kids and are very successful in helping them improve fluency and, therefore, comprehension.
After I teach phraseology (Phraseology in Categories) to my children and have given them time to practice and gain confidence in their newly learned skill, I tell them I have another fun technique to further increase their fluency.
“Have you ever gone surfboarding or watched someone surfboard?” I inquire.
I see their eyes spark with interest and curiosity. Playing with their curiosity, we jump on the computer and search surfing to learn about surfing and to try to imagine what surfing would feel like. We talk about how smooth the board is flowing with the wave and how surfers have to quickly gain and keep their balance, or they’ll fall right off their boards.
“Can you imagine what it would be like to catch a wave, keep your balance while standing on that floating surfboard and ride it smoothly all the way to the shore?”
They are alive with the fun of our exploration and are wondering what it has to do with their reading.
“Imagine yourself surfing as you read a sentence. Feel yourself climbing on your board as you look at the capital letter and the first word. Feel how you catch the wave of the words and while keeping your balance, off you go riding it to the end.”
We take this imagery of smoothly riding a wave a step further by having them actually feel their smoothness when reading a real sentence.
“Let’s imagine surfing a sentence again. Feel yourself climbing on your board, gaining your balance with the first word, and then catching that wave. Feel yourself balancing tall and steady and riding the word wave right to the end mark.”
I ask them, “How did that feel?”
They always have many answers, but all their answers share their relief and fun. They are impressed with how easy it is to ride the word wave when they are balanced at the beginning. It’s a delight to watch them relaxing with their fluency with this fun technique.
I tell them, “Now that you have the feeling of surfing your sentence smoothly to the end, your reading fluency will just naturally improve. That’s exciting!”
And now for peanut butter and fluency. 😊
I start by talking about smooth peanut butter. “Do you like peanut butter? How do you like to eat and enjoy peanut butter?
We act out spreading peanut butter. “Let’s imagine getting a BIG GLOB of peanut butter on a knife and smoothly spreading it on a delicious slice of bread. Feel how it spreads so easily, so smoothly.
“Now picture yourself spreading peanut butter as you read a sentence. Imagine putting your BIG GLOB of your favorite smooth peanut butter on the first word and then spreading it smoothly, without stopping, clear to the end mark.
“Now, let’s read a sentence. Pretend you are putting that BIG GLOB down on the first word and spreading it to the end mark as you read. Feel how smooth you are.”
This imagery always makes them giggle and say, “YUM!”
We play with these two fluency techniques for a couple of weeks during which time I ask them if they are thinking up any other fun ways we can imagine, feel and read more smoothly.
It’s always a pleasure to hear their new ideas.
And it’s always a pleasure to hear your new ideas. Please pass them on and we will share them.
My next blog post shares some research on how our brains work to develop fluency. It’s interesting!
If you have any nagging questions about fluency and comprehension, just contact us.
