Timers Build Fluent, Motivated Readers!

Celebrating Hispanic & Latinx Heritage Month

This project is a part of the Hispanic & Latinx Heritage Month celebration because it supports a Latino teacher or a school where the majority of students are Latino.

I am a third grade teacher at Siler City Elementary in Chatham County, North Carolina and I am currently preparing to teach using centers in a new grade level this school year. The majority of the students at Siler City Elementary do not speak English as a first language (approx. 60-70%). Due to the language barrier many of my students are facing, mastering skills is often challenging. I am very excited about teaching a new grade level this year, but I am lacking some of the materials I need to teach reading completely and thoroughly. I recently attended a workshop given by NC Teacher Academy entitled “Reading First.” The workshop focused on teaching all the strands of reading as laid out by the federal “No Child Left Behind” legislation. During the workshop I learned many new ideas that I plan to incorporate into my teaching this year, especially in the area of fluency. To build fluency, it has been suggested to allow students to use timers as they do repeated readings of the same passage or study sight words. As they practice, they will time themselves and try to increase their time with each reading, thus building fluency and automaticity. I plan to make fluency practice with timers part of my daily center activities. A fluent reader has the ability to read text smoothly and with few errors, which ultimately leads to better comprehension. Students need to be fluent readers to be successful on the End-of-Grade test. Generally students find rereading text undesirable, however, when they use the individual timers and chart their progress, students are motivated by the sense of excitement and power over their own learning. This method has come highly recommended due to the increase in students self motivation and the desire to make improvements in their own reading ability. I have only heard positive responses from teachers who have tried this method in their own classrooms. In addition to using the timers for fluency practice, I also plan to use them for math practice with time, math fact practice with multiplication, division, addition or subtraction, science experiments, educational games and outdoor play/exercise. They will be used for years to come and with any grade level I teach. I can't wait to implement the use of the timers into my classroom instruction and center activities. I am requesting 4 sets of Versatimers (6 per set) from ETA/Cuisenaire.