Ms. Zelkowitz’s Fluency Friends

1. Ms. Zelkowitz’sFluency Friends What does a good reader sound like?

2. The Reading Robot If. You. Sound. Like. A. Ro. Bot. Your. Book. Is. Too. Hard.

3. Just-Right Rabbit If you hop along in your oral reading but take time to "land and understand," your book is just right. You can hear it with your ears.

4. Cheatin’ Cheetah If you blast through too fast and you speed when you read, you’re cheatin’ yourself of meaning.

5. Ms. Zelkowitz’s Decoding Strategies Adapted from Angela Bunyi’s adaptations of Tanny McGregor’s Reading Connections

6. Chunky Monkey • Break your word up into “chunks” by and read what you know. • Sound out the rest of the chunks. • Use the “Banana in the Blender” to smooth it out.

7. Banana in the Blender • Read all of the chunks of a word, or use Covering Cat to read part-by-part • Use your “Blender” to make a “Smoothie” and blend your chunks together out loud

8. Skippy Frog • When you come to a hard word, skip it • Read the rest of the sentence to figure out what the word means • Use the initial sound of the word and its meaning to say the word

9. Covering Cat • Place your “paw” on most of a word • Read only the part you can see • Keep moving your “paw” until you have read every part • Use Banana in the Blender to smooth out the parts

10. Stretchy Salamander 1. S-L-O-W-L-Y say each letter’s sound or blend. 2. Use Banana in the Blender to smooth out the sounds.

11. Picture-Perfect Panda Look at pictures, captions, diagrams, charts, and graphs to get more information about what you are reading

12. Beginning Sound Bear Just like a bear prepares for winter, prepare to read your word by ROARING the first sound!

13. Word Ending Elephant Just like an elephant, NEVER FORGET to read word endings like –ing, -ly, -er, -es, -ed, -ful, -est, -tion, -ment, -ous, and –y!

14. Pointer Penguin Remember to use your finger, a bookmark, or an eraser to keep your place and glide as you read!