Fluency!!!
Fluency – The ability when reading to decode and comprehend at the same time. It also means to be able to read expressively and meaningfully as well as accurately and with appropriate speed. Simply stated, it means reading easily and reading well.
Fluency has 3 dimensions –
- Accuracy in word decoding – sounding out words in texts with few errors.
- Automatic processing or automaticity – reading automatically, not having to sound out each word or to think about reading, and using little mental effort when decoding.
- Prosody or Prosodic reading – Prosody is a linguistic concept referring to features in oral language such as intonation, pitch, stress, pauses, and duration placed on specific syllables. This all simply means reading with expression.
Effective Fluency Instruction – There are 3 parts to Effective Fluency Instruction: Instruction, Practice, and Assessment
- Instruction – The teaching of basic skills like phonemic awareness and phonics skills as well as modeling what fluency looks and sounds like.
- Practice – Using decodable texts and other independent-level texts to strengthen the sounds and spelling that are taught in the classroom.
- Assessment – Assessing includes all 3 dimensions of accuracy, automaticity, and prosody. Assessment monitors students’ progress and informs instruction.
Automaticity – Using little energy to read as it comes automatically
Prosody – Prosody is a linguistic concept referring to features in oral language such as intonation, pitch, stress, pauses, and duration placed on specific syllables. This all simply means reading with expression.
Predictable Text – Texts that can be read with ease. Predictable books have familiar context and settings or are predictable to most children. Their pictures are supportive of the text and the language is natural and can be repetitive.
Types of predictable texts:
- Chain or Circular stories – the plot is interlinked and the ending leads back to the beginning
- Cumulative stories – every time a new event occurs, the previous events are all repeated
- Pattern stories – scenes are repeated throughout the story with some variation
- Question and Answer stories – the same or similar questions are repeated throughout the story
- Repetition of Phrase stories – Word ordering in phrases and sentences are repeated
- Rhyme stories- rhyming words, refrains, or patterns are used throughout the story
- Songbooks stories – familiar songs with predictable elements such as repetitive phrase
Strategies to assist with fluency – For Groups of Students:
Choral Reading – Reading aloud in unison with a whole class or group of students after the teacher has read and discussed the selection first. This will include oral reading, often of poetry, that makes use of various voice combinations and contrasts to create meaning or highlight the tonal qualities of a passage.
Echo Reading – Method of modeling oral reading where the teacher reads a line of text and students echo the same text back, copying the teacher’s intonation and phrasing.
Fluency-Orientated Reading Instruction (FORI) – The teacher reads the basal story in class followed by brief discussion. Then students read story to parents followed by students rereading story with partners in class. On the third day the students chorally read story and finally on the fourth day they partner-read.
Readers’ Theater – Several (two or more) readers take the parts of characters and give an oral presentation or reading of a story, a drama, a play, prose, or poetry.
For Pairs and Individual Students:
Repeated Readings – Students reading short passages of text more than once, with different levels of support, to develop rapid, fluent oral reading
Paired readings – Students read their own passages with a partner several times with different levels of support to develop rapid, fluent oral reading. The partners may give or ask for help and it often includes self-evaluations.
Fluency Development Lesson (FDL) – An instructional framework designed to develop oral reading fluency. It also incorporates various repeated reading techniques such as paired and choral reading. There are 6 steps in a FDL:
- Reading the text expressively to the class while students follow along silently with their own copies.
- Discussing the content of the text with attention to developing comprehension and vocabulary as well as the expression the teacher used while reading to the class.
- Reading the text chorally several times with the whole class.
- Having the class practice reading the text in pairs.
- Having a brief word study activity with words chosen from the passage.
- Having volunteers perform the text as individuals, pairs, or in groups of four.
Peer Tutoring – A paired reading strategy where a more fluent reader tutors a student who struggles with fluency.
Automated Reading – Listening while reading a text. This is a reading approach where students listen individually to audio recorded stories while reading along with written text.
Oral Recitation Lesson (ORL) – A two component and 5 step lesson that makes use of direct instruction and student practice while including reading in chorus as a means of incorporating fluency into daily reading instruction. The first component, direct instruction, incorporates comprehension, practice, and then performance while the second component, indirect instruction, involves practicing until mastery is achieved. The five steps for ORL are:
- The teacher models fluency by reading a story to the class.
- Next, the teacher leads a discussion of the story, and asks students to summarize what happened.
- The class discusses what expressive oral reading is like.
- Students then read in chorus and individually, beginning with small text segments and gradually increasing the length of the segment.
- The teacher chooses individual students to select and orally read a portion of the text for their classmates while other members provide positive feedback.
Support Reading Strategy and Cross-age Reading are two more strategies that emphasize specific aspects of fluency training and integrate the teaching of fluency with other important aspects of reading such as comprehension and word recognition.
What parents can do at home to help their student become a fluent reader:
- Read more – spend more and make more time for reading
- Read aloud to them
- Reread familiar texts – children love to reread their favorite stories
- Echo-Read – Parent, guardian, or anyone who reads fluently reads a segment first followed by the student echo reading after.
- Use predictable books
Assessing Fluency – Fluency is usually assessed using timed samples of students reading and is usually done using a 1-minute assessment. Teachers must remember that fluency isn’t just about reading fast, it’s about decoding words and comprehending at the same time. All aspects of fluency-accuracy, automaticity, and prosody-need to be assessed. However, most tools only assess accuracy and rate but not prosody or their smoothness, phrasing, pace, and expression. These assessments can be done through informal observation during lessons or using the National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP) Oral Reading Fluency Scale.
Reading Rate – The number of words read per minute; Automaticity is also known as reading rate.
WPM or WCPM – Words Per Minute or Words-Correct-Per-Minute – the number of words read correctly in a minute. The number of correct words per minute assesses both accuracy (the number or words the reader is able to identify) and automaticity, also known as reading rate.
Classroom Application – For me personally, I think one of the key takeaways from this chapter was the little section on what parents can do to help at home. While I don’t always like to generalize or assume, it seems that many parents aren’t reading to their children enough or even reading at all anymore. When I was a Head Start preschool teacher, I used to ask parents how often they read to/with their children and the answers were never as much as they should be. But the part I found intriguing the most was that there is nothing wrong with reading the same story over and over and that it can actually be beneficial to young children. It also had some simple and effective advice that any parent could understand.
Video Summaries:
Choral Reading – This video discusses choral reading and what it looks like in an actual classroom. While choral reading can be done across grade levels, the focus should still be on comprehension. The text also shouldn’t be too difficult as well. The text should be at the independent or instructional reading level. They should also contain dialogue or rhythm and be relatively short. During choral reading, each student should have their own copy as well. The teacher reads the text first and then discusses the details and checks for comprehension. Students will often read with more expression and more confidence during choral reading.
An Explicit Fluency Lesson with a Prosody Element Focus-Smoothness – This video discusses that good readers read smoothly. They read just like they were talking. The teacher models first and demonstrates smooth reading. Then she discusses why they read smoothly. Then the students all read together with the teacher. Next, the students read on their own while the teacher walks around to check for good smooth readers. Then the teacher models and explains how and why smooth reading is important. Then the students read on their own again and then reread the whole passage attempting to read smoothly. The video had very clear words and definitions as well as great examples of what to say and what to do during a lesson.
K-3 Essential 3, Bullet 3: Small Group Fluency Instruction Sample Video – This video discusses some of the ways teachers will use small group time to work on fluency instruction and practice such as echo reading, repeated reading, and reader’s theater. The teacher efficiently explains the definitions of the teaching practices and demonstrates how each is done. She explains how and why she models and shows excellent positive feedback towards her students. Great examples and explanations and great video overall.
Reading Multisyllable Words with Xavier – Reading expert Linda Farrell explains what happens when students read multisyllable words and how to teach students how to read them correctly. They start with nonsense words and begin by reading a few of them and practicing working with syllables. Step 1 for reading multisyllable words is to look at how many vowels are in the word. Step 2 is to look at whether the vowels are together or apart. She talks about how vowels will separate a syllable and that all syllables have a vowel in them. She then mentions that if the vowels aren’t together then they will be separated in syllables. She then mentions that reading multisyllable words will have vowels and if they are separated by consonants then those will be the different syllables and that will show us how many syllables there are in the words. I believe she does an incredible job at demonstrating a simple and effective technique for reading these words.
Travis Davis ENGED 275 