As with any type
of instruction, fluency instruction depends
upon ongoing assessment to
identify individual students'
strengths and needs. Effective fluency
assessment must
include measures of all three components of fluency:
reading
accuracy and prosody.
It is important to note that the accuracy percentages and the
reading rate ranges described in
this article are based on research conducted in English and should not
be applied to reading in other
languages. Even languages that use the
same alphabet differ in
such characteristics as phonetic regularity, syntactical complexity,
and even average word length, all of which can
affect reading
accuracy and rate.Additional research is needed to
determine
appropriate accuracy and rate ranges for other languages.
Assessing reading accuracy
Accuracy
refers to the percentage of words a reader can read
correctly in a
given text. Measuring accuracy allows
teachers to choose texts at an
appropriate difficulty level
for each student. In order to improve their
reading, students
need texts that are difficult enough to require them
to practice
using the reading strategies they are learning without being
so difficult that the student is overwhelmed.
Four Types of Reading
Intensive reading.
Reading intensively means trying to understand every word on the page. You want to get as much information as you can from the text.
This is the kind of reading you do when you have some time to really focus. You don’t want to be distracted (unable to pay attention).
You’ll also want to keep a dictionary handy because you’ll want to
look up any words you don’t know. Grab a notebook, too—it’s always a
good idea to take notes as you read!
When you practice intensive reading, pick a fairly short text that
interests you. If you have a really long text—or you just don’t care
about the topic—you might give up before you finish.
Try to make this process as interesting and enjoyable as you can.
That way, you’ll want to do more intensive reading. And the more you can
use this powerful tool for improving English, the better.
Extensive reading.
Extensive reading simply means casually reading anything you
see in English. Don’t stress. Don’t worry about what every word
means.
Read a new recipe. Read an email. Read a blog post.
Read billboards along the highway. Read newspaper headlines.
It doesn’t matter what you read—just read in English. Anything.
Everything.
Extensive reading is important because it opens you up to all kinds
of
English words and lets you practice reading in many different
contexts.
The more extensive reading you do, the more comfortable you’ll be
with reading in English. And the more comfortable you are, the more
confident you’ll become!
Skimming.
When you need to read something quickly to get the main idea of the text, you can skim the text.
Skimming means to simply read on the surface. In other words, you
don’t go too deep into the details. You don’t need to know what every
word means. You can just read deeply enough to get the basic idea.
You can skim with a finger on the page, tracing swiftly underneath
the words as you read. Use the pace of your finger to make yourself read
faster. Your brain will naturally keep pace with (go as fast as) your finger.
Scanning.
If you’re looking for specific information when you read a text, try
scanning for it. When you scan, it’s almost like using your brain
as a search engine.You’re looking out for certain key words or
phrases.
You don’t need
to pay attention to everything. Just stay focused,
ignoring almost
everything except for the information you need.