31-Media Literacy Curriculum.
Fluency
through
repeated reading
Mr. / Girgis
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Fluency
“We define fluency as reasonably accurate reading, at
an appropriate
rate, with suitable expression, that leads
to accurate and deep
comprehension and motivation to
read.”
Fluency
is the ability to read words accurately
and automatically with expression. Because
fluent readers do not have to slow down in
order to concentrate on decoding the individual
words in a text, they
can focus their attention
on the text's meaning.
In this way, fluency
acts as a bridge between
word recognition and comprehension, and this
relationship is reciprocal. That is, when a
student understands the meaning of the text
he/she is reading, it is much easier to read that
text with expression.
Fluency Strategies
Prosody
is a term that is frequently heard in
discussions of fluency. Prosody
refers to the
appropriate use of intonation and phrasing in
reading.
Reading involves paying attention to punctuation
signs like commas and periods, assigning
appropriate stress to individual words
within a
sentence, and raising or lowering voice
intonation to match the
meaning of the text
(e.g., raising the voice at the end of a question).
Paying attention to the elements of prosody
allows us to quantify and measure what we
refer to as "reading with expression."
How fluency relates to ELLs
Instruction
in fluency can be particularly
beneficial for English language learners
because activities designed to enhance
fluency in reading can also a
contribute to oral
language development in English.
As students practice
reading English text
accurately and automatically, they
are gaining
valuable information about the sounds and cadences of spoken English, and they are also
developing vocabulary skills that can
contribute
to oral language fluency, as well as reading and
listening comprehension.
Reading Skills:
There are different types of reading and
different ways to understand what you read.
When you’re reading in your native language,
you don’t have to think
about what you’re
going to read, how you’re going to read it or
how
you’re going to make sure you’ll
understand it.
Reading in your native
language is
automatic—it just happens. Over time, with
effort and practice, reading in English will
become just as automatic for you.
So what should you do?
\Well, one way to increase your contact hours
with English that you can actually understand is
through a practice called extensive reading. The
idea is that you choose books to read that are
very easy to understand, and you then read lots
and lots of them.
For most learners, this involves using graded
readers, that is, books written using the most
common English words for people who are
not yet fluent at English.
And if you read at a level just at or just below
your actual level, then you can read easily and
smoothly. Then you can focus on the actual
content of what you are reading instead of the
language itself.
When you can just enjoy the story, then you can
forget about the language. And then guess
what? You are exposing your mind to many
different English patterns over and over again.
And if you see a new vocabulary word, you just
skip right over it and infer the meaning. You’ll
see it again anyway. You don’t actually need a
dictionary. You simply internalize these
vocabulary words and sentence patterns.
And then when you go to speak, the patterns
can express themselves through your speech
since you have seen them so many times.
Interesting, huh?
Assessing reading fluency
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, syntactica
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.
1 – Build phonemic awareness.
If you’re wondering what on earth phonemic
awareness has to do with fluency, here’s the
deal. Phonemic awareness (the ability to
identify and manipulate individual sounds,
or phonemes, in words) is essential for success in decoding words. Since fluency
is all about being automatic with word
recognition, we’ve got to teach the skills that
will get us to automaticity.
2 – Teach phonics in a systematic,
explicit way.
Research has told us again and again that
students benefit from direct and structured
phonics instruction. When we combine
phonemic awareness with phonics, we are
equipping our students to tackle unfamiliar
words that could interrupt their fluency.
(In fact, if a student scores below benchmark
on an oral reading
fluency test, the first step
is to give a phonics assessment to see if a
lack of phonics skills is impeding progress
3 – Teach students to read irregular
high frequency words.
While most words contain at least some
graphemes (letter or letter combinations that
represent phonemes) that are regular, some
words include patterns that must be learned by
heart. For example, in the word the, the final
vowel sound has an unexpected spelling. In the
word said, the ai has an unexpected
pronunciation.
When teaching these irregular words, it’s
important to remember that
students learn
them just like they learn any other word – and
not through
whole word memorization. Instead
of drilling these as whole words, we
can call
attention to the parts that are regular and those
that are not.
After introducing words in this way, it’s perfectly
appropriate to do flash card practice. Hasbrouck
and Glaser (2019) recommend the following
procedure:
Students write each word on the front of an
index card (or the teacher may do this in
advance). Students trace the letters while
saying them and reading the word.
On the back, students write a sentence
using the word and/or draw a
quick picture
to help them recall the word.
(The teacher may do this as
well.)
The cards can then be put on a ring or a recipe
box for students to use for daily practice.
When students practice the words, they can
sort them according to
their speed under
pictures of a dog, rabbit, and turtle. The dog
pile
gets words that are read quickly and
automatically. The rabbit pile gets
words that
are read with some hesitation. The turtle pile
gets words
that are unknown, read incorrectly,
or read after several seconds.
Students keep
practicing until all cards get to the dog pile.
4 – Read aloud to your students
When teachers don’t make daily read alouds a
routine, I think the only reason must be that they
aren’t aware of the countless benefits of reading
aloud to our students.
I won’t go off on a tangent here, but this quote
from Tim Rasinski (2010) is well worth sharing:
“Clearly, read aloud builds interest in reading,
but its benefits do not end there. Read aloud
helps you achieve three important goals with
your students: it improves comprehension and
vocabulary, and builds
motivation”
Here’s one more benefit: reading aloud provides
a wonderful model of fluent reading.
5 – Implement assisted reading
This simply means reading aloud alongside
our students.
Choral reading – groups of students (or even
the whole class) read the same text aloud in
unision
Paired reading – This research-based approach
is not exactly the same as partner reading or
buddy reading. In
paired reading, a more
proficient reader supports a less able reader by
reading together chorally; the more proficient
reader adjusts his/her
volume and support as
the other reader becomes more confident. The
reader signals when the more proficient reader
should read more loudly
or bow out altogether.
Audio recorded reading – Listening to an audio
recording of a text will help build fluency only if
the listener is
reading along. Students can make
great gains in fluency if they keep
listening and
reading along until they can read the text
independently.
6 – Provide opportunities for
repeated reading
Our goal is for students to read one text several
times so that they can read it fluently – with few
errors, at an appropriate rate, with proper
expression, and good comprehension.
I’m surprised when I see people question the
value of repeated reading in large Facebook
groups devoted to the science of reading. The
truth is that we’ve had decades of research that
show its value.
Research has, in fact, found that rereading a
familiar passage not only leads to improvement
on that particular passage, but fluency gains
also transfer to the reading other passages.
You may be familiar with the concept of timed
repeated reading – in which students read a
passage multiple times until they achieve a
desired rate. This is a powerful intervention
that is best suited for students who fit this
criteria:
Words Correct Per Minute scores are more
than ten words below the 50th percentile on
the Hasbrouck & Tindal ORF (Oral Reading
Fluency) norms when they read grade-level or
instructional-level text.
Reading is slow but accurate.
Decoding of individual words is also slow but
accurate.
Phonemic awareness is well developed.
Comprehension is adequate or good.
When doing timed repeated readings, always
make it a point to also talk about the text.
Reading fluently is not all about speed!
7 – Do whole class fluency lessons.
Later in this series I’ll walk you through the
Fluency Development Lesson, in which
teachers support students as they learn to
read a short passage or poem with fluency.
The FDL only takes about 15 minutes a day.
If you have more time, and you want to help
all children achieve fluency with grade-level
text, consider FORI (Fluency-Oriented
Reading Instruction).
8 – Provide opportunities for
performance reading
Timed repeated reading can be a great
motivator for struggling readers who watch
their performance improve during their
sessions.
But repeated reading, while beneficial to all
students, can be less than motivating if we go
about it the wrong way. Thankfully, we can
make repeated reading interesting and
engaging for all students when we make it
authentic.
When repeated reading is done for the purpose
of rehearsal for a performance, we can get
everyone on board.
Students can reread texts multiple times as
they prepare to perform in any of these ways:
Reader’s Theater or partner plays (pictured above)
Book talks
Reading aloud to younger students
Recording books for younger students
Reading poetry aloud
