Chapter 8-Reading Fluency

Defining Oral Reading Fluency

• Fluency-the ability to read easily and well.  It has 3 dimensions…
  • Accuracy-readers must be able to sound out words in text with few errors.  Children can read a text successfully when they know at least 95% of words
  • Automaticity-the automatic, almost subconscious recognition and understanding of written text
  • Prosody-refers to such features in oral language as intonation, pitch, stress, pauses and duration placed on specific syllables
• Effective Fluency Instruction-has 3 parts; instruction, practice and assessment.  Fluency instruction should incorporate the teaching of basic skills such as phonemic awareness and phonics.  It should also model what fluency looks like and sounds like.  Fluency practice includes the use of decodable text and other independent-level texts to strengthen the sounds and spelling that are taught in the classroom
• Predictable Text-have a context or setting that is familiar or predictable to most children, they language is natural, the story line is predictable and there is a repetitive pattern.  Some types of predictable texts
  • Chain or circular story-plot is interlinked so the ending leads back to the beginning (If You Give a Mouse a Cookie)
  • Cumulative story-each time a new event occurs, all previous events in the story are repeated (Gingerbread Man)
  • Pattern story-scenes are repeated throughout the story with some variation (Three Billy Goats Gruff)
  • Question and answer-same or similar questions are repeated throughout the story (Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?)
  • Repetition of phrase-word order in a phrase or sentence is repeated (Goodnight Moon)
  • Rhyme-rhyming words, refrains or patterns are used throughout the story (Is Your Mama a Llama?)
  • Songbooks-familiar songs with predictable elements such as repetitive phrases (song-Over in the Meadow)

Strategies for Groups of Students

• Choral Reading-when children listen to mature readers read with expression and interpret and practice different ways of orally reading selections
• Echo Reading-method of modeling oral reading in which the teacher reads a line of a story and then the students echo by reading the same line back, imitating the teacher’s intonation and phrasing
• Fluency-Oriented Reading Instruction (FORI)-incorporates the research-based practices of repeated, assisted reading with independent silent reading within a three-part classroom program (3 parts-teacher lead, repeated oral reading and partner reading and independent reading at school and home)
• Readers’ Theater-the oral presentation of drama, prose or poetry by two or more readers.  Students read from scripts which contain a great deal of dialogue and adapted from literature.

Strategies for Pairs and Individual Students

• Repeated Readings-reading short passages of text more than once, with different levels of support, to develop rapid, fluent oral reading
• Paired Repeated Readings-students select their own passage form the material with which they are currently working.  Students, grouped in pairs, should each select different passages, which makes listening more interesting and discourages direct comparison of reading proficiency (see figure 8.2)

• The Fluency Development Lesson (FDL)-an instructional framework designed to develop oral reading fluency.  It incorporates the use of various repeated reading techniques such as choral reading and paired reading routines
• Peer Tutoring or Paired Reading-another way to organize fluency practice is to use paired reading with peer tutoring.  Structured collaborative work involving pairs of children of the same or different reading ability to foster reading fluency
• Automated Reading-a reading approach in which students listen individually to audio recorded stories while reading along with the written text
• The Oral Recitation Lesson (ORL)-lesson that makes use of direct instruction and student practice, including reading in chorus, as a means of incorporating fluency into daily reading instruction
  • Support Reading Strategy-a strategy designed to develop the ability to read fluently by combining several instructional elements
  • Cross-Age Reading-a routine for fluency development that pairs upper0grade readers with younger children

Involving Parents

• What can parents do to help at home? (see image below)

Assessing Oral Reading Fluency

• Fluency assessments help teachers determine if their instructional approaches are working, and if more instruction is needed for some students.  Monitoring students’ progress in reading fluency will help determine their effectiveness of your instruction as well as helping you set instructional goals

Accuracy and Automaticity

• Simplest way to formally assess fluency is to take a timed sample of students’ reading and compare their performance with published oral reading fluency norms or standards.  The number of correct words per minute (WPM) both accuracy or number or words the reader is able to identify, and automaticity, also known as reading rate
• 1-minute reading sample is an easy assessment to administer and the number of words read correctly in a minute is considered to be one of the best indicators of reading rate.  To obtain a words-correct-per-minutes (WPCM) score, students are assessed individually as they read aloud for 1 minutes from an unpracticed, unfamiliar, grade-level passage of text
• To calculate the WCPM score, subtract the total number of errors from the total number of words read in 1 minute

Prosody

• When students’ speed and accuracy are at appropriate levels, reading with proper phrasing, expression, and intonation should be the next goal.  This allows for better comprehension of text which is always the goal of reading
• Measuring prosody is not always an easy task because measurements of smoothness, phrasing, pace and expressions are subjective and therefore variable.  Use the NAEP Oral Reading Fluency Scale

Classroom Application: This chapter had a lot of valuable information that I can use in my future classroom.  It specifically helped me further explore how to help my future classroom students develop their oral reading fluency.  An important goal of reading instruction is fluent reading with expression and comprehension requires students to practice and reread different texts.  There are three dimensions of fluency; automaticity, automatic word decoding and prosody, and these all relate to the goal of reading, comprehension.  So, making sure that in my instruction, I include each of these areas when teaching reading, and doing so in a variety of ways, from students having individual practice along with being paired with a partner to practice.  It also a great idea to include parents and educate them on how they can help their children practice being a fluent reader with a assortment of suggestions.  Lastly, it is my job as the teacher to assess students reading fluency by completing different assessments to determine their reading rate, how many words per minute they are reading and also how many words correct per minute they are achieving.  Overall, I have learned the importance of developing fluency in readers, what classroom routines, strategies and reading materials help foster fluency development during oral reading, how to monitor and assess oral reading fluency in my future classroom.

Source: Vacca, J. L., Vacca, R.T., & Gove, M K. (2012). Reading and Learning to Read (8th ed.). New York: Longman.