Reasons for Teaching & Assessing Reading Fluency Reading Fluency

Definition A good analogy for understanding reading fluency comes from public speaking. Fluent public speakers embed in their voices those same elements that are associated with reading fluency – accuracy in speech, appropriate speed, and phrasing and expression. The speaker’s use of these aspects of fluency facilitates the listener’s comprehension. Speaking in appropriate phrases, emphasizing certain words, raising and lowering volume, and varying intonation help the listener understand what the speaker is trying to communicate (Timothy Rasinski)

Elements to Good Fluency Accurate reading of connected text at a conversational rate Appropriate prosody or expression Requires automaticity

Reviewing the Working Memory & Long Term Memory Read/listen to the following passages and say what they mean. Read the following passage: - Did you find that you needed only a minimum of visual cues from the printed text to understand it? - What prior knowledge did you call on to make sense of the selection? - To what extent did your knowledge of stories influence your understanding and reduce the certainly of the task?

The Role of Automaticity Limited capacity of attention and working memory in cognitive processing Attentional capacity is limited, so more resources are available for word comprehension Comprehension requires higher order processes that cannot become automatic, word identification must become the automatic process

Link between Reading Accuracy & Reading Proficiency Word-reading accuracy refers to the ability to recognize words correctly. Poor word-reading accuracy has obvious negative influences on reading comprehension and fluency Approximately 95% word recognition accuracy is considered adequate for instructional level reading Automaticity is most often assessed by determining a reader’s reading rate on a grade level passage in “words per minute” (Timothy Rasinski)

Assessing Reading Accuracy Observing a student’s reading and counting the number of errors per 100 words can provide invaluable information Running Records (Marie Clay, 1984, 1993)

Assessing Rate Measuring reading rate should encompass consideration of both word-reading automaticity and reading speed in connected text.

Assessing Prosody Prosody can only be measured through observation of an oral reading of a connected text. A teacher can listen to the student’s inflection, expression, and use of vocal tone to represent character’s mental states, such as excitement, sadness, fear or confidence.

Evidence-based Instructional Methods to Develop Fluency Model fluent oral reading (Rasinski, 2003) Provide students with plenty of materials at their independent reading level to read on their own (Allington, 2000) Offer many opportunities for practice using repeated readings of difficult text (Rasinski, 2003) Readers Theater Radio Reading Self-Recordings