What is Fluency? Quotes Activity

What is Fluency? Speed + Accuracy = Fluency Reading quickly and in a meaningful way (prosody) Decoding and comprehending simultaneously Freedom from word identification problems Fluency is derived from the Latin word fluens which means “to flow” Smooth and effortless reading

Indicators of Fluency Reading with expression Recall/Retelling Words per minute

Some Factors that Inhibit Fluency... Unfamiliarity with text Limited vocabulary Difficulty with syntax Decoding breakdown

Keep in Mind… All three areas of reading fluency are intertwined Working on one area will most likely improve the others Attention to a single aspect of fluent reading such as rate does not preclude teaching attention to prosody and meaning.

Improving Prosody Reading with recordings Partner reading Reader’s Theatre

Reading Decodable Text and Phrases The bad cat The bad cat sat. The mad cat sat. The mad cat’s hat The sad cat’s black hat The black cat’s sad dad

To develop fluency, students need to: Develop a high level of accuracy in word recognition Maintain a rate of reading brisk enough to facilitate comprehension Use phrasing and expression so that oral reading sounds like speech Transform deliberate strategies for word recognition and comprehension into automatic skills

The challenge of continuing growth in fluency becomes even greater after third grade 4th, 5th, and 6th graders encounter about 10,000 words they have never seen before in print during a year’s worth of reading Furthermore, each of these “new” words occurs only about 10 times in a year’s worth of reading Unfortunately, it’s very difficult to correctly guess the identity of these “new words” just from the context of the passage

Closing the gap in middle and high school: the fundamental challenge Each year, the demands of text become more challenging New words appear for the first time Sentences become longer and more complex Correct interpretation requires a broader range of knowledge Here are some of the big ideas from the book The length of what you are expected to read increases How do you “close the gap” when the requirements for “grade level proficiency” increase every year?

If they are to continue growing in their ability to fluently read passages at higher levels of difficulty, children must add large numbers of words to their “sight vocabulary” every year. Thus, its important to have reliable decoding strategies to improve the accuracy with which “new” words are identified when they are first encountered in text.

Knowledge and Strategies for Linguistic comprehension Word reading fluency and accuracy X Knowledge and Strategies for Linguistic comprehension X Motivation and interest = Reading Comprehension

Because reading in middle and high school is “thinking guided by print,” helping students meet grade level standards in reading is a job for all teachers, not just “reading teachers.”

It’s at least as much about building content knowledge, vocabulary, and thinking skills as it is about helping struggling readers learn to read accurately and fluently