READING FLUENCY Literacy Links Foundations Mary Bailey 2010

Fluency is the ability to read a text accurately and quickly with prosody.

Do you read all text fluently?

Why is reading fluently important?

Fluency is important because it provides a bridge between word recognition and comprehension.

Fluency Less Fluent Readers Must focus their attention primarily on decoding individual words Have little attention left for comprehending the the text More Fluent Readers Focus attention on making connections among the ideas in the text and their background knowledge Able to focus on comprehension

Why might your students have difficulty with reading fluency?

Prerequisite Skills Letter familiarity Phonemic awareness Knowledge of alphabetic principle

Prerequisite Skills Fluency is also dependent on the reader’s vocabulary skills. Students must connect with the syntactical and meaning aspects of words.

Hudson, R., Pullen, P., Lane, H., Torgesen, J. (2009)

Schools, grade levels, and teachers that are not producing strong growth in phonemic awareness, phonics, and fluency in their students are not likely to show strong gains on measures of reading comprehension. Torgesen, 2005

Specifically, schools must provide… More powerful instruction toward mastery of the alphabetic principal by the end of first grade Stronger support for the growth of reading fluency in first and second grade.

What activities do you use in your classroom to help your students develop their fluency skills?

Fluency Instruction Model fluent reading Read to your students daily Use tape-assisted reading Use computer-assisted reading Have students practice re-reading the same text

Fluency Instruction Use repeated readings Student-adult reading Partner reading Choral reading Tape/computer-assisted reading Reader’s theatre

Fluency Practice Passages should be relatively short Text should be reasonably easy for students Independent Level Instructional Level Frustration Level 1 in 20 words difficult 95% accuracy 1 in 10 words difficult 90% accuracy More than 1 in 10 words difficult Less than 90%

Monitor Progress Helps determine the effectiveness of instruction Helps to set instructional goals Is motivating to students

Timed Readings Select passages Have students read passage for 1 minute Count number of words read Subtract the number of errors Graph WCPM

With greater fluency, readers can concentrate on comprehending what they read, develop greater self confidence, and enjoy reading more. Gilbert & Temple, 1994