1. Fluency: Importance, Instruction and Assessment
Aaron, Amy, Destiny, Jamie, and Keshia

2. Why is Fluency Important?
The ultimate goal of reading is the construction of meaning.
Fluent reader
Shift from intentional decoding to automatic word recognition
Focus changes from decoding to comprehending

3. What is Fluency?
Fluent reading is more than just reading words accurately and automatically.
Fluency is reading in phrases with appropriate intonation and prosody.
Reading with expression
Poor readers often struggle with prosody.
comprehension

4. Carver’s Causal Model for Reading Achievement
Reading Efficiency
Accuracy Level
Rate Level
Verbal Knowledge Level
Pronunciation Knowledge Level
Cognitive Speed Level
Teach/
Learn
Age
Verbal Aptitude
Pronuncia tion Aptitude
Cognitive Speed Aptitude

5. Instruction: Repeated Readings
Timed repeated reading- student reads material at his/her instructional level for 1-2 minute timed period results are graphed, reading is repeated and results are graphed, following session repeat the process with the same passage (4 reads total in 2 sessions)

6. Instruction: Repeated Readings
Rasinski disagrees- all repeated reading should be passages read as practice with the end purpose of performance
Reader’s Theater
Song of the Day
Poetry
Speeches
Read to “Buddy” (provide feedback during practice)

7. Instruction: Fluent Model
Teacher read aloud
Books on Tape
Listening Center
Echo Reading

8. Instruction: Silent Reading
Strategies to select appropriate material
Accountability
Reading response
Conference with teacher
“Rap”

9. Assessment: Fluency
Traditional reading inventories focused on the ability to read isolated words at a given grade level. Although accuracy is important to reading, it has not been proven to be sufficient evidence to predict reading comprehension.
“Fluency combines accuracy, automaticity, and oral reading prosody, which, taken together facilitate the reader’s construction of meaning. It is demonstrated during oral reading through ease of word recognition, appropriate pacing, phrasing, and intonation. It is a factor in both oral and silent reading that can limit or support comprehension”
-Kuhn, Schwanenflugel, & Meisinger, (2010)

10. Assessment: Accuracy
While accuracy is important to reading, it has not been proven to be sufficient evidence to predict reading comprehension.
Accuracy combined with comprehension will help determine a student’s reading level.
Oral Reading Accuracy measures:
Leveled passages
Missed words
Self corrections
Meaning change errors

11. Assessment: Automaticity
As automaticity develops, performance is not only accurate but also increases speed.
Effortlessness:
Fluent readers do not struggle and are able to recognize most words.
Most fluent readers are able to decode text while comprehending.
Flash
Timed
Untimed
Spelling
Student’s word knowledge
Word recognition-timed is a superior method in predicting oral reading rate across grade levels.

12. Assessment: Prosody
Prosody is the act of reading with appropriate expression connected to text
English language learning students will not stress words in the same way that native English speaking students do, because stress patterns vary throughout different languages.
Current research is vague as to whether prosody is a reliable reading assessment.

13. Assessment Overview
We can gather significant data through a wide range of assessments.
Above all, readers need to be truly fluent instead of fast.
Disfluent readers are always aware of steps needed to decode words within text, which slows the reader down; whereas fluent readers are automatic and can identify most of the words without effort.
Accuracy alone is not strongly correlated to reading comprehension, so reading should be measured by three components, accuracy, rate and comprehension.

14. Final Thought
“…fluency is but a stage name. Rate and Accuracy may be at the microphone, but the true voice is Comprehension. That’s real reading.”
--Barclay Marcell

15. Bibliography
Allington, R.L., (1983). Fluency: The Neglected Reading Goal, The Reading Teacher, 36 (6), pp
Allington, R.L., (2006). What Research Has To Say About Fluency Instruction. Fluency: Still Waiting After All These Years, Ch. 5 p
Bashir, A. S., Hook, P. E., (2009) Fluency: A Key Link Between Word Identification and Comprehension. Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools, 40, pg
Biggs, M., Homan, S., & Rasinki, T. (2009). Teaching reading fluency to struggling readers: method, materials, and evidence. Reading and Writing Quarterly. 25,
Carver, P. R., (1992). Reading rate: Theory, research, and practical implications. Journal of Reading, 36(2),84-95.
Carver, P. R., (2000). The Causal Model, Accuracy Level, Rate Level. The Causes of High and Low Reading Acheivement, ch. 1, 4, & 5, p. 3-23, p , p
Fawson, F., Jones, C., Reutzel, D., & Smith, J. (2008). Scaffolded silent reading: A complement to guided repeated oral reading that works!. The Reading Teacher. 62,
Gaffney, M., & Morris, D. (2011). Building reading fluency in a learning-disabled middle school reader. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy. 54,
Kelley, Michelle, Clausen-Grace, Nicki (2006). R5: The Sustained Silent Reading makeover that transformed readers, The Reading Teacher Vol. 60, No. 2 October 2006, pp
Kuhn, M., (2005). A Comparative Study of Small Group Fluency Instruction. Reading Psychology. 26,

16. Kuhn, M. R. , Schwanenflugel, P. J. , & Meisinger, E. B. (2010)
Kuhn, M. R., Schwanenflugel, P. J., & Meisinger, E. B. (2010). Aligning theory and assessment of reading fluency: Automaticity, prosody, and definitions of fluency. Reading Research Quarterly, 45,
Marcell, Barclay Putting Fluency on a Fitness Plan; Building Fluency’s Meaning-Making Muscles. The Reading Teacher, Vol. 65, Issue 4, pp
Morris, R. D., Trathen, W., Lomax, R. G., Perney, J. Kucan, Frye, E. M., Bloodgood, J. W., Ward, D., & Schlagal, R. (2012). Modeling aspects of print-processing skill: Implications for reading assessment. Reading and Writing: An Interdisciplinary Journal.
Rasinski, Timothy V (1989). Fluency for everyone: Incorporating fluency instruction in the classroom. The Reading Teacher , Vol. 42, No. 9, pp
Samuels, J. (1979). The Method of Repeated Readings. The Reading Teacher. 32,
Schreiber, P. A. (1980) On the Acquisition of Reading Fluency. Journal of Reading Behavior, XII(3)
Therrien William J., Kubina, Richard M. Jr.(2006).Developing Reading Fluency With Repeated Reading Intervention in School and Clinic Vol. 41, No 3, pp
Therrien, W., & Kumba, R. (2007). The Importance of Context In Repeated Reading. Reading Improvement. 44,
Wise, J. C., Sevcik, R. A., Morris, R. D., Lovett, M. W., Wolf, M., Kuhn, M., Meisinger, B., and Schwanenflugel, P. (2010). The relationship between different measures of oral reading fluency and reading comprehension in second-grade students who evidence different oral reading fluency difficulties. Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools, 41,
Young-Suk Kim, Richard K. Wagner & Elizabeth Foster (2011): Relations Among Oral Reading Fluency, Silent Reading Fluency, and Reading Comprehension: A Latent Variable Study of First-Grade Readers, Scientific Studies of Reading, 15:4,