READING FLUENCY Literacy Links Foundations Mary Bailey 2010
READING FLUENCY
Literacy Links FoundationsMary 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.
FluencyLess Fluent Readers
Must focus their attention primarily on decoding individual words Have little attention left for comprehending the the text
More Fluent ReadersFocus attention on making connections among the ideas in the text and their background knowledgeAble to focus on comprehension
Why might your students have difficulty with reading fluency?
Prerequisite Skills
Letter familiarityPhonemic awarenessKnowledge 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 gradeStronger 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 readingRead to your students dailyUse tape-assisted readingUse computer-assisted readingHave students practice re-reading the
same text
Fluency Instruction
Use repeated readingsStudent-adult readingPartner readingChoral readingTape/computer-assisted readingReader’s theatre
Fluency Practice
Passages should be relatively shortText should be reasonably easy for students
IndependentLevel
InstructionalLevel
FrustrationLevel
1 in 20 words difficult
95% accuracy
1 in 10 words difficult
90% accuracy
More than 1 in 10 words difficultLess than 90%
Monitor Progress
Helps determine the effectiveness of instructionHelps to set instructional goalsIs motivating to students
Timed Readings
Select passagesHave students read passage for 1 minuteCount number of words readSubtract the number of errorsGraph WCPM
With greater fluency, readers can concentrate on comprehending what they read, develop greater
self confidence, and enjoy reading more.
Gilbert & Temple, 1994