Crash Course: Reading Fluency
Something that you begin to realize as you move through your education is how important reading is. Reading is cross-curricular; you read in math, you read in science, you read in art, you read in social studies, sometimes you may even read in gym! Many students often struggle in reading, so it is therefore our duty as teachers to work with them to become strong, fluent readers.
Why is reading fluency important? Well, for students to be able to comprehend a text, they must first be able to read it fluently. There are three important elements to fluent reading which include:
1) Automaticity: Automatic word recognition and rapid word solving with few pauses.
2) Phrasing: Illustrating the use of syntactic clues and reading in phrase groups.
3) Expression: Reading with expressive interpretation, using tone and rhythm.
Teaching Resources for Reading Fluency
1. Ontario Ministry of Education: Capacity Building Series: Building Reading Fluency.
This Ministry of Education pamphlet provides some great strategies that teachers can use to practice reading fluency in the classroom. The first great strategy is shared reading. In shared reading, the teacher has the opportunity to model fluent, phrased reading and support students as they "echo read". The teacher reads while emphasizing the aspects of fluent reading, such as pacing, phrasing, and tone, and then the students repeat. The other great strategy is repeated reading. In repeated reading, students reread familiar texts to work on their accuracy and automaticity. The great part about repeated reading is that it can be done in numerous ways, such as independently, in pairs, on a tape recording, or many other ways.
In the reading strand of the curriculum for grade six, the specific expectations for reading with fluency state R3.1 "automatically read and understand most words in a range of reading contexts" (p. 112). Through practicing shared and repeated reading, students will be working to meet this expectation by becoming very familiar and comfortable with a text so that reading it feels automatic to them.
2. How to Improve Reading Fluency: 10 Ways to Improve Reading Fluency.
On this website, there is a list of ten ways to improve reading fluency with students. One of the strategies on the list that I want to point out is having students perform a "reader's theatre". Students would take turns reading parts of a script and working to bring the text alive through their voices. Reader's theatre would help students work on tone and rhythm, which is a precursor to automaticity. The goal of reader's theatre is to promote confidence and fun in reading, and allows students to read aloud with a purpose. Reader's theatre is also great because it can be read in front of the class or small groups if there are students who may be more shy.
The website provides this link to free reader's theatre scripts to use in the classroom: Reader's Theatre Scripts and Plays.
3. Teacher Resources and Classroom Strategies for Fluent Reading: Reading Rockets: Teaching Fluent Reading.
On the reading rockets website, teachers can explore different links that lead to information on reading fluency, such as assessments, classroom strategies, and much more. The reading fluency assessments were especially interesting, as it is important to measure a student's growth in reading. A checklist is provided on the website to measure a student's prosody:
Teachers must have students read aloud to them every so often so that they can see the progress of their reading fluency and see if they are meeting curriculum expectations.
In the reading strand of the curriculum for grade six, the specific expectations for reflecting on reading skills and strategies state R4.1 "identify the strategies they found most helpful before, during, and after reading, and explain, in conversion with the teacher and/or peers, how they can use these and other strategies to improve as readers" (p. 113). By assessing a student's reading fluency, using the above checklist for example, teachers will be able to help students reflect on their reading strategies and perhaps guide them to use the most effective ones.
Fluency Matters!
Reading is such an important strand in the curriculum and I believe that it is something that should be worked on daily with students. Students will not be able to develop their comprehension abilities if they do not have the appropriate fluent reading skills. Students should be able to read a book, or a math problem, or a note in a way that is smooth and easy for them. As teachers, there are so many strategies that we can use to model to students what fluent reading is, and to have them practice it each and every day.
Resources
G, Anna (2017). 10 Ways to Improve Reading Fluency. The Measured Mom: Tools for Teaching. Retrieved
from https://www.themeasuredmom.com/10-ways-to-improve-reading-fluency/.
Ontario Ministry of Education (2010). Capacity Building
Series. The Literacy and Numeracy Secretariat.
Retrieved from http://www.edu.gov.on.ca/eng/literacynumeracy/inspire/research/reading_fluency.pdf.
Ontario Ministry of Education (2006). Language. The Ontario Curriculum: Grades 1-8. Ministry
of Education. Retrieved from http://www.edu.gov.on.ca/eng/curriculum/elementary/language18currb.pdf.
Reader’s Theatre (Online Image). Retrieved from https://learningstrategieseng491.weebly.com/readers-theater.html.
Reading Rockets (n.d.). Reading Basics: Fluency. Retrieved
from https://www.readingrockets.org/teaching/reading-basics/fluency.
The Fluency Four (Online Image). Retrieved from https://minds-in-bloom.com/tips-to-make-reading-fluency-fun/.
