Transcript Slide 1

Fluency: Reading Better and Faster
Presented by Cherry Carl
When children are allowed to reread familiar
material, they are being allowed to learn to be
readers, to read in ways which draw on all their
language resources and knowledge of the world, to
put this very complex recall and sequencing
behavior into a fluent rendering of the text.
The orchestration of these complex
behaviors cannot be achieved
on a hard book.
Clay, M. (1991)
Becoming Literate: The construction of inner control (p. 184)
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Why Reading Fluency?
A fluent reader decodes text automatically, and
therefore can devote his /her attention to
comprehending what is read.
Laberge & Samuels
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Achieving fluency is recognized as an important
aspect of proficient reading, but it remains a
neglected goal of reading instruction.
Richard Allington
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With greater fluency, readers can concentrate on
comprehending what they read, develop greater
self-confidence, and enjoy reading more.
Gillet & Temple
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If we provide diverse learners with the tools and
strategies for achieving automatic and fluent word
recognition, we increase their chances for
successful reading experiences.
Chard, Simmons, & Kameenui
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Why Be Concerned?
“Fluency may be almost a necessary condition for
good comprehension and enjoyable reading
experiences.”
Source: Nathan and Stanovich
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Fluency Awareness
• While many teachers do activities that develop
fluency, it is not often a focus of literacy lessons.
• Reading instruction usually focuses on decoding
and comprehension.
• Without intervention, some
children fall further and
further behind in school.
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What is Reading Fluency?
Fluency is often defined as the rate (words per minute)
and accuracy (number of words correctly identified)
with which students perform reading tasks.
Accurate reading has few or no omissions,
mispronunciations, substitutions,
insertions or reversals of word order.
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What is Reading Fluency? (cont.)
An additional dimension to fluency is known as prosody, or
the rhythms and tones of spoken language. Students who
read with expression are able to segment text into
meaningful units, marking phrase and sentence
boundaries with pauses, vowel
lengthening and changes in pitch
and emphasis.
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Foundation for Fluency
• A solid base of phonological knowledge
• Automatic word recognition
• The ability to apply phonic, morphemic, and contextual
analysis skills to recognize unfamiliar words
• The ability to segment text into meaningful
syntactic chunks
• Extensive practice with materials
that are easy to read
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Who Is At Risk?
• By second grade, fluent reading is generally
expected, yet a great deal of foundation building
must occur in order to make it happen.
• Students in the upper grades who read
aloud word by word or with little
attention to commas or periods
require intervention.
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Recognizing At-Risk Readers
At-Risk Readers:
• sound halting when they read
• are word focused
• ignore punctuation
• have no expression
• have limited or no comprehension
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What Are the Consequences?
• Since school reading tasks are difficult, at-risk students
often fail to complete their work.
• At-risk students lose interest in school since reading is
prerequisite for success.
• At-risk students never or rarely read
for pleasure.
• The lack of progress impacts vocabulary
knowledge and general learning.
• Many at-risk students develop
self-esteem issues and lack
confidence.
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Effective Instructional Practices
• Repeated oral reading – students read a passage orally
several times, with explicit guidance and feedback from a
fluent reader; and
• Independent silent reading—students read
extensively on their own, both in
and out of the classroom, with
minimal guidance and feedback.
• Teacher modeling
• Practice, practice, practice!
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Oral Reading Techniques
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Taking Turns
Preread, Review and Reread
Choral Reading
Plays
Relaxed Paired Reading
Puppet Plays
Cross-Age or Buddy Reading
Audio Tape
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More Oral Reading Techniques
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The Neurological-Impress Method
Dyad Reading
Group-Assisted Reading
Echo Reading or Imitative Reading
Repeated Readings
Paired Repeated Reading
Precision Reading
Reader’s Theater
Shared Book Experience
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Even More Oral Reading Techniques
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Simultaneous Oral Reading
Alternate Oral Reading (my turn, your turn)
Fluency-Oriented Reading Instruction (FORI)
Peer Assisted Learning (PALS)
Tape Assisted Reading
Power Reading
Poetry Parties
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Measuring Growth in Fluency
• One of the best ways to assess student fluency is
to simply listen to them read. Teachers need to
trust their ears; many have been listening to
children read for years and they know what good
reading sounds like.
• For more formal assessments,
try a “Qualitative Rubric”
and a one-minute
“Reading Fluency Probe.”
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Norms for Reading Fluency
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Looking at California Standards
First Grade:
Students understand the basic features of reading. They
select letter patterns and know how to translate them into
spoken language by using phonics, syllabication,
and word parts. They apply this knowledge
to achieve fluent oral and silent reading.
1.16 Read aloud with fluency
in a manner that sounds like
natural speech.
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Looking at California Standards
Second grade:
Students understand the basic features of reading. They
select letter patterns and know how to translate them into
spoken language by using phonics, syllabication,
and word parts. They apply this knowledge
to achieve fluent oral and silent reading.
1.6 Read aloud fluently and accurately
and with appropriate intonation
and expression.
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Looking at California Standards
Third Grade:
Students understand the basic features of reading. They
select letter patterns and know how to translate them into
spoken language by using phonics, syllabication,
and word parts. They apply this knowledge
to achieve fluent oral and silent reading.
1.3 Read aloud narrative and expository
text fluently and accurately and with
appropriate pacing, intonation,
and expression.
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Readers Theater Resources
• Plays Around the Year, by Liza Charlesworth (Scholastic,
1994). A year's worth of seasonal plays suitable for kids in
grades 1–3.
• Reader's Theatre for Beginning Readers,
by Suzanne Barchers
(Teachers Ideas Press, 1993).
Scripts based on folktales and fables.
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More Readers Theater Resources
• Reader's Theater Scripts of the Month
www.lisablau.com
A complete archive, available for free downloads.
• The Reading Lady
www.readinglady.com
A number of free scripts ( many
based on popular books)
available in Microsoft Word
and Adobe formats.
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References and Resources
• Building Fluency: Lessons and Strategies for Reading
Success by Wiley Blevins, Scholastic, 2002.
• The Fluent Reader: Oral Reading
Strategies for Building Word
Recognition, Fluency, and Comprehension
Timothy V. Raskinski, Scholastic. 2003
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More References and Resources
• From Phonics to Fluency: Effective Teaching of Decoding
and Reading Fluency in the Elementary School. by
Timothy V. Raskinski, Allyn & Bacon, 2000.
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The hard facts about fluency:
Children vary in the amount of practice that is required for
fluency and automaticity in reading to occur. Some
youngsters can read a word only once to recognize it again
with greater speed; others need 20 or more exposures. The
average child needs between four
and 14 exposures to automatize
the recognition of a new word.
G. Reid Lyon (1997)
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