Fluency

Fluency is defined as the ability to read with speed, accuracy, and proper expression. In order to
understand what they read, children must be able to read fluently whether they are reading aloud or
silently. When reading aloud, fluent readers read in phrases and add intonation appropriately. Their
reading is smooth and has expression.
Children who do not read with fluency sound choppy and awkward. Those students may have difficulty
with decoding skills or they may ust need more practice with speed and smoothness in reading.
Fluency is also important for motivation! children who find reading laborious tend not to want read" #s
readers head into upper elementary grades, fluency becomes increasingly important. The volume of
reading re$uired in the upper elementary years escalates dramatically. %tudents whose reading is slow
or labored will have trouble meeting the reading demands of their grade level.
&euroscientists are learning more about how fluency is developed. Fluent reading is established after
the individual reads the word at least four times, using accurate phonologic processing 'slow, accurate
sounding out(. Fluency is built word by word and entirely dependent on repeated, accurate, sounding
out of the specific word. Fluency is not established by )memori*ing) what words look like but rather by
developing correct neural+phonologic models of the word. We now know fluency is not the apparent
visual recognition of an entire word but rather the retrieval of the exact neural model created by proper
repeated phonologic processing.
The most important thing to keep remembering is the fact that not all children learn to read in the same
way.
# good teacher has to be something of a $uick+eyed, $uick+eared detective to sleuth out the reasons for
each individual child.
The first and most common reason for not being a fluent reader is that the child does not yet know how
to decode very well yet. They lack automatic decoding skills and this prevents them from being able to
read accurately, much less smoothly and $uickly. ,ecoding accuracy is the first prere$uisite to fluency.
It is important to understand what is impeding your child-s ac$uiring the letter+sound rules that underlie
decoding.
There are reasons why some children do not ac$uire early decoding skills is because they have
weaknesses in areas called phoneme awareness. They literally are not as aware as other children of the
tiny sounds or phonemes that make up words in speech. This ability is half of what goes into a child-s
ability to put together letter and sounds to make what we call the letter+sound or grapheme+phoneme
correspondence rules. Thus, even if the child is in a program that emphasi*es phonics skills, some
children may need a great deal more help in learning the rules. %mall group instruction or even ./.
tutoring is sometimes needed for children who have phoneme awareness weaknesses.
There are other children whose decoding skills are accurate but halting, and who simply need a great
deal of practice. %ome of these children may be second language learners. For these children the best
resource for a teacher or parent is to supply your child with every opportunity to practice from story
books to cook books to comic books. why some children don-t become fluent readers is a very subtle
one, that many people outside the research world don-t know about yet. There is a group of children
who have perfectly fine phoneme awareness and decoding skills, but their reading is laborious and very
slow. 0nsurprisingly by the end of the year the child turns up with poor comprehension skills. This is
very discomfiting to you as teachers, because there is a mystery here. 0ntil recently, most teachers
assumed that with ust a little more time, this child will develop out of it and become fluent eventually.
Indeed for some children that-s true. 1ut a good chunk of struggling readers have a difference in the
rate they process written language. For them, $uite literally the areas in the brain that put together
visual and verbal processes don-t work together as automatically. The good news is that we can predict
who these children are as early as they were in the pre school which leads to how can we predict who
will have difficulties becoming fluent2
3ocabulary plays an important role in word recognition. 1eginning readers use knowledge of words
from speech to recogni*e words that they encounter in print. When children 4sound out- a word, their
brain is working hard to connect the pronunciation of a se$uence of sounds to a word in their
vocabulary. If they find a match between the word on the page and a word in they have learned through
listening and speaking, and it makes sense to them, they will keep reading. If a match is not created,
because the word they are reading is not found in their vocabulary, comprehension is interrupted. This
is the case even if they are able to generate the correct pronunciation through the decoding process.
It stands to reason, and research, that vocabulary is important for reading to learn as well as learning to
read. For understanding of text, students need to be familiar with the meaning of at least 56 percent of
words in any book or passage they read. ,ecoding instruction by itself will not guarantee that students
will gather enough meaning to learn from what they are reading.
7ow can we effectively teach vocabulary2
It takes the average student about 86 experiences with a word before they 4own- it in speech. 7ere are a
few evidence+based practices that can help your students 4own- vocabulary words that they are
explicitly or implicitly taught.
9ead #louds are probably the best+known way to expose students to the meaning of words that are
beyond their level to decode. Intentionally select words that you want teach before reading out loud. It
is okay to $uickly define a word that comes up in your story that students may not understand. :ou
could also take note of words that are implicitly taught in the text, and return to them after
reading.;oint out and explore connections and relationships between new words and words that
students already use in their vocabulary. For example/ what is the relationship between the word 4car-
and the word 4vehicle-2 7ow is the word 4melancholy- the same as the word 4sad-2 7ow is it different2
What is the difference in the degree of emotion displayed when you are 4mad-, 4angry-, or 4livid-2
These explorations can be fun and will go a long way in giving students immediate access to the
meaning of words.
0sing a new vocabulary word in the context of a sentence will further support students in
understanding the word as well as recogni*ing it when they hear it again. In fact, use the same
vocabulary word in multiple sentences.
Create opportunities for students to see, hear, read, and write the new words using multiple senses
when introducing or reinforcing a new concept, will facilitate effective storage in the brain, and
efficient retrieval for use when speaking or writing. 7ere is link to more information about this process.
<ncourage students to use new vocabulary words a student truly owns a word when they can
effortlessly use it when they speak and write. =ake it 4compulsory- for students to use the new
vocabulary word at least five times in their conversations with classmates. >eep track of how many
times the new word is used in the classroom. <ncourage students to use the word at home with their
family members. 9eward students when they correctly use the new words in their writing.
Teaching students how to decode words is important in early literacy instruction but it is not enough.
%tudents also need to receive explicit instruction in fluency, comprehension, and vocabulary to become
proficient readers. 3ocabulary instruction has a powerful affect in all components of proficient reading
Choral 9eading
Choral reading is reading aloud in unison with a whole class or group of students. Choral reading helps
build students? fluency, self+confidence, and motivation. 1ecause students are reading aloud together,
students who may ordinarily feel self+conscious or nervous about reading aloud have built+in
support.Why use choral reading2
It can provide less skilled readers the opportunity to practice and receive support before being re$uired
to read on their own.
It provides a model for fluent reading as students listen.
It helps improve the ability to read sight words.
;aired reading is a research+based fluency strategy used with readers who lack fluency. In this strategy,
students read aloud to each other. When using partners, more fluent readers can be paired with less
fluent readers, or children who read at the same level can be paired to reread a story they have already
read.
%hared reading can be used with any book, taking turns reading by sentence, paragraph, page or
chapter.
Why use %hared 9eading2
It provides struggling readers with necessary support.
%hared reading of predictable text can build sight word knowledge and reading fluency
#llows students to enoy materials that they may not be able to read on their own. <nsures that all
students feel successful by providing support to the entire group.3ocabulary tests are very helpful too
in the classroom and at every stage. They tell you how familiar the child is with the meaning of many
of the words he or she will be encountering in oral and written language. This is critical information in
figuring out what are the sources of weakness that will lead to accuracy and fluency problems in our
child.