1. Fluency: Reading Better and Faster
Presented by Cherry Carl

2. 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)

3. Why Reading Fluency?
A fluent reader decodes text automatically, and therefore can devote his /her attention to comprehending what is read.
Laberge & Samuels

4. Achieving fluency is recognized as an important aspect of proficient reading, but it remains a neglected goal of reading instruction.
Richard Allington

5. self-confidence, and enjoy reading more.
With greater fluency, readers can concentrate on comprehending what they read, develop greater
self-confidence, and enjoy reading more.
Gillet & Temple

6. 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

7. Why Be Concerned?
“Fluency may be almost a necessary condition for good comprehension and enjoyable reading experiences.”
Source: Nathan and Stanovich

8. 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.

9. 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.

10. 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.

11. 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

12. 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.

13. Recognizing At-Risk Readers
sound halting when they read
are word focused
ignore punctuation
have no expression
have limited or no comprehension

14. 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.

15. 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!

16. Oral Reading Techniques
Taking Turns
Preread, Review and Reread
Choral Reading
Plays
Relaxed Paired Reading
Puppet Plays
Cross-Age or Buddy Reading
Audio Tape

17. More Oral Reading Techniques
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

18. Even More Oral Reading Techniques
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

19. 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.”

20. Norms for Reading Fluency

21. 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.

22. 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.

23. 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.

24. 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.

25. More Readers Theater Resources
Reader's Theater Scripts of the Month A complete archive, available for free downloads.  
The Reading Lady A number of free scripts ( many based on popular books) available in Microsoft Word and Adobe formats.

26. 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

27. 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.

28. 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)