Fluency

Speed, Accuracy, & Expression: Vital to Comprehension

Diana Doglio

What is fluency?
Fluency refers to a student’s speed, accuracy, phrasing and expression in reading. Fluent reading sounds natural, like talking. Readers who have not yet developed fluency read slowly, word by word or in short phrases, and often in monotone. While this is typical for early/emergent readers, once students have a solid sight word base and they become automatic with phonetic applications, fluency should follow.

Fluent readers focus their attention on making connections among ideas in text, as well as between the text and their background knowledge. In other words, fluent readers recognize words and comprehend at the same time. Less fluent readers, however, focus their attention primarily on figuring out words, i.e. decoding, leaving them little attention for understanding the text, i.e. comprehending.

Approaches that contribute to fluency growth and overall reading achievement:
--Repeated and monitored oral reading with guidance
--Instructor modeling of fluent reading followed by student re-reading
--Repeated practice with familiar text at the independent reading level
--Graphing reading rate over repeated readings
--Buddy reading, partner reading, and student-adult reading
--Performance of reader’s theater scripts

Grades One through Six
Pawnee CUSD #11
Fluency Expectation
Grade Correlation Chart

Grade 1 Fluency Teacher Record Sheet
Grade 2 Fluency Teacher Record Sheet
Grade 3 Fluency Teacher Record Sheet
Grade 4 Fluency Teacher Record Sheet
Grade 5 Fluency Teacher Record Sheet
Grade 6 Fluency Teacher Record Sheet

Fluency Stopwatch

Timer

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS ABOUT FLUENCY

Why is fluency instruction important?
There is a high correlation between fluency and comprehension. When readers read words accurately and quickly, they free up brain power to attend to the meaning of the text.

If students are getting low scores in comprehension, shouldn't instruction be focused on comprehension instead of fluency?
Low comprehension scores can mean many things. Low scores might mean students have poor knowledge of word meanings, their fluency is limited, or they lack strategies for making sense of text. We need to address all areas of reading progress; fluency is just one of them.

Who needs fluency instruction?
All students can benefit from fluency instruction. Low achieving students begin by increasing their word recognition skills. High achieving students improve comprehension. Consistent classroom fluency instruction will meet the needs of many students. Other identified students will need frequent instruction from a tutor and/or assistance at home from parents.

How much time should be spent on fluency instruction?
Many students can benefit from thirty minutes of daily instruction; younger students would require less. Teachers are finding fun ways to incorporate some of the instruction in short, focused activities throughout the day.

What does fluency instruction look like?
First, teachers and parents who read aloud to students are important models of fluent reading. Fluency develops over time and requires substantial reading practice. One of the most effective ways to teach fluency is with repeated and monitored oral reading.

What kinds of texts should we use for fluency?
Many teachers like to select special texts for fluency work, such as poetry. However, we want students to become fluent with prose. So practice with both narrative and expository texts is essential. Low achieving students benefit from passages and short stories with many of the same words repeated, so they begin to recognize high frequency words automatically. Predictable texts are perfect for beginning readers; just make sure the reader is tracking/pointing and looking at the words as they are being "read."

Howcan I help my child select a book on his/her level?
A simple method is called The 5 Finger Rule. Click on the following pdf file to see how the procedure is implemented: 5 Finger Rule

How can parents support fluent reading at home?
Parents should become involved in their child's education; teachers can provide them with tools in which to achieve this. The public library and Internet are also excellent resources. You will find many online stories and poems at MindUniversity (Click Visitors; then type msdoglio in the box at the top, followed by VISIT SITE, or locate my name on the Visitors page and click on it. Once on my page you will be able to find the subjects Stories and Poetry.) A great place for kindergarten and first graders to begin is on the Starfall site.

The following tips provide a few more ways parents can work on fluency with their children:
Parent Read Aloud: Parents should make reading to their children a priority. A read aloud achieves many things.
--The listener hears how the voice is used to create and extend meaning.
--It fosters a desire for the children to read on their own.
--It develops story comprehension through parent and child interaction.

Paired Reading: The child and the parent read and reread one text orally for 10-15 minutes per day.

Shared Reading: The parent and child alternate reading paragraphs or pages.

Fast Start: (Rasinski, 1995; Rasinski and Padak 2001, 2002; Stevenson, 2001) This is a simple way to move students from read aloud to fluent independent reading.
--Parents can use a poem that is printed in bold font.
--The parent and child sit side by side. The parent begins by reading the poem several times orally to the child. Throughout the reading, the parent and child should be discussing the meaning of the poem.
--The child and the parent then read the poem together several more times. Then the child reads the poem several times by himself while the parent listens.
--The final activity would involve word study of some sort, such as interesting rhyming words from the poem and/or prominent word families.

If students read silently, doesn't that improve fluency?
Yes, silent reading can help fluency. Students who read a lot are usually fluent. Unfortunately, many students don't read enough to become fluent. In addition, silent reading only works when the students are actually reading and not just looking at pictures/turning pages. We can only be certain that students are fluent by listening to them read.

Also, if your child is reading self-selected books silently, make sure they are reading texts at their independent reading level. You can check this using the 5 Finger Rule discussed above or by consulting your child's teacher concerning their AR Reading Range. Students at PGS in grades two and up are aware of what their designated reading range is.

How do you assess fluency?
Students read unpracticed texts for one-minute, and a partner/parent/teacher record words correct per minute (wcpm). Charting progress throughout the year helps direct instruction and motivates students to improve fluency.

Formal DIBELS probes are often used to assess and monitor fluency progress at Pawnee Grade School. For more information click on the following link: Big Ideas in Beginning Reading: Fluency Click on Learn How to Assess Your Students.

Click on the following link to access DIBELS Benchmark Goals

Is there a rubric to assess fluency?
A Fluency Scale can be a useful tool for assessing oral reading fluency. Here is a sample:
Level 4: Reads above grade-level in meaningful phrases with expression
Level 3: Reads grade-level texts in meaningful phrases with expression
Level 2: Reads primarily in 2 - 3 word phrases
Level 1: Reads primarily word-by-word with some long pauses

Click the link below for the following Ready to Print Documents from Improving Reading: Strategies and Resources by Johns/Lenski:
    My Word Challenges
    Recording a Student's Oral Reading Miscues
    Qualitative Summary of Miscues
    Individual Reading Progress Chart
    Procedure for Determining Words per minute
    Oral Reading Norms for Students in Grades On through Eight
    Five Point Fluency Scale for Reading
Resources for Chapter 4: Fluency and Effective Oral Reading