Tales of an Elementary Coach - Dual Language: August 2014

Fluency is our next essential element of reading instruction.

According to Dr. Tim Rasinski (the Guru of Fluency… please google him if you have never heard of him), “reading fluency is a bridge that connects word study (phonics, decoding, spelling and vocabulary) to comprehension” (Rasinski). I love this description by Rasinski. It’s our responsibility to build this “fluency bridge” for our students to ensure their reading success.

At the elementary level two of the biggest obstacles that our students face are deficiencies in fluency and comprehension. Many times, fluency instruction is put on the “back burner.” We must change that mindset and make fluency instruction an essential element of reading instruction and development.

What is fluency?

Fluency is the ability to read accurately, quickly, expressively, with good phrasing, AND with good comprehension. Fluency can include the recall of letters, sounds, words, sentences or passages. We can begin to build automaticity in Pre-k with colors, shapes or letters. Later the fluency tasks should progress to decoding words rapidly and accurately, in both isolation and connected texts, and to increase their rate of reading while maintaining accuracy AND including comprehension.

Components of Fluency

Word accuracy (decoding, word study, vocabulary)
Automaticity (automatic naming and reading, done effortlessly)
Prosody or expressive reading (using your voice to make meaning, pitch, volume, expression… NOT reading like a robot)

Increased fluency is accomplished by:

“Providing students with opportunities for repeated oral reading that includes support and feedback from teachers, peers, and parents
Determining students’ reading levels, and ensuring that texts are matched to them (brings in the importance of a reliable and accurate F&P (Fountas and Pinnell level)
Applying systematic practices in classrooms to instruct and monitor student progress (students should have individual fluency goals set and they should be held accountable for monitoring their own progress)” (Vaughn & Linan-Thompson).
Establishing a baseline for the number of words students read correctly per minute and being consistent with the monitoring and feedback (as with anything else there must be fidelity to the practice for it to be effective)

Why is fluency instruction important?

It is important to remember that research says students that struggle with fluency also struggle with comprehension because they are spending all their efforts on decoding words and therefore are less likely to gain meaning from the text.

Pitfall

One pitfall that ALL teachers need to avoid is the isolation of fluency and comprehension. Students should always understand they are reading for meaning. With that said, if students are reading a passage, they should always have to connect the reading to comprehension, through an oral retell or summary. The minute we have students reading for fluency (namely speed), without holding them accountable for the comprehension piece… then we send the message that they are reading “for speed” and NOT comprehension.

Other instructional practices that have been proven as INEFFECTIVE:

Round-robin reading (research says students are not paying attention if they can predict when they will be called on to read)

Students should NOT be engaged in fluency activities with frustrational level text

Sustained Silent reading (with NO accountability) - (I know this one will get some defenses up… but please keep reading. There is research (or lack of research) supporting this idea. “According to NCLB (No Child Left Behind) Act, ‘ no research evidence is available to confirm that instructional time spent on silent, independent reading with minimal guidance and feedback improves reading fluency and overall reading achievement’ (Vaughn & Linan-Thompson, 51). Providing students with extensive time to read without implementing practices that improve fluency is thus unlikely to improve readers’ speed and accuracy” (Vaughn & Linan-Thompson, 51).

Activities that promote fluency:

Reading with a model reader (echo reading)
Choral reading (reading with teacher, and later teacher’s voice can fade out as students continue to read)
Recorded reading (great opportunity to use technology) – last year I used Ipads to record my students reading at the BOY, MOY, and EOY- and they were able to listen to themselves and also see the progress they made throughout the year.
Reader’s theater (the internet has a plethora of reader’s theater scripts ready for you to use (in English and Spanish) – I used reader’s theater as a means to develop the second language in a fun and less threatening manner.
Partner reading – students read and reread passages with classmate

So there you have fluency in a nutshell. I’m sure by now you've noticed the building and overlap of the essential reading elements we've already covered.

Now it’s time to think about how you will build that “fluency bridge” for your students to give them the necessary tools for reading success.

Resources- Spanish fluency website

This website has fluency passages in Spanish. Thought you could use it.

First grade:

http://rincondelecturas.com/lecturas_primer_grado_primaria.php

Second Grade:

http://rincondelecturas.com/lecturas_segundo_grado_primaria.php

Third Grade:

http://rincondelecturas.com/lecturas_tercer_grado_primaria.php

Works cited

Rasinski, Tim. http://www.scilearn.com/blog/tim-rasinski-reading-fluency

Vaughn, Sharon and Linan-Thompson, Sylvia. (2004). Research-based methods of Reading