Chapter 10: Fluency Instruction

1. Chapter 10: Fluency Instruction Teaching Reading Sourcebook 2nd edition

2. Fluency Instruction • To develop fluency instruction one must focus on the three elements of fluent reading: accuracy, rate, and prosody. • Instructional methods can be grouped into three categories, which in actual practice overlap. • A fourth category focuses on the integration of the following: • Independent silent reading • Assisted reading • Repeated oral reading

3. Assisted Reading • Students need to hear proficient fluency models to learn how a reader’s voice can help make sense of text. • Methods of assisted reading include • Teacher-assisted reading • Peer-assisted reading • Audio-assisted reading • All forms emphasize extensive practice to improve students’ fluency.

4. Repeated Oral Reading • Practice is the key to fluency. • Repeated readings involve rereading a text to build both automaticity and fluency. (i.e. choral reading, Readers Theatre, etc.) • Repeated oral reading is flexible and can be adapted in many ways such as • the number of readings; • the instructional groupings; • the purpose for reading.

5. Methods of Repeated Oral Reading • Timed repeated oral reading • Self-timed repeated oral reading • Partner reading • Phrase-cued reading • Readers Theatre • Radio reading • Choral reading • Duet reading • Echo reading • Reading with Recordings

6. Choosing the Right Text • Texts students read to develop fluency should be chosen carefully. Criteria include • Text length: 50-200 words with shorter passages for beginning and struggling readers and longer passages for better readers; • Text content: choosing the right passage can be the key to motivation; the more that words overlap between texts with common themes, the more transfer there is of fluent reading; • Level of text difficulty: an essential requirement for repeated oral reading is that the text be at the correct level of difficulty for each student.

7. How to Determine the Level of Text Difficulty • Administer a one minute timed reading assessment of a 100-120 word passage to calculate the CWPM. • Calculate the percent of words read correctly or percent of accuracy. (If a student read 112 words correctly out of a 120 word passage: 112 divided by 120 = .93 or 93% accuracy.) • Compare the student’s accuracy level with the levels of text difficulty • 95-100% Independent level • 90-94% Instructional level • Less than 90% Frustration level

8. When to Teach • Not every student needs instruction for fluency building. Assessment determines if and what kind of fluency instruction is needed (e.g. accuracy, rate, prosody). • In grades K-2, students need daily opportunities to hear text read aloud in a fluent, prosodic manner. • In grade 1, students need daily opportunities for guided repeated oral readings; in grades 2-5, practice reading aloud with corrective feedback. • Although most oral reading fluency rates do not significantly increase beyond grade 6, all students need ample amounts of reading practice in a wide range of texts.