Teaching Students to Read Fluently

1. Teaching Students to Read Fluently Read Naturally

2. Simple View of Reading Fluency Decoding Comprehension Fluency is the bridge that links decoding or word reading to comprehension.

3. Key elements of fluency… • Accurate reading of connected text • At a conversational rate • With appropriate prosody or expression

4. Fluent reading… • Is the ability to read text accurately, quickly and effortlessly with expression • Is the ability to read like you speak • Students in the fall of sixth grade should be reading grade level text at a rate of 127 correct words per minute (cwpm)

5. Research on fluency… • National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP) found 44% of nation’s 4th graders were low in fluency • Less fluent readers must focus attention primarily on decoding individual words. They have little attention left for comprehending the text. • More fluent readers focus their attention on making connections among the ideas in text and between those ideas and their background knowledge • More fluent readers are able to focus their attention on comprehension

6. What is fluency? • http://readnaturally.com/howto/v_rn-fluency_lg.html

7. Using Read Naturally • Teacher Modeling • Teach word recognition • Teach meaningful context • Teach correct phrasing • Repeated Reading • Read same passage over and over • Better understanding • Able to read subsequent passages faster • Progress Monitoring • Provide immediate feedback toward specific goal

8. Implementing Read Naturally • Select a story • Read along to learn key words • Write a prediction using key words • Timed cold score – graph in blue • Read along to learn the story • Timed practice readings • Timed hot score – graph in red • Answer questions • Write a retell, summary or practice word lists

9. The Read Naturally Strategy • http://readnaturally.com/howto/videos_rn_strategy.htm

10. Comprehension strategies • Students underline text to support responses • Students restate open-ended question and support with evidence from text • Write summary using summary frame • Focus – demonstrate understanding of text

11. Questions

12. Sources • Ambruster, B.B., Lehr, F., Osborn, J. (2003). Put Reading First: The Research Building Blocks for Teaching Children to Read. Jessup, MD: National Institute for Literacy. • National Reading Panel. (2000). Teaching Children to Read. Retrieved from website: http://www.nationalreadingpanel.org/faq/faq.htm#12 • Read Naturally. (2011, November 6). How-To Videos: Read Naturally Basics. Retrieved from http://www.readnaturally.com/howto/videos_rn.htm • Read Naturally, Inc. (2006).