Components of Effective Reading Instruction

Components of Effective Reading Instruction: Fluency

Fluency-Building Activities

You may determine a child's growth in fluency by listening to the child read aloud from an appropriate level text. As the definition of fluency indicates, a truly fluent reader demonstrates several important characteristics. The reading is accurate and unlabored. This indicates that the reader is not struggling with decoding text or unfamiliar with most of the words. Fluency also involves expression or prosody. This means that the words are read in meaningful phrases. The reader attends to the punctuation, pausing or raising and lowering his or her voice as if speaking to someone.

The teacher should use the three characteristics of accuracy, rate, and prosody to determine what kind of instruction or practice a student may need to increase fluency.

If the reader lacks accuracy, then determine what areas of decoding should be studied. Word work and practice on high-frequency words, along with careful selection of the appropriate type and level of text, is recommended. Echo reading or another highly scaffolded method may be needed to move the reader beyond word-by-word reading.

Echo reading – a fluency building technique used for students who read word by word and may be struggling with accuracy. The adult models reading a brief amount of text and the student echoes what was just read.

If the student's reading is accurate but slow, practice should involve repeated reading and other methods providing opportunities to reread familiar text. These practice might include such activities as Reader's Theater or paired reading with a more skilled reading partner.

Reader's Theater – this technique is highly motivational for improving prosody for students who read accurately and at a comfortable rate. Students practice repeated reading of a text as they prepare to present it like a dramatic script. No props or staging are used.

Paired reading – in this fluency building technique, a student reads along with an adult or more capable reader. The purpose is to build rate and prosody or reading with expression. The student may signal to the partner that they are ready to try to read independently. As soon as the student has difficulty, the model reader starts reading along again to support the reader through the difficult part of the text.

If his or her reading is accurate and at a comfortable rate but lacks expression, then the student may benefit from practice with cued phrases or paired reading. Reader's Theater provides an incentive to read with expression in order to perform for an audience.

If Reader's Theatre is being used to build fluency, it is important to remember that children may memorize their parts without reading and may not actually receive much reading practice in increasing their reading rate. It may be best used for improving prosody rather than reading accuracy or rate.

For additional information about fluency, click on the following link.

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