Fluency

EDC424

Dr. Deeney

What Is Fluency?• Fluency refers to how a person reads

orally (out loud). It is thought that oral gives us a gauge on silent reading.

• There are many definitions of fluency.

• Many people think of fluency as accuracy (how correctly one reads) and rate (how fast one reads), but that’s not all there is to it!

Fluency Includes:• Automaticity (reading words effortlessly

and automatically, no need to sound out)• Rate (speed/pace of reading)• Accuracy (correctness)• Prosody (phrasing, smoothness)• Intonation (using proper pitch and stress)• Expression (emotion)• Comprehension (understanding reading)

What People Might Not Know About Fluency• Fluency is not just related to reading

paragraphs, chapters, and other texts.• Fluency involves every process and sub-

process of reading:– Letters– Letter sounds– Word patterns– Words – Vocabulary

Why is Fluency Important?• Fluency is linked to overall reading ability

– Improved comprehension– Improved vocabulary– Increased ability to remember what is read

Fluency and Comprehension• Fluency provides a bridge between word

recognition and comprehension– Fluency does not guarantee comprehension, but if a

reader needs to stop and decode words, reading becomes long and laborious, and meaning can be disrupted

– Students who read fluently are able to put their energies into understanding and analyzing what they read.

• Each component of fluency is important to comprehension

It’s Easy to See the Connection Between Accuracy and Comprehension

An example from The Mannerism (deMaupassant, 1947)

Plot Summary:In The Mannerism, people thought the narrator’s daughter was dead, so laid her to rest in the family vault. One night she appears at the door! She was not dead, merely fainted. The narrator’s servant, knowing she was buried wearing all of her jewelry, went to the cemetery to steal it. When he cut off her finger to get her ring, the girl awakened.

Kevin’s, a 7th Grader’s, Reading and Retelling of The MannerismNote: Kevin’s substitutions are in parentheses

• Text: With my own hands I laid her in the coffin, and I went with it to the cemetery where (with) it was placed in the family vault. At my request, she was buried (burned) wearing all her jewelry—bracelets, necklaces, rings—and wearing a party dress.

• Kevin: “Well, like she, well, she died from this disease and he wants her to be burned and he’s probably gonna, I don’t know, maybe he’s probably gonna try to kill himself or something ‘cause he can’t take it.”

Kevin continues:

• Text: The apparition (appression) spoke again. ‘Don’t be afraid, father. I was not dead. Somebody came to steal my rings, and to get them they cut off one of my fingers.’

• Kevin: “Well, she said she’s not dead, but they burned her or something.”

Not the ending the author intended!

• When Kevin retold the story, he said that there was a prospector who came along, dug up the girl’s grave, and stole her rings.

• Consider what he read:

• My old servant, Prosper (Prospector), who had helped me lay Juliette in her coffin…

Maybe not so Easy to See the Connection Between Prosody and Comprehension

Consider• “I wanted spring. to come I / went out. to find

that corner. // I walked. Down the path / in the woods. until // I came to / a corner. I went around the corner. to see // if spring was on. // the other side

-versus-“I wanted spring to come. I went out to find that

corner. I walked down the path in the woods until I came to a corner. I went around the corner to see if spring was on the other side.”

Or Intonation/Expression and Comprehension

• “Give me my bone.”• “Give me my bone!”

• “Give me my bone!”

• “GIVE ME MY BONE!”

Walking Across the Bridge:

Fluency’s Impact on Comprehension

Fluency Comprehension

Neurochemistry• Oxytocin is involved in the control of maternal

behavior. It is synthesized inside magnocellular neursecretory cells as a precursor protein that is processed by proteolysis to its shorter active peptide form. Specific parts of the brain such as the supraoptic nucleus produce oxytocin which acts on cells in locations such as the ventral pallidum to produce the behavioral effects of oxytocin.

We didn’t understand that not because of fluency, but because we don’t know anything about neurochemistry!

Let’s take something easier …

Why such a connection?• We have limited cognitive attention

• Attention taken up with decoding (sounding out words), prosody (figuring out punctuation, etc.), and intonation/expression takes up valuable cognitive attention

• Leaves less attention left over to truly analyze and create meaning from the text

Ideas for Improving Fluency

Important Points

• Not all students need fluency instruction!!• Fluency instruction usually begins in the

middle of first grade. – Transitional readers/within word pattern

spellers

• Online resources:• http://www.busyteacherscafe.com/

units/fluency.htm

Four components of good fluency instruction

• Model fluent reading• Use guided repeated oral reading

instruction.• Give students ways to practice and

perform. • Implement word study activities to build

accuracy and automaticity.

Model fluent readingStudents need to see and hear what fluent

reading sounds like. Ways to Model:• Read Aloud: An adult reads aloud a text to

the whole class.• Books on Tape: Children can listen to stories

on tape as they follow along in a book.• Buddy Reading: An upper grade child

reads aloud to a lower grade child.

Guided repeated oral reading instruction• Choral Reading: All students, lead by the

teacher, read aloud together.• Peer/Paired Reading: Students work as pairs.

Each student reads their text silently. Then the students take turns reading the passage three times orally to the other student. The listening student acts as the teacher by giving suggestions and feedback.

• Echo Reading: The teacher reads a sentence, paragraph, or page aloud and then has the students chorally reread that segment.

More suggestions for guided repeated

oral reading instruction • Tape Assisted Reading:

Students listen and read along with a tape.

• Buddy Reading: An upper grade student listens to a lower grade student read, giving appropriate feedback.

• Phrase Reading: Teacher and students break text into short phrases that match speech pauses (natural chunking) and reread until fluent

Lots of practice & performance• Repeated Reading:

– Short passages (200-300 words, depending upon grade); poems and rhymes are great for repeated reading

– Teacher models reading the passage fluently– Teacher discusses reading behaviors such as

phrasing, rate, intonation, etc. – Students practice reading the text several times

until fluency has developed. – Often times the teacher has students work in pairs

• One student reads text the first time while other student times rate with a stopwatch and records expression, prosody, and accuracy on a rating sheet. Students switch.

• Students practice reading with their partner throughout the week

• Students time and use rating sheet again at end of week.

Lots of practice & performance• Independent Reading: Children choose

text on their independent level to read silently.

• Reader's Theater: Oral performance (reading) of scripts usually based on authentic literature. In order to “perform” their script, students need to interpret the meaning (to use expression, etc.) and read and re-read to gain fluency.

Lots of practice & performanceFluency practice in literacy

centers

• Listening Center: Listen to books on tape.

• Poetry Center: Copy and read poems.

• Song Center: Read and sing songs.• Recording Center: Read a story on

tape.

Word Study• Help students recognize words

automatically– Build sight word knowledge – Work on decoding and patterns

• Ideas to increase accuracy and automaticity– Speed drills – Flashcard practice– Word Walls– Sight Word games– Vocabulary Activities (from Text Talk, for example)