Fluency 1

Fluency

There are three components to fluency: speed, accuracy, and prosody.

Speed is the rate of reading determined by words read per minute.

Accuracy is the student’s ability to recognize words correctly, without omissions, insertions, or substitutions.

Prosody is the student’s ability to read using correct phrasing, intonation, tone, and pitch so that the reading reflects the author’s intended meaning.

What does the research say about fluency? While fluency is an extremely important reading goal, it is the most neglected one. It is the one that is most left out of the reading curriculum.

Automaticity is the ability to read without having to think about the words on a conscious level. Struggling students have not yet developed this automaticity.

The most effective and widely researched instructional activity is repeated readings.

Intervention Readers should practice fluency daily in small-group settings.

Small-group fluency strategies:

• Choral reading
• Partner reading
• Whisper reading
• Lead reading

What’s the difference between fluency and automaticity?

Automaticity is the fast, effortless word recognition that comes with a great deal of reading practice.

Repeated and monitored oral reading improves reading fluency and overall reading achievement.

Students need to read and reread a text a certain number of times or until a certain level of fluency is reached. Four re-readings are sufficient for most students.

Students should track the text with their finger while the teacher reads aloud.

Students should match the voice to the teacher’s read-aloud voice.

Teachers need to make sure that decoding is not the problem.

Teachers should make sure that students are reading at their independent level.