How do we define fluency and what aspects contribute to fluency? What is the best way to teach reading fluency in a classroom? The two articles, Creating Fluent Readers and One-Minute Fluency Measures: Mixed Messages in Assessment and Instruction, along with Chapter four in the book Classrooms that Work give various definitions of what fluency is and what aspects contribute or coincide with fluency. According to Rasinski, "Reading fluency refers to the reader's ability to develop control over surface-level text processing so that he or she can focus on understanding the deeper levels of meaning embedded in the text" (p. 46). In her article, Deeney uses The Literacy Dictionary for her definition of what a fluent reader is saying that it is, " any person who reads smoothly, without hesitation, and with comprehension." (p. 85). Cunningham gives us a more understandable definition in her book, " Fluency is the ability to read most words in context quickly and accurately and with appropriate expression" (p. 49). We can see through these definitions that their views are somewhat alike, however the articles do vary in the information discussed and provided.
Each reading selection also discussed the major components within fluency including accuracy, speed, and prosody (also thought of as expression). According to the reading, fluency is not always easy to learn, teach, or assess. Many students may actually struggle with reading fluency when first learning to read and write. Fluency should become easier and more accurate with practice according to the readings. The passages talk about how repeated reading methods help children develop fluency in their own reading. Some of the best ways to develop fluency is to practice and to read literature that is meant to be read aloud such as jokes, riddles, poetry, speeches, scripts, and many others. Reading these types of literature aloud help students to develop fluency. According to Creating Fluent Readers, repeated reading has not only been proven to improve reading but it has also proven to help in decoding, comprehension, reading rate, and even prosodic reading (reading with expression). Another way that to help students learn fluency is to model reading with fluency during read alouds. This concept was discussed throughout the articles because in order to children to successfully learn how to read fluently they need to here another individual reading fluently. The book and the articles give several examples of ways to teach fluency to young readers as well as how to assess readers on their fluency. Assessing reading fluency is discussed throughout Deeney's article; she explains that even though the one-minute fluency measures are reliable in identifying the students at risk for reading difficulty, they may not follow along with the more current definitions of fluency and its aspects (p. 440). Throughout her article she gives examples of various ways to assess for reading fluency deficiencies along with many ways or techniques in which teachers can instruct fluency and endurance in reading. One of the easiest and more effective ways in helping students to increase fluency is described in the book...the word wall. Creating a word wall using high frequency words would help students not only learn these words but it would also help them to become faster readers which would in turn increase their fluency. The articles along with the book chapters share some very important and interesting information on fluency and how to help students develop fluency.
Overall, the information provided was very interesting. Before reading this material on fluency and every component that contributes to fluency, I was not sure what exactly fluency consisted of and how a teacher would help students become more fluent readers. One of the ideas that I will definitely implement in my classroom is the world wall. I have seen them throughout many classrooms and I was never really sure what the purpose of the word wall was until recently. I think that it is a wonderful idea that will not only help students learn high frequency words but will also help them in reading. I also realize how important allowing students to reread books is and the importance of modeling fluency during read alouds. I now know what fluency is, what it consists of, and some ways that I can encourage and teach my future students how to become better and more fluent readers.
Brooke, I agree that the definitions were different but yet concluding the same objective towards being a fluent reader. I also agree that the best way to influence fluency is to provide multiple types of literature and I really enjoy reading folk stories, nursery rhymes, and poems to students, so to know that this helps with their fluency then I will do it more often. I also liked reading about the word wall and how to creat fluency through describing a book on a word wall and that is something we could easily do teaching kindergarteners and 1st/2nd graders. I have even seen this in a classroom and really enjoyed seeing the students engaged in that book. Before reading these things I didn't really understand fluency or how to teach it too. I even said in my reflection that teachers need tobe updated on these current topics and really understand the concept and components that go along with it before we can be expected to teach it. I really enjoyed reading your reflection and seeing that we agree on a lot of things that we read and that we also learned from them. We found new things to implement in our classroom and thats what makes for an interesting read!
ReplyDeleteGreat blog post, Brooke. I like that you brought up that some texts are meant to be read aloud, like poems and reader's theaters. I think that is an important concept that we forgot to mention in class yesterday. There are some readings that would be extremely boring to read aloud.
ReplyDeleteI am glad both you and Emily brought up the idea that students should be engaging in multiple types of literature. This is a very crucial concept of reading instruction. Rereading is great, but wide reading helps readers, too.
By the way, I love your blog design. So fun. You may have to show us how to change the blog font in class some time.