The fifth of the ‘Big Six’ is fluency. Reading fluency describes a complex action used by effective proficient readers. Fluency describes the sound, and speed of reading. It is often seen as an indication of a reader who is in control of the text and is expressing the author’s meaning.
Contributing factors of fluent reading include;
These elements are generally agreed upon as supporting the reader to comprehend the text.
Text difficulty is an important consideration when assessing fluency. The easier the text, the easier it will be to achieve fluent reading. The more problem-solving required on unknown words the slower and more halting the reading will sound.
Fluency has been linked to proficient reading (Snow, Burns, and Griffin 1998) and high correlation was found between phrased and fluent oral reading and comprehension (Pinnell, et al., 1998).
The issue that is often raised in terms of assessing fluency is that these complex observable features (phrasing, expression and speed of responding) are only indicators that the reader is comprehending text and are not necessarily a set of skills that can be assessed then taught in isolation.
Description: A way to improve speed of recognition for words is the use of a rapid word recognition chart (Carreker, 1999). The chart is similar to a rapid automatised naming (RAN) task. It is a matrix that contains five rows of six words (e.g., pat, pet, dog, log), with each row containing the same six words in a different order. After a brief review of the words, students are timed for 1 minute as they read the words in the squares aloud. Students can then count and record the number of words read correctly. This procedure can help students who struggle to memorise word patterns. To create your own Rapid Word Recognition Charts: Download the Rapid recognition Chart. For further instructions go to Rapid Recognition Chart Generator. and It is very easy to use and takes all the hard work out of creating resources.
IMPORTANT: Only choose 6 target words for each chart, when using the generator.
Description: The repeated reading technique is designed for children who read slowly despite adequate word recognition (Samuels, 1979). To begin, select the first few pages of a book (remembering that the passage should be slightly above the student’s independent reading level and needs to contain between 50 – 100 words). Have the student read the selection orally while you time the reading and count the number of words that are pronounced incorrectly. Record the reading time and the number of words pronounced incorrectly. If desired, set a realistic goal for speed and number of errors. Between timings, you may ask the student to look over the selection, reread it, and practice words that caused difficulty in the initial reading. When the student is ready, have him/her reread the same passage. Once again, time the reading, and record the time and number of errors. Have the student repeatedly practice reading the selection as you chart progress after each trial until a predetermined goal is reached or until the student is able to read the passage fluently with few mistakes.
Description: RAVE-O is a comprehensive research and evidence-based, small-group approach to building reading fluency. The program goes beyond repeated reading to help students develop their automaticity in all aspects of word knowledge vin order to build new knowledge, develop new ideas, and reach new levels of reading achievement.
Each lesson targets skill building in the sounds structure of words, recognising common letter patterns, developing vocabulary knowledge, practicing parts of speech, discussing roots and suffixes, and finally connecting all the skills to passage reading.
Title: Fluency Timed Reading
Description: This resource provides two types of assessments.
The first type of fluency assessment is a one-minute timed reading of a passage to measure the number and accuracy of words read. There is a fluency passage for each level, F through Z.
The second type has a student perform a timed reading of a series of sentences and then answer true/false statements about the sentences to show comprehension. There are three of these assessments, each with more difficult sentences than the preceding one.
View the associated Fluency Standards Table for additional information about recommended reading rates.
Title: Understanding and Assessing Fluency
Description: Fluency is necessary, but not sufficient for understanding the meaning of text. When children read too slowly or haltingly, the text devolves into a broken string of words and/or phrases; it’s a struggle just to remember what’s been read, much less extract its meaning. So it’s important that teachers determine if their students’ fluency is at a level appropriate for their grade. If not, how should it be developed? If a student is appropriately fluent for her grade level, how does a teacher help maintain that student’s fluency? And, how does a teacher make these determinations? This process begins with assessments of the component pieces of fluency: prosody, accuracy, and rate.
