EngEd 275, Nicole Kavajecz, Week 8
Reading Fluency is the ability to read and write effortlessly and efficiently (Tompkins, Smith, Campbell, & Green, 2019, p 185). This skill is imperative for academic success as well as success in life because it allows people to communicate with each other because it allows readers and writers to focus on meaning rather than decoding and spelling words. There are specific terms used for the ability to read fluently. Automaticity refers to the ability to automatically recognize familiar words and meaning without conscious thought, as well as identify unfamiliar words almost as quickly. This equates to a person being able to read and understand 19 out of every 20 words they read. Speed of a fluent reader is at least 100 words per minute. Many students reach this point by third grade, and the rate grows each year they continue to read. The speed can be influenced by factors such as interest, complexity of text, subject, or purpose of reading.
Prosody is the ability to read sentences expressively with appropriate phrasing and intonation. A reader can begin demonstrating this to a child as early as they like, even before birth. My personal example of this is with my daughter and I. I am a music teacher, so since conception she has been exposed to various pitches and rhythms and inflections in both my singing and speaking. She is only 7 months old and already will ‘read’ along with the books I read to her and change her intonation while doing so. A classroom application experience of mine is with my 4K students. Without intentionally doing so, when the whole class participates in counting activities I automatically sing from 1-8 or 8-1 in the C Major scale because of my extensive training in music. A coworker pointed this out to me a few weeks ago, making me aware now that the students are also doing so. A teacher modeling intonation and rhythmic reading can have a lasting impact on a child’s ability to do so, as you can see from these examples. Further classroom applications to increase prosody include demonstrations of expression, phrasing, volume, smoothness, and pacing. To cross connect between school subjects, singing is a fantastic method to increase students ability in these areas because they are all essential for success in a choir. A teacher in a reading classroom may choose to encourage reading the lyrics with and without the background tracks as a means to encourage development in this skill.
High frequency words, or words that readers use again and again, are often taught simultaneously through reading and writing (Tompkins, Smith, Campbell, & Green, 2019, p 187). Tompkins, et al provides a list of the 24 most common words a kindergartener would learn, as well as a table illustrating the 300 most common words for all. Teachers can create word walls with high frequency words, and add to them as they introduce and elaborate on the list as the year progresses.
There are four strategies for word identification which people use (Tompkins, Smith, Campbell, & Green, 2019, p 189-190). Phonic Analysis is an application of phoneme-grapheme correspondence and phonics rules to figure out the word. Students begin to understand the language they are learning and make conclusions when constructing the sounds themselves for new words. Decoding the Analogy means a student is creating meaning by reading words and making connections to what they already know. For example, a teacher may present the days of the week to students in a kindergarten lesson and help them see that even though they are long words they all end in -day. This is how students would identify them as days and not confuse them with months for instance. Syllabic analysis is usually applied by more advanced beginners to sound out the words based on familiar sections. Morphemic analysis is the application of separating the root word from the prefix or suffix it is written with. A teacher might play a word game with students where they start with common words and add prefixes or suffixes to develop fluency in this area.
The use of rubrics to grade student ability can greatly benefit both the teacher and the student. For the teacher, periodically grading a student with a rubric and comparing the growth through running records can immediately inform their instruction of that individual student. For the student, if they are able to view the rubric each time they can gain a clear picture in their mind of what being a fluent reader sounds like. Their goals for success can be encouraged greatly with patience and the teacher being a warm demander of excellence.
Development of a writer’s voice is a long process. The more experience students gain with knowing their audience the better they able to adapt their writing to meet the expectations of those reading their work (Tompkins, Smith, Campbell, & Green, 2019, p 200). The tone of each writer, and what they are writing, affects the audience. Teachers in the classroom could implement skills such as letter writing to various people to help students develop this skill. Examples might be the difference between writing to their friend and their principal. Both could be kind words, but the tone would likely be very different depending on the student. The more teachers can get their students reading and writing, and reflecting on those experiences, the better developed the students’ writer’s voice will be.
Students who are above grade 4 and still unable to fluently read are referred to as Dysfluent (Tompkins, Smith, Campbell, & Green, 2019, p 203-204). There is no one single cause for a student to lack progress in reading and writing, therefore a teacher cannot pinpoint one specific strategy which will develop fluency in one fluid lesson. Just as teaching reading, writing, and essentially fluency in both takes years of practice, a dysfluent reader and writer will need interventions daily in order to make progress. Referring to the steps above in teaching students to be fluent, a teacher or interventionist would need to start at the beginning where the student is completely confident and work up from there. Using strategies such as mini-lessons, reading logs, learning logs, choral reading, and readers theatre can also help a teacher develop fluency in a dysfluent student above fourth grade.
Resources
Tompkins, G. E., Smith, C., Campbell, R., & Green, D. (2019). Literacy for the 21st century: A balanced approach (Seventh ed.). Melbourne, VIC: Pearson Australia.
