The Reading Fluency Strategies - Essay Example

?Running Head: The Reading Fluency Strategies Effective Reading Fluency Strategies for Struggling Readers JJJ 660 UAT This literature review will discuss effective reading fluency strategies to be used by struggling readers at home and school. Using examples from the literature, it will demonstrate certain approaches that are useful in identifying and assisting struggling readers for both parents and teachers while providing information on the impact that fluent reading can have on a student’s academic success. Reading Fluency Strategies for Home and School Reading is a challenge for many students, and those who struggle in this area realize very quickly that school is much harder for them. Therefore, this paper will discuss some of the techniques available to help struggling readers achieve better fluency and comprehension when they read, thereby improving their overall academic performance. There are many ways to help improve reading fluency for students. According to researchers Wolf& Katzir-Cohen, (2001) there are 25 words used daily by the student which make up about 33 percent of what students read at school. The reading strategies for teachers to use with struggling readers are very broad. There are several studies which involve demonstrating reading techniques to increase fluency, including having the books the students read in class also taken home and read again with family members. Author Darling (2005) implied that “Engaging parents in their children's reading acquisition, particularly by focusing their attention on the skill areas outlined in this column, can help children find greater success in school.” The author further explains that children can learn more with teacher and parent collaboration. This suggests that the onus of learning is not placed solely upon the teacher, but is also a responsibility the parent must undertake. The reasons for this are clear: 1) to reinforce the strategies learned in school, 2) to allow the child to read in a non-judgmental environment, away from peers and 3) to involve the parent in the child’s learning process. Reading fluency can be assessed by observing three components: automaticity, rate, and prosody. Automaticity indicates the student’s ability to read the text. The rate indicates the student’s reading speed. Prosody refers to expressive interpretation, which speaks to the student’s comprehension of the reading material. These three components allow the teacher (and the parent) to accurately assess each student’s reading and comprehension. According to authors Morrow, Kuhn, & Schwanenflugel (2006) their Family Fluency Program shows that children who read automatically become fluent readers and are able to decode words more freely. The authors also stated that prosody is used by fluent readers who use “appropriate pitch, pace, and phrasing” for better comprehension (p. 1). The program by Morrow, Kuhn, & Schwanenflugel (2006) shows the importance of parental involvement at the school and home, which also improves the student’s fluency. Students who are behind in reading may have a hard time adapting to new reading strategies. This is why it is particularly important that the strategies being used in school are reinforced at home. According to the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (2000) there are five key components to watch for in assessing reading ability in students aged 3-9. These components are phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and text comprehension. Watching for these key skills at home during parent-child reading sessions can assist a student with early development, particularly if the process starts before the student reaches kindergarten. There are reports on early literacy skills by Chard,Simmons, & Kameenui (1995) Snowv, Bums, &Griffin (1998) showing rates for early increase and indicating the importance of reading as a life skill. Useful Approaches for Struggling Readers There are three main approaches used for struggling readers: whole class reading and partnership reading, echo reading, and parental guidance. Used together, these contribute greatly to the success of a child’s ability to read fluently. It is worth noting that if the parent is able to read fluently in English, effective partnered reading can take place between parent and child, without the added stress of struggling to read in front of classmates. According to the National Education Goals Panel (1990) in 1994 there are eight goals which, when implemented, assist in educational development. Reading fluency is among those goals and one goal encourages more partnership reading for the students. The author Smetana (2005) stated that partnership can be any form of collaboration between two or more readers. Studies by Allor & McCathern (2003) indicate specific developmental strategies to improve reading orally and to encourage ermegent literacy. The activities are most effective when used with children in the early learning years. Another study by Kamhi & Catts (1999) shows that emergent literacy includes oral lanuguage, where reading is used in order to teach the skill of communicating orally. Most students who have issues with oral concepts will also struggle with reading fluency (Kamhi & Catts, 1999). The arthors Allor & McCathern (2003) said that a teacher can observe an individual student’s reading level during whole class reading activities. When students are placed in small groups a teacher must go from group to group in order to fully observe each child, but in whole group reading gives the teacher a chance to focus on that one child while the rest of the classroom is quiet. It does, however, place an unnecessary and embarrassing focus on the struggling reader. It would be most effective when used in conjunction with the echoing technique. Children should also be encouraged to use their fingers to point to words while reading, because as Allor &McCathern have shown, this technique allows them to better recognize the words. According to Allor & McCathern (2003) there are storybook activities that help students with whole group reading strategies, i.e. “Storybook preview, storybook read aloud, storybook celebration, storybook sounds, and storybook letters and words” (Allor & McCathern, 2003). In their 2003 study, Allor & McCathern show that these activities stimulate different developmental areas such as: oral language, vocabulary, and letter recognition. One strategy in particular which makes efficient use of these activities is a technique pioneered by Martin, Brogan and Haldaway called “story innovation,” as defined below in the article by Griffith and Ruan (334): Story innovation is a way for children to enjoy writing and reading in a scaffolded format. The finished product is a new text that is easy for children to read because they are familiar with the patterns in the original story and with the new vocabulary used to create the innovation. The scaffolded format refers to the sentence structure and syntax, which do not deviate from the original. The children’s opportunity to innovate arises when they substitute their own nouns for the given nouns. For instance, the example given is the following: “Early one morning/on a fine spring day/Bear Cub went out into the woods to play.” The scaffolded sentence created by the children reads as follows: “Early one morning/on a fine spring day/Anteater went out into the rainforest to play.” This technique of sentence scaffolding serves many purposes. It teaches the children the basic sentence structure, but it also encourages them to draw upon their knowledge and interests to “create” a character and a scenario which will make the material personally relevant to them and their interests. In re-telling the story, the children follow the outline of character development and plot that is laid out in the original story, but, depending upon which direction the teacher wants to go, or what she chooses to focus on for her lesson plan, story innovation can be used as part of a number of lesson plans to teach a variety of concepts: different verbs, vocabulary involving different animals, etc. But primarily, sentence scaffolding serves to provide a basic structure for stringing groups of words together in what will presumably become familiar sentence patterns for the beginning (or struggling) reader, thus aiding the student in recognizing these types of patterns in future reading scenarios. Another strategy which can aid in achieving fluency is a child’s ability to recognize pictures and symbols as they relate to words. Allor & McCathern note that a child develops understanding when she can refer a picture to a word. Children are actually able to do this starting from a very early age, and parents interested in developing a child’s literacy can use this technique at home . Some parents are not aware of the child’s learning ability to recognize pictures or symbols.The Early Childhood Longitudinal Study (2009) colleted data about reading at home with small children starting from an early age. It is important to alert parents of the difference that starting young makes in a child’s literacy . Another way to assess a child’s fluency is to listen to her read aloud. Researchers Anderson and colleagues (1991) reported a study which shows that a child who reads aloud in front of a whole group in class or at home has higher reading fluency. Additionally, the study indicates that the higher the fluency levels are, the better the comprehension skills are as well. Moreover, Reutzel and Hollingsworth (1993) found that with the reading fluency and comprehension studies, the students who were most successful used the strategies both at home and school. This does not apply solely to whole class reading but to any effort to improve reading fluency. According to Pinnell et al. (1995), on a National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) that is used to measure elementary students' oral reading on a large scale, judgments about reading ability are often made on the basis of students' oral reading fluency. Therefore, oral fluency serves to assess all aspects of reading ability, since it includes prosody, which is a major indicator of comprehension. A child who reads with prosody shows that s/he understands the material s/he is reading, because s/he is able to use the proper inflection while reading the text. Clearly, implementing the partnership technique both at home and at school is crucial for reading fluency. Echo reading is another method used for students who struggle in reading. This is particularly helpful when the teacher can model fluent prosody on a recording for the child to hear, as it can be practiced at home. This method applies to any grey areas that affect the student’s reading fluency, and is a simple way to help improve the student’s reading and build his or her confidence. The child is able to hear the passage read fluently, either by the recording, or by the teacher herself, and must then imitate the phrasing he hears. (323, Morrow, Kuhn, Schwanenflugel) Studies on oral fluency versus reading comprehension prove that both can be used to improve literacy. Literary accuracy refers to how well the student can identify the words in a timely manner. Automaticity refers to the recognition of the words and whether the student is able to define the word. Prosody, as indicated earlier, assesses overall comprehension based upon fluency and inflection. (Schwanenflugel, Hamilton, Kuhn, Wisenbaker, and Stahl, 2004). With regard to achieving these goals, the effectiveness of echo reading lies in how it helps increase the recognition of sight vocabulary words. According to Zutell& Rasinski (19610, p. 216) “Echo reading, paired reading, focused repeated reading, the use of audio recordings, and explicit marking of phrase and clause boundaries in text are techniques that explicitly direct reader attention to fluency, provide specific practice activities, and give readers clear, concrete goals. ” (Zutell & Rasinski, 1991, p. 216) Strategies for Educators in the Classroom Teaching beginning readers to become fluent often falls under the auspices of the classroom teacher, particularly if the child’s parents are not fluent in the target language or the target language is not spoken in the home. This means that for some students, the only time they hear fluent English reading is at school, because their parents may not be able to demonstrate it at home. Thus, the teacher has to overcome the possibility that neither partnered reading nor fluent English language usage is taking place in the home. It is probable that this is why Schwanenflugel et al make the decision not to include English Language Learners in their study, simply because the assessment materials were not available in all 30 languages spoken in the various families’ homes. (323) This makes it all the more important that the teacher focus on the echo strategy, so the student can hear and imitate correct language inflection. In an article by Jan Hasbrouk, the author mentions the work done by fluency researchers Stahl and Kuhn, who state that “students [should be] given opportunities to re-read sentences, and encouraged to make their reading ‘sound like talking’ as soon as they are making good progress with basic decoding, demonstrating an understanding of the act of reading, and showing some degree of confidence.” (ReadingRockets.org) Hasbrouk cautions that fluency should not be pursued independently of prosody and comprehension. There are some children who are able to read quickly, but they do not comprehend what they have just read. If the teacher does not check back with the student and ask the student to paraphrase what s/he has just read, the teacher may not be alerted to the fact that the student is lacking a key reading skill – comprehension. That is one example of mistaking solid word pronunciation for actually understanding the vocabulary. Notes Hasbrouk: “Pushing every student to reach the 90th or even the 75th percentile in fluency is not feasible or necessary and, for students at or above the expected level in fluency, the instructional time could be better spent by enhancing other critical aspects of reading, such as increasing their vocabulary and becoming better at monitoring their comprehension.” (Reading Rockets) The other disadvantage that teachers face is of course, dealing with varying student skill levels in the same classroom. It can be a challenge to keep the interest of more advanced students while improving the performance of struggling students. The solution, suggests Hasbrouk, is not only by implementing paired reading, but by having the teacher pair the students by reading ability rather than letting them choose their own partners. One would think that the obvious solution would be to pair the strong with the weak, but Hasbrouk suggests that the teacher pair students with similar reading ability (with one student being slightly stronger) so that the gap between their skill levels is not significant enough to cause embarrassment to the weaker reader. This makes sense, because students who feel uncomfortable about their reading skills are unlikely to feel comfortable reading aloud in front of a student who is vastly more skilled. Naturally, it makes sense that the teacher should be in contact with the parents about the child’s progress to ensure maximum success. Reading fluency is obviously a complex process, and its progress varies from child to child, depending upon the support the child is receiving. It seems, though, that we can draw several conclusions about what contributes to solid reading performance. First, the younger a child starts, the better. As the research of this paper indicates, children who start learning to read from a young age tend to have more success in school. Second, the task of teaching the child to read does not fall solely upon the educator, but also to the parents, who can provide a lot of support and practice in partnered reading at home, which is less stressful to the child than having to read haltingly in the classroom and being subjected to embarrassment. Third, there are many elements which combine to form reading fluency, not the least of which is comprehension. There are many ways to test comprehension. Jan Housbrook, in the article “Developing Fluent Readers” suggests that “in addition to requiring the students to answer a set of comprehension questions at the end of each passage, some teachers have added other comprehension activities to this process, such as having the students write a five-minute re-tell response after each passage.” This strategy seems particularly effective because if the child does not fully convey the meaning of the passage, the holes in comprehension are exposed, and the teacher or parent can go back and explain the meanings of confusing vocabulary words. The best thing to do after explaining the meaning of the text would then be to model a fluent reading of the text, and then have the child read the text again after the comprehension needs have been addressed. The result should be that the child gets closer to achieving smooth prosody. The importance of reading in terms of academic success must not be underestimated. Study after study has proven that children who begin to read at an earlier age do better academically than those who start learning to read when they are older. This is because almost all academic success hinges on a student’s ability to understand and interpret the written word. Children who are delayed in mastering this skill tend to struggle in all of their academic subjects, as opposed to children who struggle only with math skills, who fall behind the curve only in math class. The other aspect of reading with regard to academic success is that it is inherently tied to writing skills. Children who read with comprehension and prosody have an easier time making the transition to creating sentences of their own, and writing is the primary manner in which teachers test comprehension, since oral exams are not the norm in elementary classrooms. In short, reading is the key to a student’s success or failure, and steps must be taken while the child is still in the learning phases to ensure that the skills involved in reading are being absorbed and practiced regularly. There are many resources available to help a struggling reader achieve fluency, as mentioned above. The important factors seem to be parental guidance, structured partnered reading in school, and echo reading, whereby the teacher demonstrates the correctly inflected passage, and the student repeats it with the appropriate inflection, with the goal of making the read passage sound like regular speech. Clearly, some students will need more attention than others, and this issue is also addressed in this paper – how to involve the entire class in the reading process. In pairing students for improving reading skills, the teacher is advised to pair students whose abilities are similar, rather than pairing the strongest with the weakest, in order to achieve a level of comfort for the less advanced reader. Another strategy is to use the same text at home as is used in school, so the child benefits from the repetition of content. As mentioned above, this strategy is less effective if the parents are unable to model fluent reading and prosody in the target language, in which case a reading tutor should be engaged. The most important concept to take away from this analysis of reading strategies is that the child not be left to flounder on his or her own, but that s/he gets a dual support system which involves a specific plan of action both at school and at home. When properly implemented, these reading fluency strategies can have an impressively positive influence on the child’s academic success. References Allor, J. H., & McCathren, R. B. (2003). Developing Emergent Literacy Skills through Storybook Reading. Intervention in School and Clinic, 72-78. Darling, S. (2005). Strategies for engaging parents in home support of reading acquisition. The Reading Teacher, 58 (5), p. 476-9. Wolf, M. and Katzir-Cohen, T. (2001). Reading fluency and its intervention. Scientific Studies of Reading, 5(3), p. 211-229. National Institute of Child Health and Human Development. (2000). Report of the National Reading Panel: Teaching children to read: An evidence-based assessment of the scientific research literature on reading and its implications for reading instruction. Reports of the subgroups (NIH Publication No. 00-4769). Washington, DC: U.S. Stevenson, C. E., & Fredrick, L. D. (2003). The Effects of Repeated Reading on Student Performance in the Corrective Reading Program. Journal of Direct Instruction, p. 17-27. Rasinski, T.V., & Hoffman, J.V. (2003). Theory and research into practice: Oral reading in the school literacy curriculum. Reading Research Quarterly, 38(4), 510-522. Smetana, L. (2005). Collaborative Storybook Reading: Bring Parents and At-Risk Kindergarten Students Together. Reading Horizons, 284-308. Kamhi, A. G., & Catts, H. W. (1999). Language and Reading: Convergence and divergence. Language and reading disabilities, 1-24. U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics (2009). Pinnell, G. S., Pikulski, J. J., Wixson, K.K., Campbell, J. R., Gough, P. B., and Beatty, A. S. (1 995). Listening to children read aloud. U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics, Washington, DC. Morrow, L., Kuhn, M., & Schwanenflugel, P. (2006). The Family Fluency Program. The Reading Teacher, 60(4), 322-33. doi: 10.1598/RT.60.4.2 Read More