Fluency Building Strategies - Essay Example

Part A: Fluency Building Strategies The U.S. Department of Education defines reading fluency as ‘the ability to read accurately, quickly and with appropriate intonation and expression’. Researchers believe that reading fluency allows the student the opportunity to both enjoy and understand the content of the reading material. Thus, teachers should utilize as many fluency building strategies as possible. Some fluency building strategies which may be utilized by teachers include read aloud, partner reading, sustained silent reading, reader’s theatre, echo reading or repeated reading and choral reading. Blau advocates the modeling of fluent reading as a strategy to develop fluency in reading. She asserts that ‘the most powerful way for you to help your students is to read aloud to them, often and with great expression.’ The National panel for reading inputs that after modeling the type of reading desired. The teacher should allow the students to read the text aloud. Furthermore, Blau as well as the National Reading Panel add that students should be encouraged to discuss their observations about the entire reading process. The teacher, parent or another student could read aloud for the students to hear the correct methods of reading fluently. The person doing the reading would therefore model the appropriate elements of fluent reading, that is, accurate phrasing, intonation and speed. Reading aloud allows the students to have an example to follow. They will then attempt to adopt the methods used by the fluent reader as their own. Partner reading involves one peer reading aloud or listening to the reading of another. For this type of reading feedback is given to assist one’s partner in fluent reading. Partner reading may involve utilizing one peer of a higher ability grouping than another. However, the students can be of the same reading level and still obtain great benefit to this reading strategy. The quality of the feedback given through partner reading provides the students with the opportunity to improve the quality of their reading. Not only do students get the chance to practice reading aloud, they also get the added benefit of listening to the reading of another individual. Therefore, if the partner is of a higher ability then the less fluent reader would have a model from which to follow. The student with less ability then can critique the higher ability student and state where improvement is needed based on a given fluent reading criteria. A third strategy to build reading fluency in students is sustained silent reading (SSR). Sustained silent reading (SSR) refers to the reading of material for an uninterrupted period of time without reading aloud. Thus, one is required to read in one’s mind. The teacher may establish a specific time during the school day for all students and teacher to participate in this activity. Researchers have concluded that SSR with guidance and feedback assists students in reading fluently and consequently in their comprehension skills. SSR allows the student to obtain practice in reading material that is appropriate for the student’s reading level thereby improving the confidence and desire for the student to read. Another strategy that boosts students’ confidence is the reader’s theatre. For the reader’s theatre understanding of the text rather than simply recall of the words is important. Advocates of this strategy assert that students should be given a copy of the text. The teacher should read the text aloud then allow students to read the material several times through echo reading or choral reading. Finally, the teacher should allow students to read the specific portions assigned to different characters in the reading material. Props and costuming can be utilized to add interest and therefore increase students’ enjoyment. For this reason reader’s theatre is an ideal strategy to get students to read fluently. The repetition of the reading would allow the students to become familiar and hence confident in the material. This strategy allows the student to recognize words quickly and accurately because of the number of repetitions of the reading. The readers can be videotaped which would add the dimension of allowing individual students to observe the fact that they can read fluently. Echo reading or repeated reading is a strategy that is directly related to both reader’s theatre and choral reading. Echo reading occurs when the teacher reads the material and allows the students to repeat what was previously read. The teacher reads with intonation and expression and allows the students to echo or repeat exactly what was demonstrated. This type of reading is instrumental in getting the students to recognize a plethora of words and thereby increase fluency in the process. Blau also is in favor of repeated readings. She maintains that in repeated reading students encounter high frequency words at a faster rate by this means they are able to read such words more easily. Discussion of the elements of fluent reading would help students to improve their frequency. Finally, choral reading is a spin off from echo reading or repeated reading. Choral reading allows student to repeat the chosen material in unison as a small group or as a whole class. All students participate in choral reading therefore the slow readers are not intimidated by this procedure because they are part of a group. The group can be held accountable when an error is made since it would be difficult to identify one individual. Through the several repetitions involved in choral reading the slow readers as well as the fluent readers both obtain practice and reinforcement of appropriate reading strategies. In the given Dr Seuss unit, the author of this paper would suggest utilizing the read aloud strategy, partner reading, sustained silent reading, echo reading or repeated reading and the reader’s theatre. On the first, second and fourth days the teacher engaged in reading one of Dr Seuss’ stories to the students. This strategy is known as reading aloud. It allows the student to hear the intonation, phrasing and the other elements that are required for good or fluent reading. The modeling of fluent reading allows students an example to follow. This strategy was suggested because the teacher has been utilizing it from Day one. On Day one and Day three the teacher paired students based on mixed ability grouping where the higher ability student worked on an activity with the lower ability. This procedure lends itself to paired reading. The students can reread the same story which was previously read by the teacher before they begin the activity. The teacher may give them a list of standards required for fluent reading. The student with the higher ability can read the story first and allow the other student to critique. The teacher must first explain how feedback should be given so that the less fluent reader would benefit from positive feedback. On Day three the teacher could allow everyone to read one of Dr Seuss’ stories silently for a given period. After the teacher’s discussion of the various elements of the story, students can be encouraged to read one of the stories silently to observe these elements in action. Similarly on Day two SSR can be done after the teacher reads one of the stories. In this way the less fluent readers can read the same story that was previously read by the teacher. Especially if the student is allowed to choose the story that is read silently, this activity would not only allow students to reinforce the concepts taught but also to gain confidence in their ability to read fluently. A fourth but certainly not the final strategy that can be incorporated into this unit is the reader’s theatre. Dr Seuss’ stories are full of humor and drama therefore they provide ample opportunities for the reader’s theatre to be employed. From Day two when the teacher advises the students of the KWLW activity for the week, the teacher can also invite students to do repeated or echo reading of a particular story and inform them of the reader’s theatre which would take place on Day five. The National Reading panel suggests that providing that the material is suitable to the students’ reading level, at least three to four readings should be enough for students to read the given material fluently. Therefore, the teacher should allot time to do repeated reading on Days two, three and four. On Day four when the student’s are given a time to catch up on incomplete activities they can also be assigned specific characters to portray. They can also be asked to design a costume for their character during an Art session and bring this costume to be used for the reader’s theatre on Day five. The second grade class that would be emailed for their vote could be invited to be the audience for the reader’s theatre. The author of this paper believes that this activity would cause the students’ confidence to soar and so propel them to desire to read at their optimal level. The reader’s theatre can be videotaped and used to remind students that they indeed can read fluently. References National Reading Panel. (2001) 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. Retrieved April 3 2008 from, http://www.nifl.gov/partnershipforreading/publications/reading_first1fluency.html. Blau Lisa. (n.d.). 5 Surefire Strategies for Developing Reading Fluency. Retrieved April 3 2008 from, http://content.scholastic.com/browse/article.jsp?id=4367. Read More