IV: READING FLUENCY

Objectives

As a result of reading and studying this chapter students will be able to:

• Explain what is meant by fluency being a bridge between decoding and comprehension
• Name and explain the three components of fluency
• Explain how comprehension influences fluency and how fluency impacts comprehension
• Identify the most important variable in the differences found in reading fluency
• Explain how metacognition influences fluency
• Identify the effect of vocabulary size on fluency development
• Discuss how motivation and engagement play a role in fluency

Key Terms

• Automaticity
• Prosody
• Metacognition

Assessment

Instructional PowerPoint

Web Resources

The following websites and resources may be useful to reading teachers in planning and implementing their lessons.

• "Reading Fluency" by N. Mather and Sam Goldstein (2001)
  A detailed article and activities about reading fluency, how to determine and adjust students' reading rates; and suggested methods for improving student performance.
• Target the Problem! Fluency
  This Reading Rockets web page provides a glimpse of what student fluency problems look like and strategies that parents, teachers, and students might employ to overcome them.
• "Screening, Diagnosis, and Progress Monitoring for Fluency: The Details" by Jan Hasbrouck (2006)
  Suggestions for how to assess students, identify their fluency weaknesses, and monitor their performance regularly. The authors also present the Hasbrouck and Tindal Oral Reading Fluency Norms as a useful diagnostic tool.
• "Reading Fluency Assessment and Instruction: What, Why, and How?" by Roxanne F. Hudson, Holly B. Lane, and Paige C. Pullen
  A great overview of reading fluency, methods for assessing students' fluency skills, and instructional tips.
• Developing Fluency
  A four minute Reading Rockets video about an after school program called RAVE-O that targets fluency through a variety of activities including word webs and vocabulary games.
• "What Works in Fluency Instruction" by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (2000)
  An article that presents two of the instructional approaches to fluency --guided oral reading and independent silent reading.
• Test of Oral Reading and Comprehension Skills (TORCS)
  This norm referenced test, created by Academic Therapy Publications, measures students' fluency and comprehension. The test includes a series of ten short stories of increasing difficulty that can be administered to individual students in Kindergarten through Grade 8.