The document outlines strategies and lessons for improving reading fluency, defining fluency as the ability to read smoothly and easily. It emphasizes the importance of practice, exposure, and various teaching methods, such as modeling fluent reading and providing direct instruction. It also highlights common reasons children struggle with fluency and suggests activities and materials to support their reading development.

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Fluency
Fluency
From
From
Building Fluency: Lessons and Strategies for Reading Success
Building Fluency: Lessons and Strategies for Reading Success
By Wiley Blevins
By Wiley Blevins

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A Definition
• Fluency is the ability to read
smoothly, easily, and readily with
freedom from word recognition
problems
• A lack of fluency is characterized by
a slow, halting pace; frequent
mistakes; poor phrasing; and
inadequate intonation.

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Fluent reading is a major
goal of reading instruction
because decoding print
accurately and effortlessly
enables students to read
for meaning.

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A fluent reader can:
1. Read at a rapid rate
(pace—the speed at which oral or silent reading
occurs)
2. Automatically recognize words
(smoothness/accuracy—efficient decoding skills)
3. Phrase correctly
(prosody—the ability to read a text orally using
appropriate pitch, stress, and phrasing)

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Automaticity
Refers to knowing how to do something so
well you don’t have to think about it.
For reading, refers to the ability to
accurately and quickly recognize many
words as whole units.
Advantage—recognizing a word as a whole
unit is that words have meaning.

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Exposure
To recognize a word automatically:
• The average child
– 4-14 exposures
• Struggling reader
– 40 or more exposures
Students need a great deal of practice
reading stories at their independent reading
level to develop automaticity.

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Why do children fail to
read fluently?
1. Lack of exposure
2. The good-reader syndrome
3. Lack of practice time
4. Frustration
5. Missing the “why” of reading

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Ways to teach fluency
1. Model fluent reading

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2. Provide direct instruction
and feedback
Teach sight words and phonics
Practice reading prior to reading a text
scan a text, preteach vocabulary
Time students’ reading
Include oral recitation lessons
Teach “smooshing” words together
Explain return-sweep eye movement

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Teach about the eye-voice span
eyes are 1 to 3 words ahead of oral reading
Find alternatives to round-robin reading
Teach phrasing and intonation

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Activity
Recite the alphabet/numbers as a
conversation.
ABCD? EFG! HI? JKL. MN?
OPQ. RST! UVWX. YZ!
123. 4! 567? 89. 10!

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Recite the same sentence using
different punctuation.
Dogs bark? Cows moo.
Dogs bark! Cows moo?
Dogs bark. Cows moo!

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Practice placing the stress on different
words in the same sentence.
I am tired. We are happy.
I am tired. We are happy.
I am tired. We are happy.

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3. Provide reader support
• Reading aloud simultaneously with a
partner or small group
• Echo reading
• Reader’s theater
• Choral reading
• Paired repeated readings
• Books on tape

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Activity
• Book
– You Read to Me, I’ll Read to You: Very
Short Stories to Read Together
by Mary Ann Hoberman
– ISBN 0-316-01316-1
(Also, fairy tales and mother goose
rhymes)

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4. Use repeated readings
of one text.
• Child reads at his instructional level
• Teacher times the reading
• Feedback is given on word recognition
errors and the number of words per
minute

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6. Provide easy reading
materials.
• Enormous amounts of individualized
reading material
• At least 30 minutes per day
• Must be independent or instructional
level