Building Fluency

Jennifer Partrick
Oct 12, 2009

Fluency is critical to comprehension. If students have to stop often to decode words too much mental energy is being used to decode and not enough is left over for comprehension. However, there are some things that teachers can do to promote fluency:

Readers Theater: Students love reading plays. They have to read the script many times in order to understand the character. Understanding the character directly impacts how the student reads the lines. Multiple readings then support fluency. The more students read a passage the better able they are to read it. Pausing, intonation, expression, rate, and emphasis are all supported and developed when students read fluently.

Modeling: Model what fluent reading sounds like. Model what good reading sounds like so that students can begin to appreciate how they should sound when they read.

Reading in phrases: Model reading in phrases or in chunks so that students hear that reading is not word to word but rather in chunks. Also, there are many chunks that appear in text over and over again. Some of them are: once upon a time; a long, long, ago; on the other hand; in the beginning; etc. Begin with these phrases to help students transition from reading word to word to phrases.

Taping: Students tape themselves and then listen to what they read. This can be very helpful as they listen to themselves read. Students can follow along as they listen to find any words they miscalled.

Sight words: Students must be able to identify sight words automatically and accurately if they are to become fluent readers. Therefore, have students involved in meaningful activities so that they learn sight words.

Leveled text: Perfect practice makes perfect! Give students multiple opportunities to read texts on their reading level. Students need to practice books that are within their reading range in order to practice fluency. If the books are too difficult students have to stop to decode and fluency is interrupted.

Read to someone: Students need the opportunity to read to others. Reading aloud gives them the opportunity to hear themselves read in addition to getting immediate feedback and support.

As we work with our students to teach them to read, we must remember that comprehension is always at the heart of reading and fluency directly impacts reading comprehension. When reading is often interrupted by decoding then comprehension is negatively impacted.

Fluency strategies can be found in Learning to Read K-2, Reading Comprehension for ELA Teachers 3-5, and Reading Comprehension for ELA Teachers 6-12. Click here to view the Learning-Focused reading resources in the Literacy Collection.