What is fluency and why is it important?
Fluency is the ability to read a text rapidly and accurately and
with proper expression. The goal of reading is not to sound out
words—it is to comprehend. Fluency means freedom from
word-identification (decoding) problems that can interfere with
comprehension while reading. The reason for teaching students how
to sound out and read words is to give them a strategy for
accessing words they have never encountered while reading (Adams,
1990). By second grade, many students can decode common words but
still require considerable practice to develop fluency and
automaticity.
Fluency also means reading with proper inflection and expression,
which develops as students cluster words into phrases, and attend
to phrases, text meaning, and punctuation. When reading orally,
good readers read with expression. The ability to read a passage
with expression is a good indication that the reader comprehends
what he or she is reading. An older student who labors over each
word or reads word-by-word with little inflection or expression and
disregard for sentence punctuation will have problems comprehending
text. Because he or she is focused on decoding, comprehension
suffers. Having students repeatedly practice reading a text or
providing them with good oral reading models—by reading out
loud to them, having them read along with the eStudent Reader or
Listening Library CDs, or having them read with a
partner—will help them improve their ability to read with
proper inflection and expression.
Fluent readers are able to focus on comprehension and not on word
recognition. The ease and accuracy with which they are able to
decode words based on sound/spelling cues is crucial to developing
fluency. Researchers who have studied decoding make the point that
when a reader cannot recognize or decode a word, it is impossible
for him or her to understand what the word means (Adams, 1990;
Pressley, 1998). Automaticity is the bridge between decoding
and comprehension. Fluency allows the reader to focus.
By Grade 2, students are increasing the fluency they began
developing in Grade 1. More and more emphasis is now put on the
students' ability to read with fluency. A lack of skill in decoding
words directly affects students' ability to understand more complex
text. This is because word recognition and comprehension compete
for attention: the more effort is required to decode a word, the
less attention readers have left for comprehension. When readers
skip words in a text or fail to access critical words of the text,
comprehension suffers (Adams, 1990).
Some of the scientific evidence supporting the concept that fluency
improves comprehension includes a study of 7- to 10-year-old
students who were termed "weak" readers (Tan & Nicholson,
1997). The researchers found that "weak" readers who received word
recognition and fluency instruction answered more comprehension
questions correctly than did those who did not receive such
instruction. Other studies have confirmed that more rapid
decoding—automaticity with the code—improves
comprehension (Breznitz, 1997a; 1997b).
Instruction in fluency
Fluency develops with practice. When students are given specific
activities designed to increase reading fluency the results can be
dramatic.
Using a variety of well-proven activities, students can develop
fluency. All of these activities or techniques use repeated oral
readings of manageable texts. Manageable texts are generally
considered any text that the student can read with about a 95%
degree of accuracy (Partnership for Reading, 2001).
Difficulty Level of Text |
Difficult Words |
Percent of Accuracy |
|---|---|---|
| Independent Level | 1 in 20 | 95% |
| Instructional Level | 1 in 10 | 90% |
| Frustration Level | 2 or more in 10 | Less than 90% |
- Model fluent reading
Reading aloud to students provides them with a model of fluent reading. They learn about voice inflection and how it helps convey meaning. Reading aloud to students daily provides constant reinforcement in their efforts to become fluent readers. After each reading, the students should read the same text orally to the teacher or another person to practice what has been modeled for them. - Reading with a tape
Providing students with fine examples of oral reading on tape (without music or sound effects) such as the Listening Libraries in Open Court Reading and SRA Imagine It!, accomplishes the same end as reading aloud to them. The student should read along with the tape and then orally read the same text that was read to him or her. In order to assess students' fluency, teachers should periodically listen to them read selected passages. - Monitored repeated oral reading
Research suggests that one way to help students build fluency is monitored repeated oral reading (National Reading Panel, 2000; Partnership for Reading, 2001). In addition, researchers have found that young readers at all skill levels improve their fluency from an instructional level to a mastery level after just three readings of the same text (Sindelar, Monda, & O'Shea, 1990). - Providing Feedback
Listening to young readers as they read orally and giving them feedback as they read helps them gain fluency by making sure the students attend to vital text cues—phrasing, punctuation, unusual text types, headings and captions, and so on. All of these help good readers read fluently. - Choral reading
In choral reading, students read as a group. This method of oral reading provides the security of the group and allows the weaker readers the support of other more fluent readers. With choral reading, it is important to make sure that students read at a normal pace and that everyone is together. - Partner reading
With partner reading, the students are paired up and read to each other. It sometimes helps to pair stronger readers with weaker readers, although this is not necessary as long as the material the students are reading is at an independent level.
Monitoring fluency
The process of monitoring fluency growth is fairly simple. The student reads orally for one minute. As he or she reads, the teacher notes errors. When the time limit is up, the words the student read incorrectly are counted.
Total number of words - words read incorrectly = fluency rate
As the student becomes more fluent, the number of words per minute that he or she can read with accuracy increases. On average, first graders increase in fluency about 2.10 correct words per minute per week, second graders increase about 1.46 correct words per minute per week, and third graders increase approximately 1.08 correct words per minute per week (Fuchs et al. 1993).
The chart below shows the rate in words per minute at which students should be reading with accuracy and inflection at different times of the school year beginning with second grade.
| Grade | Beginning of School Year |
Middle of School Year |
End of School Year |
Percentiles |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Grade 2 | 82 | 98 | 124 | 75th percentile |
| 53 | 70 | 94 | 50th percentile | |
| Grade 3 | 107 | 118 | 142 | 75th percentile |
| 79 | 88 | 114 | 50th percentile | |
| Grade 4 | 125 | 130 | 143 | 75th percentile |
| 99 | 108 | 118 | 50th percentile | |
| Grade 5 | 126 | 137 | 151 | 75th percentile |
| 105 | 114 | 128 | 50th percentile | |
| Grade 6 | 145 | 155 | 170 | 75th percentile |
| 125 | 138 | 150 | 50th percentile |
Conclusion
The goal of all reading instruction is to help the students become confident, fluent, independent readers who comprehend what they read and continually challenge themselves to read increasingly more difficult text. This cannot happen if the reader is stuck in the word identification level of reading development. Fluency practice can help students internalize decoding skills and focus their cognitive energies on deriving meaning from text.
