Fluency is a very important skill for children to develop.
Fluency is also very complex which makes it hard to measure. In the Deeney
article, “One-Minute Fluency Measures,” we learn why one-minute assessments do
not accurately measure fluency even though they can determine reading
difficulty. One thing that I really liked about this article was the breakdown
of the different components of fluency: accuracy, rate, prosody, and
comprehension. As future educators, it is imperative for us to understand
fluency in order to effectively and efficiently help our students who are
struggling in this area. By taking a more in depth look at the fluency of
children, we can learn more about how to help them improve their reading
skills. This also gives us the opportunity to focus more on the specific needs
of each child and make appropriate instructional choices. For example, a child
may not be fluent because they do not understand the inflections and pauses
that the use of different punctuation marks indicates. A teacher can then spend
extra time with this child in that area to increase their fluency.
Unfortunately, one-minute fluency measures alone do not
offer an explanation for why readers are dysfluent. They also don’t take into
account a child’s endurance when reading longer passages. A child may stop
short or slow down when reading a passage, however this does not mean that they
aren’t fluent. Sometimes children just get tired of reading!
- What measures could you take to understand why a child is not a fluent reader?
- What techniques could you use to help improve a child’s reading endurance?
I thought a really interesting point in the article was that increasing expectations helps to improve fluency in students. Through this technique you are lowering the text level being read and gradually increasing the expectations of the reader by expecting a set number of pages to be read or an assignment to be completed. I also really like the picture you provided on what a fluent reader is and would love to have something like that in my classroom.
ReplyDeleteI agree that a one minute measure on reading skills is also enough. I also remember that in my elementary years, when I read aloud I would slow down and not be as interested in providing emotion to it, and this is not because of my lack of fluency instead it is a lack of interest. As a teacher, it is important to provide interesting books at all levels that your students are at. The level of interesting books on their levels will allow children to approach reading with a greater interest and motivation. I think that modeling is very important to helping a child's fluency. Whether it is from the teacher or a fluent peer, listening to a fluent reader can allow students to understand what the goal of reading is and to learn how to make their reading sound that way. In order for children to increase their fluency, it is also important to work on word comprehension. The better a child gets at decoding unknown words, the better they will read tougher readings more fluently.
ReplyDeleteI think that to improve a child's reading endurance, you can provide them with literature that is at their level, but is also of interest to them. Then, build from that interest and provide/introduce new reading material that is more challenging, but still is relevant and enjoyable to them.
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