This is a reader who carries out the act of reading easily with accuracy and a level of understanding above the average. Fluent readers recognize words automatically when reading silently. They group words quickly to gain meaning from what they read. They read aloud effortlessly and with expression. Fluent readers can focus on the text’s meaning because they don’t need to concentrate on decoding the words. They can recognize words and understand them at the same time.
Here’re some strategies teachers can use to help students become fluent readers.
Reading to students: When teachers read aloud, they model both comprehension strategies that include clarifying, questioning, summarizing, and predicting, as well as fluency. From differentiating the characters’ voices that lets students follow individual characters to relaying the story’s mood with subtle changes to cadence, stress, and tone, kids learn how to read for understanding. They also learn to produce visual images using the text and benefit from exposure to a broader vocabulary than they might presently access during independent reading. As teachers read aloud, they might also model how to approach different passages from different genres with purpose: for learning and for enjoyment.
Listening to students read: As students start reading independently, they imitate holding a book, turning the pages, and using every page’s pictures to adjust the way they read aloud the words (memorized or decoded) to reasonably present the story. They try to apply these strategies because they’ve seen others read fluently. Teachers should listen to students read aloud to support them in reading with appropriate fluency. Fluency assessments (like measures of oral reading fluency) ask pupils to read a passage as teachers calculate the words correct per minute and mark errors. Students also need different opportunities to read aloud without it feeling like a rote task. Providing self-reflection scales, fluency rubrics, and partner feedback forms can offer positive feedback and help to document growth.
Conducting fluency activities: Having clear instructions followed by fluency practice at the sentence & passage levels, phrase level, and word level is vital. When people strive to acquire skills in a new activity, they don’t immediately participate at the highest levels. The same applies to growing as a fluent reader. Extensive reading helps develop fluency in coordination with oral language development and skilled word recognition alongside reading aloud and listening to reading. There’re several activities teachers can use to teach and rehearse the components of fluency. For instance, pupils use the same short passage in timed and repeated readings to increase prosody and accuracy.
