October 21st Blog Post

Reading fluency is something that many people tend to have their own definition for. There are three

important dimensions of reading fluency. These include: accuracy in reading, automatic processing, and prosodic reading. These three dimensions require students to be able to sound it out, use little mental effort, and put the text into syntactically and semantically appropriate units. Teachers can access their students reading fluency through many different ways. One of these ways for example, would be to calculate the percentage of words the student can accurately decode on grade level material. A way that teachers can calculate the students reading rate is by having them read on material for their particular grade level for 60 seconds.

 

Assisted reading and repeated reading are two ways which help improve reading fluency. If you use these two activities along with coaching in the classroom, you will see great results in students fluency levels. Some teachers and parents tend to make the mistake of confusing being fluent with being fast. A student might be able to read quickly, but might have no comprehensions of what they have just read.

What are some ways in which you will be sure to promote reading fluency in your classroom?

I found this really cute YouTube video where the teacher implements "Readers Theatre" to help encourage and prove to his 2nd graders that reading is fun! I know at a young age when my teachers offered a chance to read aloud in a fun, interacting with the class kind of way, I was all about it. It really made me want to read and want to keep reading at home so that I could improve and impress my classmates and teachers.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4L5q0Y8hukU