BALTIMORE COUNTY PUBLIC SCHOOLS
What BCPS Parents Need to Know About…
F LUENCY
F L UE N CY I S T HE A BI LI T Y TO RE A D O RA L LY WIT H AC C UR A CY AN D EX P RE S SI ON
Fluency is the ability to read orally with accuracy and expression at an
AT A N A PPR O PR I AT E R AT E T HAT SO U ND S L IK E SPEE C H
appropriate rate that sounds like speech. Repeated reading improves
reading fluency and the reader’s overall reading achievement and
comprehension.
To master the skill of fluency, children must be able to read:
 With accuracy.
 With expression.
 At a consistent, conversational rate.
To help with accuracy, have your child:
 Develop a sight vocabulary of familiar words.
 Reread and self-correct.
 Use context clues and sentence structure.
 Echo you as you read.
 Read aloud with you.
 Reread orally to practice.
To help with expression, have your child:
 Listen to someone read fluently.
 Recite nursery rhymes.
 Use punctuation (periods, exclamation points, question
marks, commas, quotation marks, etc.) as nonverbal hints
to guide his or her tone and pitch to deliver the meaning
of the text.
 Echo you as you read.
 Reread orally to practice.
To help with a consistent, conversational rate, have your child:
 Echo you as you read.
 Read aloud with you.
 Read a text aloud multiple times.
Baltimore County Public Schools
Office of Family & Community Engagement
BCPS Fluency
Outreach Docs\Content Areas\Language Arts