Reading Fluency
Strategy: PALS (Peer Assisted Learning Strategies + LST (Linguistic Skills
Training, a phonological skill program) to increase reading fluency.
Appropriate Grade Level: 6th-12th
Procedures/Steps:
A necessary prerequisite skill for reading fluency is adequate phonological skill knowledge.
For this reason LST phonological skill program is designed to accompany the existing PALS
reading comprehension program to improve reading fluency in older children. (Middle school to
secondary)
-Students are systematically taught phonological skills through letter-sound correspondence.
Student gain phonological and phonemic awareness. LST directly teaches phonetics, such as
speech sound identification, vowel patterns, phoneme counting. LST directly teaches
phonology, and morphology.
-While students are receiving LST 3 times a week they are also engaging in PALS 2 days a
week. The procedure is as follows:
*Partner Reading- both students read the text (this is meant to improve reading fluency), after
both have read one student retells for 2 minutes the sequence of events in the text just read.
*Paragraph Shrinking-develops comprehension by having the students summarize and identify
the main idea.
*Prediction Relay- where students confirm or disconfirm predictions they had made about the
text.
Comments and/or tips:
* Make sure there is frequent interaction between partners
* Make sure partners know to give step by step positive feedback for correct responses and
corrective feedback for incorrect responses
Source:
Calhoon, Mary Beth. (2005). Effects of a peer-mediated phonological skill and reading comprehension
program on reading skill acquisition for middle school students with reading disabilities. Journal
of Learning Disabilities, 38(5), 424-433.