Riverside County Office of Education
Reading for Meaning
Go “A. P. E.”
for Fluency
John E. Allen, Presenter
Jurupa Unified School District
Riverside County Office of Education
Objectives
Content Objective:
• We will learn the three elements of
fluency instruction
Language Objective:
• I will describe the three elements of
fluency instruction to a partner
2
Riverside County Office of Education
Language Function: Description
• One of the three elements of fluency is _____
• The three elements of fluency are ______,
_____, and _______.
• The three elements of fluency are
___________. They are important because
_________.
• Fluency is comprised of ___________. These
elements are important because ___________.
We must always remember ___________.
3
Riverside County Office of Education
What Am I Learning? - KWLA
Topic
What I Know
What I Want to What I Learned How I will
Know
Apply What I
Learned
Fluency
4
Riverside County Office of Education
Why Teach Fluency?
• “40 % of a representative sample of the
nation’s fourth graders were low in fluency. ”
(NAEP, 2002, 2005)
• “Fluency is a neglected skill in many American
classrooms, affecting many students’ reading
comprehension.”
• “Fluency provides a bridge between word
recognition and comprehension.”
Put Reading First 2001, pp. 22-23
Riverside County Office of Education
What Skills Do Students Need
To Be Fluent?
• Decoding Skills
• Comprehension Skills
Riverside County Office of Education
Decoding Component
 Deep orthographic knowledge:
–An understanding of the patterns
of language
–Practice with words and phrases
Riverside County Office of Education
Comprehension Component
• Comprehension Component:
–Ability to combine textual information
with personal knowledge and experience
–An understanding of how punctuation
works within text
Riverside County Office of Education
Fluency is the bridge between the soundspelling system and comprehension.
9
Riverside County Office of Education
Automaticity and Fluency
Automaticity:
• Fast, effortless word recognition
without expression.
Fluency:
• The ability to read accurately, at a
proper pace, with appropriate
intonation and expression.
(Put Reading First 2001, p. 22)
10
• Framework for Reading •
MOTIVATION
DECODING
John Shefelbine, CSU Sacramento/Developmental Studies Center/CA Reading Framework 1997, p. 20
(Re)organizing Text
Comprehension Monitoring
Comprehension
Strategies
Syntax & Text Structure
Vocabulary
Academic
Language
Background Knowledge
Automaticity
Sight Words
Fluency
(A.P.E.)
Phonics
Phonemic Awareness
Concepts of Print
Word
Recognition
Strategies
COMPREHENSION
11
Riverside County Office of Education
Fluency is derived from the Latin
word fluens, which means “to flow”.
12
Riverside County Office of Education
Fluency Defined
• Fluency is the ability to accurately and
effortlessly decode written words while
recognizing meaning in those words through
appropriate phrasing and oral expression.
(Fluency: An Oft-Neglected Goal of the
Reading Program; Rasinski, 2006 )
• In reading aloud, fluent readers read
accurately, effortlessly, and with expression.
Their reading sounds natural, as if they are
speaking.
13
Riverside County Office of Education
Dysfluency
When the reader focuses all
of his/her attention on word
recognition, it drains
cognitive resources, thereby
leaving little room for
comprehension.
15
Riverside County Office of Education
3 DIMENSIONS OF FLUENCY
“Readers must be able to
ACCURACY
sound out the words in a
text with minimal errors.
this refers to phonics and
other strategies for
decoding words.”
Rasinski (2004)
Creating Fluent Readers
PACING
“Readers
need to expend as little
mental effort as possible in the
decoding aspect of reading so that
they can use their finite cognitive
resources for meaning making.”
LaBerge & Samuels
EXPRESSION
“The reader must parse the text
into syntactically and
semantically appropriate units”.
Rasinski (2004)
16
Riverside County Office of Education
Go “APE”
The Three Dimensions of Fluency
• Accuracy
• Pacing
• Expression
17
Riverside County Office of Education
Accuracy
• Explicit phonics instruction
• Developing automaticity with
decoding and recognition of words
• Developed through blending routines
• Practice with decodable text
• Connection to Sound Spelling Cards
18
Riverside County Office of Education
Pacing
• Appropriate pacing is explicitly
taught and modeled
• Students are given time to read text
multiple times to practice
appropriate pacing…
…not speed reading!
• Daily practice
19
Riverside County Office of Education
Expression
• Prosody-the music of language
• Explicit instruction and modeling on how
to read text with appropriate expression
• Daily practice
• Focus on different aspects of expression
– Pausing, Phrasing
– Inflection
– Cadence
20
Riverside County Office of Education
Objectives
Content Objective:
• We will learn the three elements of
fluency instruction
Language Objective:
• I will describe the three elements of
fluency instruction to a partner
21
Riverside County Office of Education
Language Function: Description
• One of the three elements of fluency is _____
• The three elements of fluency are ______,
_____, and _______.
• The three elements of fluency are
___________. They are important because
_________.
• Fluency is comprised of ___________. These
elements are important because ___________.
We must always remember ___________.
22
Riverside County Office of Education
Practice is the Key to Building
Automaticity!
But . . .
Practice implies that instruction
has happened. As with all other skills,
fluency must first be directly taught and
demonstrated before students are
expected to practice.
23
Fluency
where to find it…
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Phonics Library K-2
Reader’s Library 3-6
I Love Reading Books: 1-2
Decodable Books: K-2
On My Way Practice Readers: K-2
Theme Paperbacks: 1-6
Practice Readers
24
Riverside County Office of Education
How do I directly teach fluency?
• Think-alouds:
-Analyze text for clues to “prosody”
(melodic, rhythmic speech)
• Expressive Modeling:
-Discussion of choices when reading
• Phrase Cued Reading:
-Adding “signals” to text
25
Riverside County Office of Education
Think-Aloud for Fluency
I notice that there are
commas in this text. I
will need to put short
pauses there. I also
notice that there is a
dash. That means that I
need to add in a longer
pause to get me ready for
the exciting ending where
the exclamation point is.
26
Riverside County Office of Education
Expressive Modeling
•
•
•
•
Teacher models fluent reading daily.
Teacher reads with expression and prosody.
Teacher discusses prosodic features of text.
Teacher guides students in reading with
expression and prosody.
• Teacher guides children in discussion of why
they read something as they did.
27
Riverside County Office of Education
Phrase-Cued Reading
Instructional Sequence:
– Teacher marks phrases and models reading
• Chorally read—exaggerate prosody
• Reread in pairs—teacher monitors
• Reread as homework to parents, siblings, etc.
– Reread same passage with no marks the next day
• Choral and partner practicing
– Students mark new passages by the phrase
• Partner reading practice
• Individual performance
28
Riverside County Office of Education
Phrase-Cued Reading
• Divide text according to natural
pauses within & between sentences.
• Help students recognize the syntactic
chunks that are formed by:
–prepositional phrases
–verbal phrases
–other meaningful chunks (ideas that
cluster together).
• Passages should be:
–brief (100-250 words)
29
Riverside County Office of Education
The Fourth of July Parade
Every Fourth of July, / there is a
parade in our town. // It is so much
fun! // There are marching bands
and floats. // There are horses, /
ponies, / and pets. // There are
clowns and jugglers. // There are
wagons and fire engines. // And
most of all, / there are people, /
people, / people! //
30
Riverside County Office of Education
How do I directly teach fluency?
• We will also explore:
–Repeated Reading
–Echo Reading
–Cloze Reading
–Choral Reading
31
Riverside County Office of Education
Repeated Reading
• Children read in pairs.
• One child reads the text three times.
• The other child reviews errors and rates
the reader on fluency on the third
reading.
• The children reverse roles.
(Koskinen & Blum 1986, 70-75)
32
Riverside County Office of Education
Why Repeated Reading?
• Fluency rate increases with each
reading.
• Word recognition errors drop.
• Improves rate on the next passage.
33
Riverside County Office of Education
Why Repeated Readings?
• Fewer fixations (stalls) per line, taking in
larger chunks of text (eye span) with
each fixation
• Shorter duration of fixations, mental
processing becomes faster
• Fewer regressions, moving through
passage freely
Samuels, Schermer,& Reinking
34
Riverside County Office of Education
Continuum of Teacher to Student Support for Student Reading of Grade Level Text
Developed by John E. Allen, Jurupa Unified School District 2005
Low
Support
High
Support
Student
Individual
Independent
Reading
StudentSelected
Text
TeacherSelected
Text
Whole Class Reading
Partner
Reading
Choral
Reading
StudentDirected
Literature
Circles
Student Selected
Text
TeacherSelected
Text
Cloze
Reading
Echo
Reading
Teacher
Read
Aloud
TeacherDirected
Smaller
Flexible
Reading
Groups
35
Riverside County Office of Education
Modeling Fluency: The Continuum of
Teacher Support
• Echo Reading
–High level of support
• Cloze Reading
–Medium level of support
• Choral Reading
–Low level of support
36
Riverside County Office of Education
Let’s Practice Echo-Cloze-Choral
There are many plants on our earth. Plants
can be big. Plants can be small. We can’t even
see some plants. They are too small. Plants
need many things to grow. They need sunlight.
Some plants need a lot of sunlight. Others
need very little sunlight. Plants also need
water to grow. Just like sunlight, some plants
need a lot of water. Other plants need very
little water. A cactus can live without a lot of
water.
37
Riverside County Office of Education
Your Turn
• Use the passage and practice fluency
instruction with a partner:
–Think-alouds
–Expressive Modeling
–Phrase Cued Reading
–Echo Reading
–Cloze Reading
–Choral Reading
38
Riverside County Office of Education
Assessing Reading Fluency
• Formally and informally
• Timed grade-level passages
• Accuracy and speed
• Monitoring progress
Riverside County Office of Education
Assessing Fluency
• Select a grade-level passage
• Student reads for one minute
• Compute the number of words
read in one minute
• Count the number of errors
• Subtract the number of errors
from the number of words read
Rate and Fluency Guidelines
Silent and Oral Words Per Minute (WPM)
Silent
Oral
Grade 2
Grade 3
Grade 4
70-100
95-130
120-170
WPM
WPM
WPM
66-104
86-124
95-130
WPM
WPM
WPM
Taylor, Harris, Pearson & Garcia, 1995
Rate and Fluency Guidelines
Silent and Oral Words Per Minute (WPM)
Grade 5
Grade 6
Grade 7
Silent
160-210
180-230
180-240
WPM
WPM
WPM
Oral
108-140
112-145
122-155
WPM
WPM
WPM
Taylor, Harris, Pearson & Garcia, 1995
Riverside County Office of Education
How To Monitor Reading Fluency
 Daily practice
 Timed repeated readings
 Set goals
 Graph fluency progress
Riverside County Office of Education
Identifying Appropriate Text
• Independent reading level:
–95% accuracy
–Misread one of every 20 words
• Read 50–200 words
• Various genres
Put Reading First 2001, p. 27
Riverside County Office of Education
Organizing Repeated Reading
• Student fluency folders:
– Graphs
– Laminated text
– Color coded
• Structures and routines:
– Teach routines and expectations
– Where to get materials
Riverside County Office of Education
Riverside County Office of Education
What Do I Do for Students Who Do
Not Reach Fluency Targets?
 Determine whether the problem is accuracy or fluency
• Look for possible patterns:
o More than 1 error every 10 words indicates a need to
look at accuracy
o Few errors but low rate - work on fluency
o Rates less than 30–40 wpm typically indicate a need for
word recognition instruction
• If students are not firm on word recognition skills,
focusing on increasing speed will be counterproductive
Simmons & Kame’enui 1998
Riverside County Office of Education
Objectives
Content Objective:
• We will learn the three elements of fluency
instruction
Language Objective:
• I will describe the three elements of fluency
instruction to a partner
49
Riverside County Office of Education
Language Function: Description
• One of the three elements of fluency is _____
• The three elements of fluency are ______,
_____, and _______.
• The three elements of fluency are
___________. They are important because
_________.
• Fluency is comprised of ___________. These
elements are important because ___________.
We must always remember ___________.
50
Riverside County Office of Education
What Did I Learn? - KWLA
Topic
What I Know
What I Want to What I Learned How I will
Know
Apply What I
Learned
Fluency
51
Fluency
Formula
Automaticity
Fluency
Phrase
Rate
Inflection
Repeated
Reading
Prosody
Academic
Vocabulary
Fluency
Think-Aloud
52
Riverside County Office of Education
53