Reading Fluency Strategies
By: Faith Berens, Reading Specialist
“Fluency is the gateway to comprehension!”—Timothy Rasinski, PH.D. Kent State
University
Reading Starts with Words:
Recognizing them
Decoding them
Using letters and letter combinations to make them
Understanding them
Saying groups of them with ease and expression
Pronouncing them correctly
Building new ones from known ones
Adding new ones daily
5 Critical Skills of Teaching Reading: (all about WORDS)
1. Phonemic Awareness—Differentiating sounds in WORDS
2. Phonics—Sound/symbol relationships in WORDS
3. Fluency—The reading rate and expression of WORDS
4. Vocabulary Development—Learning new WORDS
5. Comprehension—Understanding WORDS
Three components of fluency:
1. Accuracy in word recognition (word decoding and vocabulary)
2. Automaticity in word recognition (effortless, quick, automatic)
3. Interpretive and meaningful reading (not just that you can say the words but how
you say them, relates to prosody, intonation, expression, phrasing)
Components of Effective Fluency Instruction:
1. Explicit and systematic teaching of phonics and word recognition (decoding) and
vocabulary
2. Model fluent, expressive oral reading (Family Read aloud time, books on
tapes/cds, poetry reading, songs with song sheets—requires reading)
3. Repeated (Practiced) Reading of authentic texts
4. Assisted (scaffolded) reading at student’s “just right” level (not too
hard/frustration and not too easy)
5. Focus on phrased reading (Reading like we talk)
6. Be sensitive to text difficulty! **Remember 5 Finger Rule: If your child makes
more than 5 mistakes on one page, the book is too hard!
7. Create synergistic instructional routines
Techniques to help a slow and/or disabled reader to develop fluency:
1. Instruct for automaticity in basic sight word recognition. (Sight word flash cards
are not enough!)
Ideas:
**See www.diannecraft.org for sight word flash cards with a picture embedded over/into
the word to help Right Brain Learners
**See www.OxtonHouse.com for graduated word lists/speed drills
**See www.vocabularycartoons.com for vocabulary cards with a cartoon
Teach Fry’s Instant Sight Word Lists
Source: The Reading Teacher’s Book of Lists, (2000)
Teach Fry’s Instant Phrases and Short Sentences
Source: T. Rasinski (2003) The Fluent Reader. Scholastic Publishers
2. Instruct for automaticity in decoding/word recognition.
Ideas:
 Teach the most common word families (sometimes called rimes or phonograms)
such as –ip, -ap, -ab, -ag, etc.
Source: Fry, E. (1998) The most common phonograms. The Reading Teacher.
 Use a collection of poetry organized around those word family patterns, such as
for the
-ay pattern, Use the poem “Rain Rain Go Away”. Student reads, highlights words with
the –ay pattern, then generates a list of other words or hunts for other words with the
pattern. Our brain is a pattern detector!
Source: Phonics Poetry: Teaching Word Families by Tim Rasinski (Allyn and Bacon)
 Use decodable books that have phonics patterns, to supplement good quality
literature/stories. Some are Hooked on Phonics, Bob Books (Scholastic), Books
to Remember (Flyleaf publishers), and many others

Use tactile activities to build words with letter tiles, magnetic letters, etc. such as
Making and Writing Words or Touch Phonics (available at 1-800-928-6824)

Secret Stories phonics system (www.secretstories.com)

Word Study programs and activities, such as word sorts, word hunts, etc.
2. Model Fluent and Expressive Oral Reading
**Read, Read, Read!
The importance of reading aloud to your child (even when older) can not be stated
enough!
Reasons:
 Builds interest in reading
 Builds vocabulary
 Builds Comprehension
 Models for students what expressive and meaningful reading sounds like
3. Use Songs, Poetry and Reader’s Theater to develop fluency in reading
Reader’s Theater Scripts: www.teachingheart.net/readerstheater.htm
www.readinglady.com
www.aaronshep.com/rt
(2005) Texts for Fluency Practice by Rasinski and Griffith (Teacher Created Materials at
www.tcmpub.com
4. As a parent, you can model fluent reading and scaffold your child’s reading by a
technique called Assisted Reading.
Forms of Assisted Reading:
1. Choral or Group Reading (can be done as a family, with brothers and sisters,
friends, etc.). Can read things like poetry, passages, the Preamble to the
Constitution, etc.
2. Paired Reading (Neurological Impress Method)—10 minutes a day, sit side by
side (parent sits on right and reads orally into the child’s left ear, or can sit
slightly behind) and parent reads and the child joins in. Make sure they are
following along in the text and reading along orally with you.
3. Audio-assited Reading (books on tape, cd and child reads along or listens)
4. Captioned Video Text—caption the tv, Disney or other, such as Hillsong Kids
worship dvd’s, sing along tapes/dvd’s
5. Repeated (Practiced) Reading of Authentic Texts—instructional practice of
repeatedly reading one passage (50-250 words) until the reader can read it
fluently. Can read scripts, letters, song lyrics, cheers, chants (jump rope chants),
journal entries, other, speeches and oratory
Great source for speeches and oratory: www.americanrhetoric.com
6. Use Rasinski’s The Fluency Development Lesson (FDL)
Source: The Fluent Reader: Oral Reading Strategies for building word recognition,
fluency, and comprehension. (2003)
6. Use Fast Start for Beginning Readers and Their Parents which is basically a daily
poem or rhyme, the instructional mantra is read to, read with, and listen to your
child read, and engage in word study activities, such as making words, word
hunts, word sorts, etc.
Source: Rasinski (2005). Fast Start for Early Readers. Scholastic Teaching
Resources.
(Many of the suggestions above come from Dr. Tamithy Rasinski, Ph.D. from Kent
State University and his workshop titled Creating Fluent Readers: From Phonics to
Fluency Strategies for Achieving Reading Proficiency!)
(Shared with his permission)