Creating Fluent Readers
Dr. Tim Rasinski
http://www.timrasinski.com/
Effective Teaching of Reading- The
Essential Elements
1. Phonemic Awareness
2. Phonics (Word Decoding)
3. Vocabulary (Word Meaning)
4. Reading Fluency
a. Automaticity
b. Expressive (prosodic reading)
c. Accuracy
5. Comprehension
6. Professional Development
Effective Teaching of Reading- The
Essential Elements
The first three
are the
1. Phonemic Awareness
foundation
feed into
2. Phonics (Word Decoding) which
fluency.
feeds
3. Vocabulary (Word Meaning) Fluency
into
comprehension.
4. Reading Fluency
Comprehension
is, of course,
a. Automaticity
the ultimate
b. Expressive (prosodic reading)goal.
c. Accuracy
5. Comprehension
6. Professional Development
Reading Fluency
a. Automaticity ?
b. Expressive (prosodic reading)
c. Accuracy
Effortlessly, you have to practice in
order to dig into deeper meaning.
Reading Fluency
a. Automaticity
b. Expressive (prosodic reading)
c. Accuracy ?
Accuracy depends upon a student’s
word decoding and vocabulary.
Approximately, 95% word recognition accuracy
is considered adequate for instructional level
reading.
Prosodic or expressive reading
conveys meaning.
For example, “dude”
* as a greeting
* with consternation
* like you’ve won the lottery
Prosodic or expressive reading
conveys meaning.
Tom borrowed my new lawnmower.
Can you read this in a way that makes it sound like
Tom borrowed the lawnmower and not Joe or
Larry?
Can you read this in a way that sounds as if you
have more than one lawnmower?
Research supports oral reading for
struggling readers and beginning
readers.
NOT round robin reading
Use GOOD materials for oral reading
Teaching the heart, not the head
What materials are GOOD for
reading orally?
Reader’s theater
Song lyrics
Poetry
Nursery rhyme
Important speeches and letters from
history
* Read from handout. *
What did Rasinski mean by
“teaching to the heart, not the
head?”
A Few Interesting Tidbits:
1. Phonemic awareness was found to be
a better predictor of 6th grade reading
ability in young children than IQ.
2. 90% of comprehension problems are
due to fluency.
A Few Interesting Tidbits:
3. Singing is a natural form of repeated
reading. In one study Rasinski cited –
singing 3x a week for 30 min. for 12
weeks with children who were going to be
retained yielded a year’s worth of
progress.
A Few Interesting Tidbits:
4. An international study of factors that
discriminate between highly effective and
less effective schools in literary
achievement found the United States to
rank where in 2nd and 8th grade reading
achievement?
In the top third!
A Few Interesting Tidbits:
4. The top factors of a highly effective
school in this international study were…
1. Parent Involvement
2. Amount of Reading done at Home
3. Amount of Reading done in School
Words Per Minute is only an indicator,
not a recipe for instruction.
What are Rasinski’s components of
effective fluency instruction?
Components of Effective Fluency Instruction
1.Accuracy in Word Recognition
(decoding and vocabulary)
Making and Writing Words- variation of
Pat Cunningham’s Making Words p.23
Word Ladders
Grades 1-3 & Grades 3-6
Components of Effective Fluency Instruction
2. Model Fluent Expressive Oral Reading
for Students
3. Repeated (Practiced) Reading of
Authentic Texts (How do you get students to read something 15 times?)
4. Assisted (Scaffolded) Reading
Components of Effective Fluency Instruction
5. Focus on Phrased Reading
Developing Reading Fluency
6. Be sensitive to text difficulty.
7. Create Synergistic Instructional
Routines.
A strong correlation between quality
of voice fluency and silent reading
comprehension exists.
NAEP Oral Reading Fluency Scale
p. 5
A funny poem for teachers!