Elementary Literacy Support

What is fluency?  Fluency is the ability to read text accurately, with appropriate rate and prosody (expression).  Fluent readers recognize words automatically and gain meaning of the text by quickly grouping words together.  When reading aloud, fluent readers have a smooth, natural flow as if they are speaking.  Non-fluent readers trudge through text word by word or in short choppy phrases.

Why is fluency important?  Fluency incorporates word recognition with comprehension. Fluent readers focus on comprehending the text.  Non-fluent readers struggle to decode words, limiting their comprehension.

How can we help students develop fluency?  Provide opportunities for guided oral repeated readings, have explicit phonics instruction, match texts and instruction to individual students, and apply instructional assessment to monitor student progress in both rate and accuracy.  The three areas of fluency instruction are:  teaching, practicing, and assessing.  Check below for lesson ideas:

Houghton Mifflin Fluency Materials

• Story summaries from Teacher’s Resource Blackline Masters
• Story summaries from English Language Learners Handbook
• Leveled Readers, Teacher’s Guide, Pg. 4 oral reading passage
• Teacher Edition (rereading for fluency target skills)

Information and Intervention Sites and material

• Fluency Check Using Garage Band (created by Susan Skrocki, ASD teacher) (PDF)
• National Reading Panel’s fluency page
• Oral Reading Fluency Norms Chart (PDF)
• Reading Rockets, movie clip and articles related to fluency
  
• Florida Center for Reading Research

Reader’s Theater Sites

• Teaching Heart, a place for K- teachers to access free printables, lessons, and more.
  www.teachingheart.net/readerstheater.htm

• Free reader’s theaters scripts adapted from stories written by Aaron Shepard and others.
  www.aaronshep.com/rt/RTE.html

• Literacy Connections’ guides for implementing reader’s theater, listed books with reader’s theater scripts, and sources for scripts online.
  http://www.literacyconnections.com/ReadersTheater.php

• Reader’s Theater Scripts, from children’s literature.  Scroll to the bottom of the page to find the scripts.
  http://www.timelessteacherstuff.com/

Professional Books

From Phonics to Fluency: Effective Teaching of Decoding and Reading Fluency in the Elementary School by Timothy V. Rasinski and Nancy D. Padak   More about this book »

Provides rationale for fluency instruction and strategies to help students become fluent readers. The Fluent Reader: Oral Reading Strategies for Building Word Recognition, Fluency, and Comprehension by Timothy V. Rasinski   More about this book »

Six-Minute Solution Grades K–12 and Intervention K–1 by Gail Adams ME and Sheron Brown MA, MS

* A link to book publishers is provided here in order to read a description of the text; however ASD does not specifically endorse these publishers.