What is reading fluency

Konza, D. Understanding the process of reading: The big six. Raban Eds , Growing up literate:Australian literacy research for practice pp. South Yarra, Vic. Rasinski, T. Reading fluency: what it is and what it is not. Farstrup Eds. Our website uses a free tool to translate into other languages. This tool is a guide and may not be accurate.

For more, see: Information in your language. You may be trying to access this site from a secured browser on the server. Please enable scripts and reload this page. Skip to content. Page Content. Reading fluency is an important focus of literacy teaching, and can be thought of in two different but complementary ways: Reading fluency has a qualitative definition, referring to the quality of students' reading.

The case for fluency It is an important goal for children to become accurate, efficient, and therefore fluent readers. Theory to practice Early readers spend much of their attention and effort on decoding words, which will inevitably affect their speed and efficiency.

They also learn to draw visual images based on the text and benefit from exposure to a wider vocabulary than they may currently access during independent reading.

As adults read aloud, they may also model how to approach various passages from different genres with purpose: for enjoyment and for learning. To support students in reading with appropriate fluency, it is important to listen to students read aloud.

Of course, using ORF assessments to monitor student progress and inform instruction is valuable. Additionally, students need multiple opportunities to read aloud without it becoming a rote task.

Providing self-reflection scales, partner feedback forms, and fluency rubrics can support positive feedback and document growth. When one strives to become skilled in a new activity, they do not immediately participate at the highest or most elite levels.

The same applies to developing as a fluent reader. Extensive reading develops fluency in coordination with skilled word recognition and oral language development alongside listening to reading and reading aloud. Given the opportunity to reread passages, practicing once a day over the course of a week, students improve accuracy and overall fluency. For example, in repeated and timed readings, students use the same short passage to improve accuracy and prosody. Prosodic elements include pitch high and low tone of voice , volume soft or loud voice , speed fast or slow , and phrasing short or long pauses between words and groups of words.

Students will infer meaning from each of these. By providing purposes for rereading, such as the performance, children revisit the original text and work with peers to not only affirm their understanding but rework and practice to develop fluency to be audience-ready.

They have developed the knowledge and skills to recognize words automatically, accurately, and quickly. Fluency is the link between recognizing words and understanding them. Effective reading programs teach fluency skills, so that readers can make the link between words, sounds, and meaning more quickly.

This means that the reader can focus on the higher-order reading goals. For a fluent reader, "multiple tasks are being performed at the same time, such as decoding the words, comprehending the information, relating the information to prior knowledge of the subject matter, making inferences, and evaluating the information's usefulness to a report he or she is writing" i.

People who are not fluent readers spend a lot of mental energy on decoding text, recognizing individual words, and then trying to string them together for meaning. In complex texts, fluency is required to be able to comprehend the subject matter, not just read the words.

As reading is still the main mode of transmitting new information in a majority of educational environments, reading fluency is important for learning in all subjects. Reading ability is built upon the "integration of all the following skills via explicit instruction in: phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary knowledge, and text comprehension.

Explicit instruction is how we learn these skills but it is practice, practice, practice which creates the automaticity we require for fluency. And that means a lot of reading practice. Support children in their reading lessons, at school, in homework, or online. Help them understand how English is put together. Assist them in learning sight words, spelling lists, and new vocabulary. Celebrate their achievements in language learning.

Encourage them to keep reading. Make time for guided reading. This is where the child reads out loud to an adult who is actively listening and helping the child improve their reading skills. Reading aloud benefits fluency as the reader needs to be able to present the text with proper oral expression, which requires comprehension of the text.

Discuss how the English language is put together, the rules and inevitable exceptions. At the end of a text they should foster conversation to see if the child has comprehended what they read.