Teaching Fluency FAQs

Blast from the Past: This blog entry first appeared on September 29, 2009 and was reposted on July 27, 2024. Usually, I repost a blog when I get a bunch of questions on a topic that I’ve previously written about or when there is some public event that renews its relevance. This is something completely different. It has been quite a while since anyone has asked any questions about fluency instruction. One might assume that means fluency is now being widely and well taught in schools. I have reason to believe that not to be the case. I suspect that with all the current “science of reading” promotion of phonics instruction and the commensurate push back against that on behalf of reading comprehension, that fluency instruction is the last thing on many teachers’ minds. Years ago, Dick Allington called out teachers for neglecting fluency, and we might again be in that situation. I’ve been wanting to write about fluency again for some time, so I decided to update and repost this blog entry. Hope it is a helpful reminder about something very important.


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Here is an FAQ on teaching oral reading fluency:

Do all students need work with fluency? 

For the most part, yes. However, fluency is a relatively constrained reading skill. That means students eventually reach a peak level of fluency, at which point instruction can be discontinued. The higher the grade level you teach, the more likely you’ll have some students who won’t need any additional fluency instruction. If you teach in the elementary grades, it is not likely that you’ll have many students who can read high school level texts with high accuracy, and a reading speed of 150-175 words per minute. If you do, those kids can skip the fluency practice.

What is the point of fluency instruction?

The earliest thinking on fluency came from Carol Chomsky. Her notion was that students who had learned decoding, needed to learn how to implement this knowledge when reading text. This argues for providing both explicit phonics instruction, along with fluency practice. Jay Samuels believed that the point of this instruction was to develop automaticity – the ability to carry out a task successfully without conscious attention, which led to his recommendation for repeated reading, since repetition can lead to that level of proficiency. Later, Joe Torgesen, who was looking at fluency with younger readers and lower performing readers, concluded that the students were mainly memorizing particular words, so he argued for the use of texts with lots of vocabulary repetition across texts. Other scholars have noted the important role that fluency practice plays in the development of prosody or expression – meaning that once student can read the words in text successfully they must make it sound like text, which is entirely a comprehension issue. 

What kinds of teaching improves fluency?

The National Reading Panel concluded that oral reading practice with feedback and repetition was valuable in developing fluency. Providing some kind of guidance in how to parse or chunk sentences – where to pause when reading so the words are grouped appropriately is beneficial, too. 

Our students are getting low scores in reading comprehension. Why aren’t we focusing on that instead of fluency?

Low comprehension scores can mean many things. Perhaps, they signal problems with language (e.g., lousy vocabulary, syntax, cohesion, discourse structure), limited prior knowledge, or just a lack of ability to focus on the right kinds of information. If kids do have those problems, then fluency work is not likely to help. But quite often, the reason for low comprehension is that the students can’t read the text well. In other words, if you want higher comprehension, fluency work can be a powerful road to get there.

How much fluency teaching are we expected to provide?

There is no research that I am aware of that establishes the most effective amount of fluency instruction. However, looking at the studies that have found such practice to improve reading achievement (there are several), I would shoot for about 30 minutes per day – in other words, 25% of the ELA time – but the more fluent my students, the less time I would likely spend.

How do I keep from embarrassing my low readers?

Fluency work is a practice activity, not much different from basketball players shooting free throws prior to a big game. Practice usually isn’t embarrassing, if everyone knows it’s practice. Most students enjoy fluency work. It’s active, involving, and they can see their own improvement. Embarrassment is the result of performance activities like round robin reading, where one student reads, and everyone follows along. Paired situations are much better if they don’t single anyone out. I prefer paired reading with the teacher moving among the groups to monitor progress and to provide essential guidance to both the reader and the listener. It also helps to talk to the class at the very beginning to make sure that they understand the purpose of this practice, and what to expect.

How do I pair the kids?

Don’t make a big deal out of pairing up, as this can be a real time waster. One guideline is to make sure that the students who are working together on a given day are using the same book. That’s easy in most classrooms. A second rule is not to pair the same kids all the time; they differ in their ability to give feedback, so share the wealth. My favorite take on this comes from a teacher who had two class lists and she rolled them into concentric “wheels.” That allowed her to adjust the wheels each day, so that each child had a different partner every day. Very cool.

What kind of texts should we use for fluency?

Many teachers like to select special texts for this work, such as poetry. However, we really want students to become fluent with prose, so practice with prose materials is essential, too. Any material that you are using in class for reading comprehension or in a content subject such as social studies or science are ideal. Remember we are trying to enable students to read these kinds of texts, so having practice with those, makes sense.

I've been told the texts should be easy reading?

Research says the opposite. In repeated oral reading activities, it is more productive to work with texts that are challenging--even frustration level. It takes more rereading, of course, but kids learn more from such practice and are more likely to make progress.

Doesn’t silent reading improve fluency?

Silent reading can contribute to fluency improvement. Kids who read a lot tend to be fluent. Unfortunately, teachers can only be certain if students are fluent by listening to them read. The same can be said for their ability to evaluate the progress and effort students are making. Silent reading can only contribute to progress when students are really reading, and not just looking at pictures, skimming, skipping over unknown words, and turning pages. I insist upon silent reading (in grades 2 and up) for comprehension, and oral reading for fluency work.

How do I know that fluency activities such as paired reading or chunking work?

Nothing works automatically, you make it work. Research studies indicate that the techniques now recommended for teaching fluency have been made to work successfully with a broad range of students. Fluency work will improve students’ ability with the texts they are practicing with, and over time, this ability transfers to the reading of other texts.

I work with very young children. Do you recommend fluency work for them?

When children are first getting started with real reading, you want them to be somewhat disfluent. That is, you want the reading to go slowly enough that each word stands out on its own. Fingerpoint reading is the starting point. However, once students begin to read, the fluency goal is the same as with older children.

When you observe in classes, what are the biggest problems that you see with fluency instruction?

The biggest problem is that teachers often fail to teach fluency at all, and students fall further and further behind as the texts get harder. Another problem is the reliance on round robin reading, which is a real time waster compared with paired reading. Finally, even when teachers do have students work on fluency, there often is little or no repetition, so the students do not necessarily become fluent (they just read the material aloud and then move on).

How much rereading makes sense?

There have been two schools of thought on this. Some researchers specify a specific number of readings, and some specify a target level of performance with students reading the text repeatedly – however many times it takes – until they achieve it. The research these days seems to favor those who argue for no more than three readings. Students may not be perfect by that point, but they will have made the major amount of improvement that they are likely to see. Given that, move on to another text.

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