Reading fluency is a person's ability to read rapidly, with accuracy and with proper expression, according to Reading Rockets, a project funded by a grant from the U.S. Department of Education's Office of Special Education Programs. Children who read fluently are able to understand what they read whether they read it aloud or silently. Reading fluency is an important key to success in their scholastic endeavors and in everyday life.
Significance
Children who don't read fluently are hesitant readers who struggle to identify and sound out words. This gives them little opportunity to focus on comprehending their reading material, according to Education.com. All these children manage to accomplish is verbalizing a list of words rather than absorbing any information from them.
Signs of Poor Fluency
Your child might have fluency problems if: she can read words but she takes a long time to read a short passage silently, she reads aloud with little to no expression, she stumbles over her words and loses her pace when she's reading aloud, she reads aloud slowly and she moves her mouth when she reads silently, according to Reading Rockets. Her teacher may notice that she's having fluency problems if her results on accurate words-per-minute tests are under the targeted benchmark or grade level, says Reading Rockets.
Fluency Tips for Parents
Ask your child's teacher about her assessment of your child's word decoding skills. If she thinks your child can decode words well, you can help your child build reading speed and accuracy by: asking him to match his voice to your voice when you read aloud; asking him to practice reading lists, phrases and short passages several times, and reminding him to pause between his sentences and phrases, says Reading Rockets.
Fluency Tips for Teachers
Assess your student to rule out the possibility that she's having trouble recognizing or decoding words, says Reading Rockets. You will need to address her decoding skills as well as her reading speed and phrasing if decoding is also a problem. To help her with reading fluency, Reading Rockets suggests that you: give her independent level texts that she can practice over and over; time her reading and calculate accurate words-per-minute on a regular basis; ask her to read a short passage right after you read it; and develop lessons that teach your students how to focus on text clues, such as punctuation marks, that will give them information on how to read the text.
Reading Fluency Game
A game that will make reading fluency fun for your child involves a recording device and a short reading selection. First, find a selection or passage your child enjoys. Make sure it is between 50 and 200 words long and that it is difficult enough for your child to read and comprehend, but too difficult for him to read fluently, suggests Education.com. Then, tape him or ask him to tape his first oral reading and have him read the passage at least four times until he can read it fluently. Finally, have him tape one more reading and ask him to hear the difference between the first and last reading. Applaud his success.
