Why is fluency important?

Reading fluency is considered the bridge between two essential components of reading – word reading and comprehension. This relationship is reciprocal:

• A fluent reader can decode text automatically and can focus their attention on comprehending what they read (Pikulski & Chard, 2005).
• In the nonfluent reader, weak word recognition slows the process and uses resources needed for comprehension (National Reading Panel, 2000).
• Students who score lower on fluency also score lower on comprehension (Jenkins et al., 2003).
• Reading fluency, especially prosody, depends on comprehension. For example, to read a text with appropriate expression, students need to be able to understand the text first (Groen et al., 2018).  

Oral Reading Fluency Measures

The mandatory reading screening for Grade 2 includes a timed measure of Oral Reading Fluency. This is a quick one-minute assessment that measures how many words a student can read correctly in a minute. While this assessment may be new and may seem less thorough than the running record assessments we may have used in the past, these measures are more accurate and efficient.

If you are curious about why we are shifting away from reading levels and moving toward these shorter fluency measures, please take a moment to read Reconsidering Reading Levels.

For students who are flagged at risk during screening, you can use our Making Sense of Screening Decision Tree to identify areas that need further assessment and intervention.

Explicit Fluency Instruction

For all students, you can incorporate daily routines that support fluency development. Here are a some important components of effective repeated reading instruction:

1. Set a Goal:
It is helpful to set goals for students to increase the number of words read correctly per minute by 10% from the initial read to the final read. Consider sharing these goals with students. Students knowing their goals and tracking their progress can be very motivating.

2. Modeling:

Students do better when they hear a skilled model of the text prior to repeated reading. The model can be done by the teacher, a more skilled peer, or on audio recording (this is often referred to in the intervention literature as listening passage preview).

3. Practice:
“Students do best when they reread the same section of a passage five times, although rereading three times also has been shown to be effective.” (Stollar, 2020). The primary focus for all readers should be accuracy first. Once accuracy is achieved, additional goals focused on pace and/or expression can be integrated into the fluency work.

4. Corrective Feedback:
Students do better when they have goals and error correction. It is helpful for the teacher or peer to supply the word after an error or three second hesitation. Practicing decoding words that are read incorrectly also improves the effectiveness of repeated reading.

5. Strategic Partners:
Students who practice with a teacher make more improvement than those who practice with a peer. Using a peer who is a stronger reader is equally as effective as using a peer at the same reading level.

Oral Reading Routines

Repeated reading is a well-researched instructional routine with a series of timed reads, but practicing oral reading can be used across the day with a variety of texts, including within content areas. See the table below for some examples of ways to mix up oral reading with your students.