Reading Fluency

           When it comes to fluency, there is not one universally agreed-upon definition. Overall, most definitions include accuracy, speed/rate, and prosody acting as a “bridge” to comprehension. Before reading these articles, I honestly did not know how to define fluency for myself. After reading I found that I agree with Theresa A. Deeney who believes that our understanding of fluency should be broadened rather than narrowed. Researchers have progressively decreased their main focus to accuracy and rate. I completely agree with her statement because when it comes to someone, especially a child, being a fluent reader there should be a lot more focus on other areas rather than just rate and accuracy. I also found that I agree with a statement made by Timothy Rasinski. He states that developing fluency in reading requires practice. I agree with this because when a child first learns to read they are reading word by word and not comprehending as they go. This is normal for beginning readers, but it is the teacher’s job to help the student have great progress over the year. Overall, I found that fluency is extremely important and can make a huge impact on a child’s reading ability.

            In the article, “One-Minute Fluency Measures: Mixed Messages in Assessment and Instruction Deeney discusses one-minute fluency measures and their possible effects on students. One point that Deeney brought up that really hit home for me was about endurance. She states that endurance can be a significant stumbling block for struggling readers. This hit home for me because I can read a book no longer than an hour and a half. When I hit that point my speed slows down and I am no longer able to comprehend what I am reading. Elementary school is when most students learn to read and a good percent of these students do not enjoy reading. I believe that as a teacher it is important to help each student increase their accuracy rate so the students can read, while understanding, for a longer period of time. When it comes to a one-minute fluency measures I know that they can help identify the students who can not read accurately and quickly, but some students can get away with coming off as fluent when they really are not. In my opinion there are more negative results of one-minute measures than positive results. Yes I do believe that one-minute measures should be used, but there should be other assessments given to truly know if a student is reading fluently. For example, I liked the RTI approach where the students are measured at the beginning of the week and then at the end. I like this approach because the student gets the practice he or she needs and we are able to see progression with the help of practice.

            In the second article, “Creating Fluent Readers”, Rasinski discusses dimensions of reading fluency and ways to assess and teach these different dimensions. The dimensions that Rasinski identified are accuracy in word decoding, automatic processing, and prosodic reading. After reading through his article I related his beliefs to modeling. He states that students need to hear what fluent reading sounds like and how fluent readers interpret text with their voices. I completely agree with this statement because I am a believer of students learning by example. Some students may not use dialect in their voice therefore not use prosodic reading. Students who have not been read to out loud before would not know that you could understand text better when using inflection and dialect in your voice. All readers struggle in different area therefore it is important that the teacher uses different assessments to help the students with their difficulties. Overall, students need to know what fluency is in order to know what level they are reading on.
           Chapter 4 does a great job of explaining the value in fluency and many different instructional strategies that teachers can use to help their students with reading fluency. One thing that did not surprise me was the definition in the book because I read this chapter after I had read the articles. The books definition fluency is the ability to read most words in context quickly and accurately with appropriate expression. This definition strongly relates to the two articles. One this that surprised me the most in the article was how much the fluency rate increases across grade levels. I did not know that progression in rate from one grade to the next was significantly high. One detail that the book mentions is the use of a word wall. Every lower grade elementary classroom that I have been in had a word wall. I feel like students can really benefit from a word wall and it is important for a teacher teaching a lower grade to have one. Overall, I learned that measuring reading fluency is crucial for everyone no matter how old you are.