Fluency
Title: BIG IDEAS in Beginning Reading
Address: http://reading.uoregon.edu/big_ideas/flu.php
Summary: This website explains what one needs to know about fluency. It lists the fluency skills that students should be able to demonstrate by grade level. Located on the left side of the screen, there is a column of Big Ideas that lists five important elements in fluency. The five elements are: phonemic awareness, alphabetic principle, and fluency with text, vocabulary, and comprehension. For each of the five elements, the website:
Defines it,
Gives research information pertaining to it,
Tells why it is important,
Explains how and when it should be taught,
What to look for in students, and
Lists other related links
Rationale: I included this website under Fluency because it explains the important ideas about reading. This website is very informational on a variety of topics within fluency and is neatly organized so that the information can easily be accessed. This website is a great resource for teachers and anyone who works with children, because of the important information it contains related to fluency.
Title: Wisconsin Literacy Education And Reading Network Source
Address: http://www.wilearns.com/apps/
Summary: This website contains information on teaching kids to read. It explains how reading develops and how to meet the needs of individual students when they are learning to read. This website explains the stages a reader goes through and provides activities for each stage. Struggling readers may be having difficulties for many reasons; this website defines those reasons and provides strategies to help in situations like this.
Rationale: This website is a great resource for teachers because, it gives them ideas on how to help students become successful readers. The activities listed relate to fluency and how to help students become proficient in it. It explains a wide variety of effective activities that can be used in the classroom. This website is one in which teachers can access frequently when they need help or new ideas. It is a resource for teachers because it provides support in teaching the process of reading.
Title: Two Methods for Developing Fluency.
Address: www.readingrockets.org
(Go to at school, then teaching effectively, next scan down to fluency)
Summary: Beginner readers normally do not read fluently. Our goal as a teacher is to encourage decoding words at the instructional level. Besides encouraging, support students understanding by requesting students to decode unknown words rather than guessing from the context. The fluency formula: have students read and reread decodable words. Again, have students decode rather then guess from the context. Reread to master texts. Provide texts at the instructional level that allow students to decode unknown words. Provide a variety of texts that will sustain student interest. One approach that a teacher could use is the direct approach for repeated readings. The teacher provides a book at the instructional level with no more than a 100 words. Unknown words must be decodable. The student reads aloud for one minute and the teacher takes a running record on the speed and not necessarily for accuracy. Emphasizes is on speed at this point. Graphing student progress and showing references like a basketball player closer to a slam dunk will assist with the goal of reading for fluency. Another method is to have student’s pair up and use check sheets. After the teacher explains what fluent and non-fluent reading sounds like, the partners should encourage each other to read fluent instead of reading word-to-word or choppy. No criticism or advice is allowed. Each student will reread the passage two to three times. While the student is reading, their partner will check off from a list of choices one being my partner remembered more words, read faster, read smoother and read with expression. This will be done after the second and third rereading. Besides the direct approach, the teacher can check for fluency through the indirect approach, called sustained silent reading. Students normally choose books for pleasure reading and the students are given the opportunity to discuss the book with other students. Again, we want students to read books and there are normally no interruptions during this time. This will help with comprehension. Even the teacher is reading. The students will not be asked to report what they read. The key points for reading for fluency are children should be allowed to read easy series books, rather than the classics. Also a variety of books should be displayed, within the classroom, so students have access to these books at all times. Teachers can support fluency during read aloud by modeling appropriate reading. Book introductions help students choose books they may want to read.
Rationale: This website is helpful for both the student teacher and classroom teacher who are looking for methods to increase fluency in beginner readers.
Title: 5 Surefire Strategies for Developing Reading Fluency.
Address: www.teacher.scholastic.com/professional/teachstrat/readingfluencystrategies.htm
Summary: Recently the NAEP reported that 45 percent of all fourth graders tested in the United States are not fluent readers. Fluency allows for imagination, humor and drama within books. Without fluency, words just appear in a tangle without expression or meaning. Fluency is the ability to read aloud meaningfully and with understanding. Teachers can help second through fifth graders read more fluent by following several steps. The first step is model fluent reading. Read alouds and exposing students to a wide variety of genres strengthens fluency. Book introductions spark student interest. Teachers that read with expression keep listeners (the students) engaged. Besides modeling fluent reading, repeated readings in class help students to recognize sight words more easily and strengthen their ease of reading. Have students read aloud by practicing with short passages to develop fluency. Short poems are essentially a good choice for this exercise. The teacher reads the poem aloud and models phrasing, rate and intonation while reading. After the teacher is down, the students echo read the poem with the teacher. This is considered choral reading. Students will feel less apprehensive to make a mistake or error if they feel that they are part of a community of readers, rather than standing alone. To read fluently basically entails to read seamlessly. Cue cards, which are sentence strips, can be held up by the teacher and practiced in class during guided reading. Enlisting volunteers, tutors aides to promote fluency is another option teachers can utilize. Positive feedback should be the focus and the practice readings with the volunteers should not be longer than fifteen minutes. The final step a teacher can use within their classroom is to create a reader’s theater. The teacher makes the selection of what script will be read and performed by the students. Next the teacher reads the script aloud. After the teacher reads the script the students read together aloud. The teacher makes the selection of which students will read which lines and then costumes and props are selected for the reader’s theater. Students are encouraged to make eye contact with their audience and to read with expression. Taping the presentation will allow students to see their reading performance and likely increase fluency for future readings.
Rationale: The student teacher and teacher can use this website as an additional guide to assist them with steps on how to increase fluency for second through fifth grade students.
Title: Supporting Fluency through Developing a Bank of Sight Words
Address: http://www.sasked.gov.sk.ca/evergreen/ela/e_literacy/supporting.html
Summary: This site covers details and examples of how sight words can be developed in a classroom through onset & rime, word walls, and high frequency words, as well as providing links to other strategies to develop larger sight vocabulary.
Rationale: One of the most important skills involved in fluent reading is word recognition. While decoding is extremely important, the English language proves that one needs much more than that to be able to read due to the massive amount of exceptions that exist in the rules of the English language. This is where sight words play a huge role. Mere sight recognition is the ultimate goal for fluent readers. Developing effective ways for students to build up their bank of sight words greatly enhances students’ reading abilities in terms of fluency,
Title: All America Reads – Lesson Plans
Address: http://www.allamericareads.org/lessonplan/index.htm
Summary: All America Reads is a collaborative project across the nation established to encourage reading at the secondary level and provide strategies helpful in developing fluency among struggling readers and those reluctant to read. While the site shows only information based on the book read for the year 2001-2002, it has a wealth of information and ideas that can be tailored to any classroom literacy study. The lesson plans listed are specific to Wish You Well by David Baldacci. However, these plans are well formatted allowing for the adaptation of these plans to the book of your choice in order to apply the specific reading strategies. Each plan lists the reading skills it covers, gives an overview of the strategy used, describes the activity, and gives an assessment.
Rationale: Developing fluent readers means developing all of the reading skills. It encompasses so much more than simply being able to pronounce the words. Because of this, it is important to not only provide opportunities for students to practice all of the skills needed for fluent reading using a multitude of strategies, but also to encourage them as readers. This site offers a well-structured lesson plan system for the reading process at all stages (before, during, after). In addition, it is important to continue teaching and further developing reading skills well after a student can simply read and comprehend. This site is geared for those secondary level students who often only get opportunities to read and do not get any further instruction of strategies to continue developing their reading abilities.
Title: The Reading Genie
Address: http://www.auburn.edu/~murraba/
Summary: This website is a compilation of links that take you to research-based instruction in learning to read. It was developed by Dr. Bruce Murray--the Reading Genie—who is an associate professor in the Department of Curriculum and Teaching at Auburn University. One of the specific links deals particularly with how to develop reading fluency (http://www.auburn.edu/~murraba/fluency.html). Dr. Murray specifies, “Fluency means reading faster, smoother, more expressively, or more quietly with the goal of reading silently. Fluent reading approaches the speed of speech.” There is a fluency formula that says: Read and reread decodable words in connected text. It also gives the two general approaches to improving fluency, which are the direct approach that involves modeling and practice with repeated reading under time pressure and the indirect approach that encourages children to read voluntarily in their free time.
Rationale: This website is a wonderful resource for teachers because it has so many links to information involving all aspects of reading. Furthermore, the information can be validated because the research and site were done by a professor at Auburn University. The fluency link gives a concise definition of fluency and the two approaches. It also provides examples on how to use the specified approaches.
Title: Fluency and Fluency Disorders: Discussion Forums and Websites
Address: http://members.tripod.com/Caroline_Bowen/jmk-cb.htm
Summary: This website is a resource tool for teachers that provides a wealth of information on how to access web forums, web discussions, and many helpful websites on the internet. It also provides a list of e-mail contact addresses for someone to e-mail questions or receive information on fluency problems, especially stuttering. It lists newsrooms, chat rooms, search engines, a list of websites that deal strictly with research, on-line journal services dealing with fluency, bibliographies, conferences and conference papers, articles on the topic, as well as websites that offer a product to sell dealing with enhancing fluency.
Rationale: This website is wonderful for teachers because it provides a list of resources for the internet on fluency. Instead of having to search through hundreds of sites to find something on fluency and not even knowing what it is really about before one clicks on it, this website has everything dealing with this topic categorized. Therefore, if one needs a certain type of information such as a pathologist, chat room, or wants to order a journal on fluency, one will know right where to go and will not have to guess at what to search for.
Title: Big Ideas in Beginning Reading
Address: http://reading.uoregon.edu/instruction/oral_read_flu.php
Summary: This site talks mainly about repeated readings and timed readings. It also tells how to partner students for working in teams on timed readings or other reading activities. It states that you must set ambitious goals for the students to strive for and gives examples of some of those goals.
Rationale: This site is included under reading fluency because it provides teachers with an easy plan for practicing oral reading fluency with students.
Title: Teachers Corner: Oral Reading Fluency
Address: http://www.ops.org/reading/fluency.htm
Summary: This site outlines the goals of Reading fluency, who should be practicing reading for fluency, and has links to instructions for teachers on six types of practice for students. Each of the six strategies (Echo reading, Neurological Impress, Choral reading, Predictable language, Taped reading, and Readers Theater) are outlined. The most important note on this site is that practice must be done often, even daily, to be effective.
Rationale: This site is included under reading fluency because it gives teachers many Ideas on how to help their students gain oral reading speed and accuracy.
Title: Reading Fluency
Address: http://www.ves.wpsb.org/focus/fluency.html
Summary: This site described all the aspects of reading fluency. The site gives you definitions, points to remember and also what researchers say about fluency. The information is not given in a long lengthy outline, it is short and to the point. The information kept my attention and was helpful to understand reading fluency. The site also had ways to improve reading fluency, comprehension, and higher order thinking skills when reading.
Rationale: This site is a great resource to use while working on fluency. This site will help teachers improve their student’s fluency while reading, and also give them a better understanding of fluency and how it should be taught.
Title: Ways to help children improve reading fluency and skills.
Address: http://www.dccc.edu/academics/depts/cah/reading/webpag15.htm
Summary: This site contained twenty ways to help children improve reading fluency and skills. The ways listed are very helpful for teachers in the classroom trying to tech reading fluency. The twenty ways listed to help reading fluency I have seen used in classrooms and they work. The site talks about how reading fluency requires that students have skills to adjust to comprehension breakdowns and that they are able to use and think about what they read critically. The site also has links to other great sites about reading fluency.
Rationale: This site is a great resource for teachers. Even though there are many more than twenty ways to teach reading fluency, I believe that these ways are a great start and will be very helpful in the classroom