We are often contacted by teachers and parents who are concerned about children's reading fluency - what does fluent reading sound like? Are children reading the right stage book? When should they sound fluent?
Fluency is an ongoing developing skill that requires strong word reading skills, modelling and lots of practice over time. In the past, when teaching with predictable levelled texts, we probably thought of fluency differently. Children were memorising common words and guessing other words using cues, such as pictures. The aim from the beginning was speed and expression, even over accuracy. If children read a word that was 'close enough for them to get the gist' we might have kept reading so as not to interrupt the flow, and been okay with that.
With Little Learners Love Literacy® our understanding of fluency and therefore our expectations of fluency are different. This blog aims to give you some information and support - exploring what fluency is and which LLLL teaching routines and activities will help children develop fluency.
Fluency is core to being an effective reader - it is required for comprehension, and comprehension is required for fluency - both are very closely linked.
What is fluency?
Fluency is the ability to read connected text accurately
at a conversational rate with appropriate prosody
(Hudson, Lane, Pullen, 2005).
Reading fluency is product of several things:
1. Accuracy – decoding to read words correctly. Fluent readers read the vast majority of words without errors. Accuracy is achieved through systematic synthetic phonics explicit instruction. In Foundation and Year 1 children are also tracking their finger underneath the text as they read to avoid omissions.
2. Automaticity – automatic processing of words to enable reading at a conversational pace. Fluent reading is not laboured. Automaticity is achieved through orthographic mapping, which only occurs when children have decoded a word several times.
3. Prosody – reading with appropriate expression. This might include pitch, volume, emphasis and pausing. The reader takes information from the text to do this, such as punctuation and syntax, vocabulary, knowledge of the content and the genre. Fluent reading is not monotone and it isn't too slow - it sounds natural and appropriate.
Why is fluency important?
Fluent reading is skilled reading.
Fluency is strongly linked to reading comprehension. When children read fluently, they can focus on understanding the text they have read because they have read it accurately and automatically at a natural rate. Children need strong phonics and phonemic awareness skills to do this.
Additionally, children with a good knowledge of the vocabulary used in the text, as well as some relevant background knowledge of the content and genre, will be able to interpret the text as they read, which informs prosody. Prosody both informs and demonstrates reading comprehension.
Instructional routines for building fluency
Accuracy is achieved through systematic synthetic phonics instruction.
First and foremost, children must be able to read with accuracy. Teaching systematic synthetic phonics through the Little Learners Love Literacy® program is the best way to ensure children have the skills and knowledge to decode words accurately. Teachers can use the LLARS assessment to check progress and diagnose gaps in knowledge before addressing those gaps with additional teaching via tier 2 intervention.
Automaticity is built through repeated decoding of words.
And then children must become automatic in their word reading before they can be fluent.
Practice, practice, practice! A priority on practice in the classroom is key to becoming automatic. Learning to read can be a slow and sweaty process - lots of repetition is key - in your literacy block, interleaved throughout the school day and at home. Scaffold children by working at word, phrase and sentence level before tackling connected text.
Activity: daily speed words
Daily revision - you will already be starting your literacy block with speed sounds and chants to revise phoneme grapheme correspondences, but are you also reading words as part of your revision routine? Decode 5-10 words together, and then do a speed round - automatic reading only. You can select the words from the Read and Grab Word Game card sets (word lists here). All words used should revise previously taught phoneme-grapheme correspondences - no new content.
Activity: decoding games
Key to becoming a fluent reader is accurate and increasingly automatic word reading – LLLL games and other activities in the Little Learners toolkit will support this AND engage your learners.
Read and Grab Word Game: Repeated decoding of single words in through a competitive card game. Find out more.
Bingo Games: Repeated decoding of single words through a fun game of bingo! Find out more.
Tim's Quiz: Decode short questions and debate the silliest answers! Find out more.
Activity: decoding and encoding routines
At Little Learners Love Literacy® we are huge advocates of teaching reading and spelling together. Spelling is more cognitively demanding than reading, really testing and building mastery of the alphabetic code - and all of our spelling routines also include reading practice. Some of these activities include:
Read, write and draw- Sound swap word game
- Super spelling
- Sound and write
- Let's spell
- Let's write dictation
Activity: partner reading (fluency pairs)
Speed words: Little Learners decodable books include a page of decodable speed words in the back of the book. We also share these as pdfs for printing in our free downloads. Children can read these to their partner for additional practice.
Lucky dip: Children can read words or sentences to their partner using the Read, Write and Draw cards or teacher-made cards (based on Let's write). The partner can write down the dictated word/sentence. Both children check the spelling against the card and read it back to check for errors. Partners swap roles.
Decodable books: Take it in turn reading a double-page spread each. Partners support one another to decode unfamiliar words.
Prosody is achieved through repeated oral reading.
Once word reading is fairly accurate and automatic at a particular LLLL stage, children can focus on expression, or prosody. Vocabulary instruction and understanding of punctuation is key to building prosody, as is repeated read aloud.
Activity: Read aloud
Teachers and parents can model fluent reading when they regularly read text above the child's reading level TO them - picture books, stories, poems and all kinds of texts!
This is different to echo reading whereby the adult reads some text fluently and then the children read the text. If you try echo reading, ensure the text is decodable for the child.
Activity: Small group reading - modelling, coaching, choral reading
Reading with children in small groups in the classroom provides a fantastic opportunity for teachers to model fluency and coach fluency. Read more about small group reading and how to do it here.
What stage book should you be using with your small group reading group?
We often get asked what stage book should children read in their small group sessions - how fluent should children be when they are reading the stage that is right for them? Fluency is an ongoing skill, so we don't expect children to be fluent when they read in small groups. We expect them to be developing fluency with coaching from the teacher. At Stages 1-4 we don't expect children to read with fluency at all.
The book isn't the best choice if:
- you haven't explicitly taught the whole class the phonemes and graphemes used within the book.
- children struggle to decode the listed speed words.
- children need to decode most of the words. Decoding is the best strategy for reading unknown words - but if the reading of the book is extremely slow and laboured then children need more practice at word and sentence level. You may look at using a lower stage book in your group session.
The book is a good choice if:
- you have taught all PGCs used in the book explicitly to the whole class.
- children can apply that taught knowledge to read single words, such as the speed words.
- children can read some words automatically.
- children can employ techniques (supported by the teacher) to re-read sentences for improved fluency and comprehension (for meaning).
Read more about small group reading here.
Activity: Performance
Ask children to read their text aloud to the class or group following their partner reading practice.
Activity: Repeated oral reading of decodable books
Do not be afraid to ask your students to read their decodable book several times - each time they read, they gain confidence, fluency and increased understanding. Reading lots of books within the LLLL stage will also help - they have been written with similar word counts, vocabulary, and sentence structures and provide lots of opportunities for children to build fluency.
Ways to re-read your decodable book (after reading with the teacher in a small group reading session) include:
- partner reading
- independent reading with apps - the Little Learners decodable book apps have audio support and recording functionality, which can be helpful for fluency development
- independent reading with books
- using My Word Detective Book
- take home reading - reading to family (or maybe even a pet dog!) Taking decodable books home for practice is a good way to build children’s fluency and confidence.
Assessing fluency
A fluent reader is an expert reader. Even literate adults may struggle with oral fluency when presented with an unfamiliar text with complex structure, unfamiliar technical vocabulary and content. In the first
two years of school, children will build foundational skills and experience - they will work hard to master the alphabetic code, hone their decoding skills and orthographically map an increasing number of words for automatic recall. If these foundations are strong and fluency is being addressed in the classroom (in ways as described above) then children's reading should become fluent from Year 2 onwards and will continue to develop through primary school and beyond.
Assessing with the LLARS
The Little Learners Assessment of Reading Skills (LLARS) assesses phoneme-grapheme knowledge, single-word decoding skills, and reading unseen decodable stories. It is primarily focussed on phonics knowledge as this is the foundation for success in the early years. However, the unseen texts (LLARS subtest 4) provide scope to assess:
|
LLARS Assessment Subtest 4 Mark |
LLARS Assessment Subtest 4 Elaboration |
|
| Accuracy | Target Level Y/N | Children must read 90-95% of a text accurately to be fluent. How many words were read correctly from the text (both decoded and automatic)? Students must reach the target level, which is provided on the teacher sheet for each text. Target level is 90% or above. |
| Automaticity | % words read automatically | How many words were read automatically? A fluent reader will read the majority of words automatically. See the Fluency Observation sheet for further guidance. |
| Fluency | Teacher judgement: F (fluent), D (developing), B (beginning) | Accuracy and automaticity are required for fluency. In addition to this is pace and prosody. See the Fluency Observation sheet for further guidance. |
| Comprehension | Score out of 2 | Two simple comprehension questions check students' literal comprehension of the text. If Target Level wasn't met and fluency was low, children may struggle to answer these questions. If they did meet target level and fluency was marked as developing, this may flag some other potential issues for the student - vocabulary perhaps (EAL?), or maybe attention or language disorders. |
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The Little Learners Assessment of Reading Skills does not include a fluency reading rate assessment. Instead, it asks you to make a teacher judgement. We have created an observation sheet that may be useful to teachers unsure about fluency and/or for consistency of teacher judgement.
These forms are included in the free LLARS download here:
Expectations
Fluency is a developing skill. No fluency is expected at Stages 1-4 of the LLARS. Developing fluency is expected through Stages +4-7.4. Benchmark expectations for the Little Learners Love Literacy® program can be found here.
We hope this blog has been useful. Please don't hesitate to contact us if you have concerns and/or questions.