Reading Fluency

Of the five components of reading, fluency is the one that seems to take a "backseat" most often when teachers have hectic schedules. Nowadays, we have more and more demands on our time.  When something has to give, it seems like fluency lessons are the ones chosen.

A couple of years ago, I was fortunate to teach in a district that hired a reading consultant that met with my grade level several times a year. We discussed the reading progress of our students.  Dibels was one of the scores we discussed. She told us something interesting that really brought home to me the power of a true balanced literacy program.  She said there are typically 3 times that new students are added to the reading specialist rolls.  In first grade, students who need the support of the reading specialist are lacking phonemic awareness and phonics skills.  In third grade, a new crop of students "suddenly" appear.  These students lack phonics skills needed to decode the more academic language that is presented in third grade. These students were usually sight word readers, often teaching themselves to read before they entered school. As you can imagine, when the 3rd grade teacher tells the parent of an early reader that their child needs additional support in reading, there are questions.  How did this happen? The last "new crop" of students occurs when a student enters middle school. These students can usually decode and comprehend the meaning of words, but their fluency rate is very low.  Middle school students are expected to read vast amounts of material in a short period of time, so even though they can read and comprehend the words, they fall behind in their studies.

The bottom line is a quality program needs balance.  Where do you find more time in an already hectic day?  My answer was to work smarter.  We incorporated some fluency activities during our reading group lessons and added a fluency center.  My students' fluency rate improved when I became more balanced in my approach to reading. 


My fluency center uses 3 minute egg timers.  I didn't have a stop watch or I would have used 1 minute for the time frame.  The handout the partners fill out gives choices for length of time.  I found a dozen timers at Oriental trading for $5.  Here's a picture:

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