Building Fluency

“Fluency is more than just automatic word recognition; it requires the ability to read with proper phrasing, intonation and stress.”

“Fluency is the ability to read rapidly, smoothly, without many errors, and with appropriate expression.”

       The Graves text introduces several ways to help students become more fluent in literacy. Teachers reading aloud to students, students setting literacy goals, and students reading in a comfortable environment are some of the few methods that teachers can use to improve student literacy. The graves text describes many different methods that may also help with fluency such as repeated reading, echo reading, partner reading radio reading and many more. As you all may remember, we practiced some of these methods in class. Some of them were really difficult to do. My group had the radio reading method and we discovered that that strategy was very difficult to do with our book. After describing the different methods that could improve student literacy, assessing a reader’s fluency is then discussed. In the Graves text, it is written that when assessing fluency; rate, accuracy, expression, and comprehension are some of the components that should be looked at closely.

             I really liked the “The Poetry Academy “article. I think that the program at this particular school was very good because students were using literacy strategies to improve their fluency in literacy. To many people poetry is viewed as being fun and creative. I therefore think that these students were having fun and improving their reading skills at the same time. Poems were assigned to students that focused on where they needed to improve the most. The graves text mentions that environment and pressure can definitely have an effect on fluency progress. This is another reason why I think that these students were doing very well because the environment in which they were practicing was fun and light.