Materials: Short funny text with rhythm like poems in the Independent Level
Parents and Teachers: Help your children/students become fluent readers by:
1. Provide them with models of fluent reading. Find someone to read to the children if you are not a fluent reader. Allowing the voice to go down and up (vary the pitch) enthusiastically at appropriate times during the reading exercise would be the perfect way to model reading. For example, the reader should allow her voice to rise at the end if the question is being read. For example, “Is this enough?” it should read as if the reader were asking someone the question in person. The voice will rise on the last word because it is a question after all.
2. Ask children/students to read passages repeatedly while you offer guidance. They should practice reading passages until they can read them as the model did, assuming the model is an adequate reader. Don’t let someone model reading unless that person is a proficient reader. A child’s interest in learning to read can be hampered by an inadequate reader.
3. Model fluent reading. Ask the children to reread the text once the text has been modeled. By doing this, students are engaging in repeated reading. Rereading a text four times is usually enough to improve fluency. Rhythm text and/or poems is a good option for this activity. It is the actual time students actively spend reading that produces reading gains. Use text that is interesting to the child and contains 100-200 words.
By listening to appropriate models of fluent reading, students learn how a reader’s voice can make sense of written text. I cannot stress enough the importance of reading aloud to children/students every day. By reading effortlessly and with expression, you are modeling and teaching what a fluent reader sounds like while reading.
Ask the children to reread the text once the text has been modeled. By doing this, students are engaging in repeated reading. Rereading a text four times is usually enough to improve fluency. It is the actual time students actively spend reading that produces reading gains.
Encourage parents or other family members to read aloud to their children at home. As children/students listen to various models of fluent readers, they are exposed to many ways a reader can sound. You will soon see that some sound more interesting than others or that some bring the text to life more than others. A reader that comes to life and holds children’s attention is generally what children would like to sound like when they spend time reading.
Additionally, students improve their fluency by combining reading instruction with opportunities to read books that are at their independent level of reading ability. Books that are at a child’s independent level will require minimal assistance from a parent/teacher. (see the three levels of text readability below)
Readability levels
Independent level text: this type of text is easy to read with about 1 in 20 words difficult for the reader (95% success rate)
Instructional Level Text – This type of text is difficult to read but manageable with about 1 in 10 words difficult for the reader (90% success rate)
Frustration Level Text: This type of text is too difficult to read with more than 1 in 10 difficult words for the reader (less than 90% success rate)