Literacy News

Building Strong Readers and Writers at SKiPPS

Week 6: Fluency – Reading with Accuracy, Speed and Understanding

In previous weeks, we have explored the foundations that support literacy development: oral language, phonological & phonemic awareness, phonics and handwriting. Once students begin to develop their reading skills, the next important step is building fluency.

Fluency is the ability to read accurately, at an appropriate pace and with expression. 

Fluent readers are able to recognise words efficiently, group words together in meaningful phrases and read with a rhythm that sounds like natural language. However, fluency is not simply about reading quickly.

The purpose of developing fluency is to help students move beyond concentrating on individual words so they can focus their attention on understanding the meaning of what they are reading.

Why This Matters for Learning

Reading places demands on working memory. When a reader has to use most of their mental effort trying to work out individual words, there is less capacity available to think about the ideas, information and meaning within the text.

Fluent readers can devote more of their attention to comprehension because the process of reading words has become more automatic.

This is why fluency is such an important link between learning to read and reading to learn.

When students read fluently, they are better able to:

• understand and remember information,
• make connections between ideas,
• think deeply about characters, concepts and themes,
• build knowledge through reading.

Building Fluency Through Practice

Like any skill, reading fluency develops through practice.

Students need regular opportunities to read every day, both independently and with support. Just as musicians improve through repeated practice or athletes improve through training, readers strengthen their skills by spending time reading.

Students also benefit from hearing skilled readers model fluent reading.

When children listen to an adult or another fluent reader, they hear how words, phrases and sentences work together. They build a stronger understanding of how written language sounds.

A great example is the word wasp. If a child hears someone read the word correctly, they are strengthening the memory of how that word is pronounced. The next time they encounter it, they are more likely to recognise it correctly rather than guessing that it says "wosp".

Every accurate reading experience helps build stronger word recognition.

At SKiPPS

At SKiPPS, fluency is intentionally developed through daily reading opportunities, explicit teaching and regular practice.

We use a universal screening tool, DIBELS, to help us understand how students are progressing in key areas of reading. The purpose of this assessment is not simply to produce a score - it helps teachers identify where a student's current strengths are and where additional support may be needed.

Reading development is a little like strengthening a chain. If we identify the link that needs strengthening and provide targeted support, we can help strengthen the learner as a whole. Fluency data helps teachers understand whether students may need additional support with areas such as accuracy, reading rate or automatic word recognition. This information guides our teaching and helps us provide the right support at the right time.

Students practise fluency every day using carefully selected texts, including excerpts from our class novels and knowledge-rich texts connected to Literacy and Humanities.

This means students are not only practising how to read fluently, they are also developing vocabulary, background knowledge and understanding of the world around them.

Literacy Spotlight

Fluency and comprehension are closely connected.

A student who reads every word accurately but very slowly may spend so much effort working out the words that they lose track of the meaning.

A student who reads fluently can focus their attention on understanding, questioning, predicting and thinking deeply about the text.

Fluency allows reading to become a tool for learning.

How You Can Help at Home

Families can support reading fluency by:

• Encouraging daily reading practice.
• Listening to your child read and celebrating their progress.
• Reading aloud to your child, even as they become older readers.
• Discussing interesting words, ideas and information from books.
• Encouraging rereading of familiar texts to build confidence and automaticity.

Remember that children benefit from both:

• reading themselves, which strengthens their skills through practice, and
• hearing others read, which models what fluent reading sounds like.

Every page read helps build stronger readers.

Coming next week:  Vocabulary: Building the Knowledge Needed for Understanding.

Jac Morphy

Assistant Principal - Curriculum and Instruction