Literacy

What's Different in Literacy this Year?

This year at St Joseph’s, the whole school is embracing a new model of reading instruction.  This model, Paired Fluency Reading, has been endorsed by experts in the Science of Learning.

What happens during Paired Fluency Reading?

Students are paired with other students and take turns reading to each other for one minute.  After each read, students swap over and re-read the same text.  After three turns each, they stop and give each other feedback.  They also help each other out with difficult words along the way.

What are the benefits?

• It encourages cooperation and supports peer-assisted learning..
• It provides feedback to students when they misread a word.
• Hearing a partner read fluently serves as a great model for pronunciation, pacing and expression.
• Reading the same text more than once allows the student to improve each time.  For example:
  • First Read - learning how to decode all the words
  • Second Read - now that they know most of the words, they can concentrate on using the punctuation to pause appropriately
  • Third Read - students can concentrate on reading expressively and at a good rate

The children have adapted to this style easily and it's great to note the improvement from their first read to their third.