Literacy,

Leora Heitlinger 

Literacy Learning Specialist.

Good afternoon CJC community.

Our next chapter in the ‘Big 6’ adventure is FLUENCY.

Fluency is comprised of 3 components.

• Accuracy
• Rate
• Prosody (Expression)

Fluency is strongly related to reading comprehension and is a by-product of a person’s sight vocabulary.

• Reading Fluency has a qualitative definition, referring to the quality of the student’s reading. This includes the use if rhythm, phrasing, intonation, naturalness, and use of voice (for different characters/ moods);
• Reading fluency also has a quantitative definition, referring to the accuracy (number of errors, compared to number of correct words read) and the rate (number of words per minute).

How does Fluency relate to reading?

When successful, students…

• read smoothly (like talking).
• use punctuation to pause and adjust intonation.
• alter their tone and expression to suit the character or mood of the text.
• read more words in the time provided and
• have greater opportunities to improve their reading skills (vocabulary, general knowledge and comprehension).

When struggling with fluency students…

• Are unable to complete the reading of texts in the time provided.
• Read through punctuation or pause at incorrect times.
• Struggle to comprehend a text accurately due to reading slowly or stopping at incorrect places,

For example, “Let’s eat, Grandpa!”

TEACHING TIPS

Keep up the read aloud books online (Wushka, Epic, Reading Eggs/Express)

Explicitly teach aspects of fluency through modelled reading and think alouds.

Teachers will engage students in shared reading of a text. Students read along.

Encourage repeated reading of short familiar texts. Poems are great for this.

Students can record themselves, read to a family member or the family pet.

HAPPY READING!

Leora Heitlinger