With so much visual media around us like iPads, smart phones, television, and the computer, often there is no incentive for young students to read regularly. I mean, why read when you can watch it as a movie? Right?
Reading is meant to be enjoyable; a peaceful respite from the world of motion twirling around us. And in order for a reader to immerse themselves into the story and the characters, they need to be able to read fluently.
One of the simplest ways to determine if reading fluently is difficult for students, is to follow the obvious signs. Struggling readers:
- read too slowly – painfully slow
- often hesitate in the middle of reading
- reread what has already been read (because the thread of the meaning has been lost)
- are unsure how to pronounce unfamiliar words
Most poor readers have stopped learning to read at the word stage and are hindered in the text stage. Fluent readers read, not the individual words, but groups of words – sentences – that have meaning not contained in the individual words. This can be a tough concept to grasp.
Listed here are three great ideas to help your students become more fluent readers.
1. Use a pointer, such as a pencil or index finger, and move it along the line that is being read. Instruct the students to keep the pointer moving steadily, without stopping or hesitating. Additionally they need to train their eyes to follow the pointer. Gradually increase the speed of the pointer. As students run across words that they do not understand, have them look up the words in the dictionary for both meaning and pronunciation after they have finished reading the passage.
2. In reading practice always ask the student to read aloud. Just reading silently, or listening to someone else reading, is not sufficient. This exercise is designed to help students become more aware of both the sound and sight of the words; and the moduality of their voice, as it stores both together in their memory.
3. Ask a fluent reader to choose a page or two from a novel, or an article from a newspaper, and ask them to record it – reading normally. Next replay the recording and have the struggling reader read the same passage and try to emulate the same fluency as the good reader – pace, pronunciation, punctuation, intonation, emphasis, pauses etc.
Researchers are learning that fluent or ‘fast’ reading utilizes a neural ‘expressway’ to process words. This ‘fast reading area’ of fluency is different from the slow phonologic processing pathways used by beginning readers.
With fluent reading, a quick look at the word activates a stored neural model that allows not only ‘fast’ reading but also includes correct pronunciation and understanding of the word.
Fluent reading is established after the individual reads the word at least four times using accurate phonologic processing (slow accurate sounding out).
In order to process words phonologically, students must be given systematic phonics instruction to help build those neural pathways. When an individual uses the correct phonological processing pathways to sound out words, then true fluency is begins to occur.
Reading Horizons provides decoding skills to help children, young adults, and adults go beyond memorizing the visual representation of a word the reading system delivers the right tools to help struggling readers accelerate their learning.
What classroom activities do you use to improve reading fluency?