June 9th Reading

Before doing the readings assigned for this week, I was not aware of the term 'fluency readers.'  This reading has broadened my horizons and ultimately made me realize a new aspect of learning how to read.  In the first article that I read discussed the one-minute fluency assessments; this was also the first time that I have heard about this term.  I do not remember doing these types of assessments when I was in elementary school; I do however remember during first grade our teacher would take time out of the day for a small group of us to read to her once a week, and even though she did write some things down about what she observed, I do not believe I was participating in a one-minute fluency assessment.

This article has allowed me to have mixed feelings on this particular assessment, however in my opinion the negatives outweight the positives unfortunatley.  I do understand that it is a good tool to help assess which students may be at risk for reading difficulty, however what I took away from the article is that there is not one specific way to determine this.  In the article various researchers educated the reader on their own definitions of fluency, and these definitions were all different.  The Literacy Dictionary states that fluency consists of four components: accuracy, rate or speed, prosody, and comprehension.  Where this definition is made of several different aspects, Torgesen argued that fluency is only measured by two components: accuracy and rate.  I agree with the Literacy Dictionary definition because I feel that several different components need to be measured in order to determine how accurately a child is fluent in reading.

The article then discussed fluency as a deeper view; this part of the article is where I found myself agreeing the most.  I feel that how we understand a child's fluency should not be narrow, but instead broad.  I also feel that by assessing a child for 60 seconds is not allowing the teacher to fully determine how well the child can read; like the article says, the child needs to develop endurance when reading.  I do feel that endurance can be worked on by having the child read longer texts for longer periods of time.  Even though I am not in full agreeance with the one-minute fluency assessment, I do realize that some teachers may not have a choice based on the school that they are teaching at.  These teachers should, however, educate themselves fully on these types of assessments.  The article provides the reader with two steps to follow in order to ensure they are taking away the most from the one-minute assessments.  The reader is also instructed on what exactly to do to instruct the child on fluency and endurance.  In my opinion, one of the most important suggestions the reading provided was to reread books.

In the Creating Fluent Readers article, it stated that rereading helps children to develop automaticity and prosodic reading.  "Students need to hear what fluent reading sounds like and how fluent readers interpret text with their voices" (Rasinski, p. 48).  By the teacher reading the story to the children, modeling prosodic reading, the children will then develop prosodic reading skills as they reread the text.  I feel that teachers should also have the children reread a story, because as I learned from the article, in order for children to develop fluency in their reading, they must practice.  "Research indicates that repeated readings lead not only to improvement in decoding, reading rate, prosodic reading, and comprehension of passages that the reader has not previously seen" (Rasinski, p. 48).  I also felt the article presented several good ideas that teachers can implement in their classroom, for example turning their room into a poetry cafe in order to help the children develop their fluency in reading. 

The reading from the Cunningham text, Chapter 4, also provides teachers with great ideas in order to increase reading fluency.  I like the idea of turning a story that the whole class finds enjoyable into a play by using the Readers' Theatre format; I know as a child I was always amused by acting out my favorite movies or by playing pretend.  I feel this is a great way to help children develop fluency while being creative and engaging in books.  I also think that the sections on the choral and echo reading are useful, and made me think back to the video that we watched previously in class where the teacher was doing just this while using a big book to ensure that every child could follow along. 

The section on recorded reading was also interesting.  Last semester one of my classes actually had to pick a book and do a recording of it for a Head Start classroom.  Looking back I realize how much emphasis I put on being expressive, I did not think that this could help children increase their fluency skills.  I also like the idea of recording you and your students as you read a book together; I feel that this makes the children feel important to know that they all had a part in creating the recording.  I also find the idea of the word wall to be helpful, and feel that putting the words on different colors of paper would be extremely helpful to the children.  However, I think that a word wall is only helpful if you use it; by creating the word wall together and using it throughout the day, for example while singing a song that incorporates the words, the children increase their reading fluency with the words that may be giving them the most difficulty.

This reading has definitely educated me on the topic of reading fluency.  There are so many different aspects that make up how a child learns to read and become fluent.  For example, I never considered how a child learns to read with expression, where to pause in a sentence for emphasis, or reading with the correct punctuation.  As I began to read the articles, I became overwhelmed that I would not know how to instruct my future students in the classroom on reading fluency.  However, I now feel more prepared and also have gathered several interesting ideas that will increase fluency in my future classroom.