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FluencyInvention

Page history last edited by Jrleggett 12 years, 4 months ago

 

 

 

By: Diana Melendez and Jessica Kinkade

July 17,2006 for RED6747

 

What is Fluency?

 

Fluency is the ability to read text accurately and quickly. Fluency bridges word decoding and comprehension.

 

 

In its beginnings, reading fluency is the product of the initial development of accuracy and the subsequent development of automaticity in underlying sublexical processes, lexical processes, and their integration in single-word reading and connected text. These include perceptual, phonological, orthographic, and morphological processes at the letter-, letter-pattern, and word-level; as well as semantic and syntactic processes at the word-level and connected-text level. After it is fully developed, reading fluency refers to a level of accuracy and rate, where decoding is relatively effortless; where oral reading is smooth and accurate with correct prosody; and where attention can be allocated to comprehension.

-Wolf & Katzir-Cohen, 2001, p. 219

 

 

 

__Foundation of Fluency__ One of the first researchers who contributed to our understanding of fluency was William MacKeen Cattell (1886), a 19th century psychologist who became intrigued by the discovery that we can read a word (like tiger) faster than we name a picture of this pouncing feline creature! Cattell was the first to emphasize that humans become almost “automatic” when they read, much more so than speaking. Learning to read so that it is virtually automatic is an extraordinary achievement by our brain. It represents a unique capacity that humans have to learn something so well that they can do it almost without thinking.

 

David LaBerge and Jay Samuels (1974) were the first psychologists to construct a model of what it means to acquire “automaticity” in reading. They stressed that reading fluency is based on the rapidity of microlevel subskills. Further, they argued that only when these lower-level microskills become automatic can time be allocated by the reader to more sophisticated comprehension skills.

 

Based on this conceptualization, Dahl (1974) and Samuels (1985) designed the Repeated Reading Technique, whereby a student reads a passage (at a level matched for each individual) over and over until a particular rate of words per minutes is achieved. The idea is that repeated reading speeds up fluency, and fluency contributes to comprehension. The Repeated Reading method is one of the very few techniques used in the past for fluency improvement. A variation of the technique by Pat Bowers and her colleagues (Bowers, 1993; Young, Bowers, & MacKinnon, 1996) is called assisted repeated reading where the child reads along with a fluent reader. In the process of listening and modeling, the child learns to read with better phrasing, more expression (called speech melody or prosody), and speed.

 

 

 

 

Language fluency

Language fluency is proficiency in a language, most typically foreign language or another learned language. In this sense, "fluency" actually encompasses a number of related but separable skills:

• Reading: the ability to easily read and understand texts written in the language;

• Writing: the ability to formulate written texts in the language;

• Comprehension: the ability to follow and understand speech in the language;

• Speaking: the ability to speak in the language and be understood by its speakers.

To some extent, these skills can be separately acquired. Generally, the later in life a learner approaches the study of a foreign language, the harder it is to acquire auditory comprehension and fluent speaking skills. Reading and writing a foreign language are skills that can be acquired more easily after the primary language acquisition period of youth is over, however.

Reading fluency

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You can help Wikipedia by introducing appropriate citations.

Reading fluency is often confused with fluency with a language (see above). Reading fluency is the ability to read text accurately and quickly. Fluency bridges word decoding and comprehension. Comprehension is understanding what has been read. Fluency is a set of skills that allows readers to rapidly decode text while maintaining high comprehension.

A first benchmark for fluency is being able to "sight read" some words. The idea is that children will recognize at sight the most common words in written English and that instant reading of these words will allow them to read and understand text more quickly. Also, since there are many common English words that are so irregular according to the rules of phonics, it is best to get children to just memorize them from the start. For example, try sounding out these words: "one", "was", "if", "even", or "the".

As children learn to read, the speed at which they read becomes an important measure.

 

References:

www.scholastic.com

http://wikipedia.org

 

Ways to build Fluency

 

Fluency is the combination of nearly all reading strategies put together. Therefore one of the best ways to increase fluency is simply for students to read. This will increase tenfold if the student likes to read and reads on thier own. Here are some suggestions to accomplish this.

-"...to read well and to love it requires that the reading program provide an abundance of opportunity to read naturally and successfully"(Gates 256) Students must be able to have a wide selection and to read at a comfortable level, in this case it may be their individual level.

(Gates)

-"All the skills, all the techniques, all the mechanics, are only tools to use in learning to read so as to be able to enjoy reading"(Gates 256).

-Choose books that you have read and think the students will enjoy. Heins states, "Perhaps the greatest aim of education should be to turn children into humane human beings: and perhaps books that can arouse slumbering emotions--books that can make children feel--can help us with our jobs"(260)

-However it is important to remember,"No one would deny that books can be powerful instruments for moral and intellectual growth and for the development of awareness; but an imaginative work of art is not a political or social tract, nor should its purpose be rhetorical persuasion or moral improvement"(Hein 263).

-Use Young Adult Literature as individual reading material, instructional material, or as a complement to the cannon. Themes in YA literature can mirror those of harder text and may help bridge the connection between the two. They also present a high interest story that is more likely to get students invovled. "If educators are serious about developing student's lifelong love of reading, they need to incorporate in the curriculum literature that is captivating and issue-based. The extensive and evolving genre of young adult literature offers an array of books that appeal to adolescents' interests and experiences"(267 Bean)

 

 

References

 

Gates, Arthur I. (1951) What Should We Teach in Reading? "Readings in Reading Instruction: It's History, Theory and Development" Ed. Richard D. Robinson. Boston:Pearson. pp.256-258.

 

Heins, Ethel L. (1980) From Reading to Literacy. "Readings in Reading Instruction: It's History, Theory and Development" Ed. Richard D. Robinson. Boston: Pearson. pp.258-263.

 

Bean, Thomas W. (2002) Making Reading Relevant for Adolescents. "Readings in Reading Instruction: It's History, Theory, and Development" Ed. Richard D. Robinson. Boston: Pearson. pp.263-267.

 

 

 

Fluency in the Invention Movement; Group 2: Bryana Bradley

 

 

 

Oral Reading Fluency:

     Schools in the 19th Century began to use a form of oral recitation that focused on elocution as the preferred method and goal of reading instruction… The students’ reading was judged by the teacher on the quality of their oral reading and their recall of what they read. Toward the end of the 19th century, oral reading had become such an ingrained and perceived necessary part of American education that philosopher William James (1892) indicated that “the teacher’s success or failure in teaching reading is based, so far as the public estimate is concerned, upon the oral reading method. In the beginning of the 20th centuries, the dominant role of oral reading as the primary mode of instruction in reading was challenged… They argued that the oral-reading instruction gave priority to elocutionary matters such as pronunciation, emphasis, inflection, and force over reading for understanding (p. 6).

    Science and scientific inquiry began to have an impact on reading education around the turn of the century. Researchers like Edmund Huey (1908/1968), noted that oral reading had become an activity that was found only in schools. In everyday life silent reading pre-dominated. For Thorndike (1917), comprehension of text became a more important focal point of instruction than the oral interpretation of text. Silent reading was seen as the more logical path to good comprehension and therefore a more worthy goal for reading instruction than oral-reading proficiency (p. 7).

 

-Samuels, J.S., & Farstrup, A. E. (2006). What research has to say about fluency instruction. Newark, DE: International Reading Association.

 

 

     “Fluency was once described as a “neglected goal” of American Reading Education (M. Applegate, A. Applegate, & Modla, 2009, p. 512).” Over the years researchers have constructed several different definitions of fluency; however, most researchers seem to agree on two of its components: “accurate and automatic word recognition and reading at an appropriate rate of speed (p. 513).” “The field of literacy education has seen a major shift in fluency’s role in the literacy curriculum, moving from a rarely encountered instructional component to one that is often responsible for driving major instructional decisions (Kuhn,  Schwanenflugel, Meisinger, Levy, & Rasinski, 2010, p. 230).” The “shift” is due to the National Reading panel’s identification of fluency’s role in the reading process (2010). During the Invention movement there was a focus on meaning making from text. Fluency during this period was used as a vehicle to construct meaning instead of a single element of the reading process.

 

     According to Currier and Duguid’s (1916) article on phonics vs. non-phonics instruction, students who had phonics instruction failed to accurately pronounce words during oral reading and were not able to construct meaning from the text as students who had the non-phonics instruction and did not focus on the correct pronunciation of each word. The big difference between these two groups of students is that the students who mispronounced the words (non-phonics) were reading more fluently than the students who stopped and dissected each word to its proper pronunciation. I say more fluently because the students read with “speed, effortlessness, autonomy, and lack of conscious awareness,” which according to Kuhn et al. (2010) are the factors that develop automatic word recognition in fluent readers (p. 232). Even though the students were mispronouncing some of the words they did not get caught up on the words like the phonics group did which inevitably made their reading choppy and not fluent. The non-phonics group was able to better comprehend the meaning of the passages and could get into the reading more so than the phonics group. The phonics group was so focused on word pronunciation that there was not a significant construction of meaning and their reading lacked prose. Looking at this research it is easy to recognize that once students have the ability to correctly and automatically recognize words without hindering the flow of their reading, meaning making will become second nature. “The more automatic the decoding, the more attentional resources they will have available to direct toward comprehension (Applegate et al.,  2009, p. 513).” Huey (1908) instructs his readers not to “get caught up on grammaticism and allow students to read fluently, interrupting them breaks their “thinking flow” and the students lose the “freedom” that reading and speech has to offer ( p. 348-349).”

 

     Looking at this evidence it seems that fluency was pushed aside simply because educators were not aware of the effect it had on reading as a whole and were more concerned with the role of constructing meaning from text.  However, educators during this period were teaching fluency (to some extent) but were unaware of how it played into the big picture of literacy instruction. “By the end of the 1950’s, cognitive psychology had become the dominant paradigm, and researchers began studying comprehension and fluency (Samuels & Farstrup, 2006, p. 26).” A theoretical model for understanding how literacy occurs was introduced during this time; however, “it did not address practical issues of instruction (p. 27).” Educators were unaware of how to teach fluency and/or assess it until many years later.

 

 

References:

Applegate, M. D., Applegate, A. J., & Modla, V. B. (2009). She’s my best reader; She just can’t comprehend: Studying the relationship between fluency and comprehension. The Reading Teacher, 62, 512-521.

Currier L.B., & Duguid, O.C. (1916). Phonics or no phonics? The Elementary School Journal, 4, 209-10.

Huey, E. B. (1908). The psychology and pedagogy of reading: With a review of the history of reading and writing and of methods, texts, and hygiene in reading. NY: The MacMillan Company.

Kuhn, M. R., Schwanenflugel, P. J., Meisinger, E. B., Levy, B. A., & Rasinski, T. V. (2010). Aligning theory and assessment of reading fluency: Automaticity, prosody, and definitions of fluency. Reading Research Quarterly, 45, 230-251.

Samuels, J.S., & Farstrup, A. E. (2006). What research has to say about fluency instruction. Newark, DE: International Reading Association.

 

 

Reading Readiness

 


 

As stated above fluency in the moment invention encompasses many aspects. I am going to focus on reading readiness. It is very intriguing to me how some children can be taught to read at as young as 10 months, but some children come into high school classes reading on a first grade level. With today's push down curriculum it is paramount for students to come to school either reading, or having some prior knowledge in reading or they will be so far behind their classmates that it will be tough to catch up. There is a great amount of research done regarding whether kids are ready to read before grade school.I have come to realize that there is no clearly defined age for reading readiness. However, it is important for parent to know their children's cognitive ability and how it measures up to the curriculum.

 

"Detroit test shows that the children with mental ages of six years and six months made progress practically as satisfactory as that of the children with higher mental ages." (p.53)

 

"Consequently, it seems safe to state that, by postponing the teaching of reading until children reach a mental level of six and a half years, teachers can greatly decrease the changes of failure and discouragement and can correspondingly increase their efficiency." (p.169)

 

 

"While Morphett and Washburne's effort, no doubt, was prompted by serious and justifiable concern, it was interesting to note that among the British, who speak the same language, a mental age of 4.5 to 5.5 years is deemed acceptable for beginning reading and children are enrolled in school at age 5." (p.173)

 

"Suttun (1969) taught a selected group of children to read in kindergarten and followed their reading achievement. She found that, at the end of grade three, the early readers were still achieving better than the children who were not in the early reading program." (p.181)

 

As you may be able to tell, there are some feuding points in the ongoing argument about when kids should begin reading. I believe that in this day and age, if a child is going to keep up with up with other children and the curriculum, they must begin to read before they enter public schools.

 

 

References:

 

Morphett M., & Washburne, C. (1931). When Should Children Begin to Read?, 496-503.

 

Gentile, Lance. A Critique of  Mabel V. Morphett and Carleton Washburne's Study:When Should Children Begin To Read? (North Texas State University)

 

Ollila L. A contemporary on Gentile's Critique of Morphett and Wasburne's Study: When Should Children Begin To Read? (University of Victoria) 

 

 

 

 

Fluency and Comprehension

 James Leggett: Group 2

 

                Comprehension is the most important goal of reading instruction. Fluency is, naturally, a vital aspect of comprehension, but is it handled effectively in the classroom? Common classroom strategies for reading fluency include phonics instruction and round-robin/popcorn reading activities. Phonics instruction is a vast subject by itself, but has often been shown to overlook comprehension in favor of oral reading fluency (Pang et. al., 2003). While fluency obviously affects comprehension, focusing on sound production solely negates not only silent reading fluency but also word comprehension itself as the reader becomes embroiled in the importance of phonemic production only as a sign of success in reading. Looking at fluency as a means to comprehension, rather than an end in itself: silent reading has been shown to be the most effective method for fluent comprehension (Vacca et. al., 2011).  By having students read silently, they are not subject to issues arising from reading orally, including poor oral fluency, stumbling over words and focusing on individual words over complete sentences (a symptom of phonics instruction), thus they are able to focus on the central message of the passage they are reading and build comprehension skills and confidence.

 

Pang, E. S., Muaka, A., Bernhardt, E. B., & Kamil, M. L. (2003). Teaching reading. The International Academy of Education. International      Bureau of Education: UNESCO.

 

Vacca, R., Vacca, J. A., Gove, M., Burkey, L., Lenhart, L., & McKeon, C. A. (2011). Reading and learning to read. Allyn & Bacon: Boston,      MA.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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