Fluency is one of the areas to strengthen while helping a struggling reader.
What is reading fluency? Fluency consists of 3 components:
- rate
- accuracy
- prosody (intonation, stress, & pauses)
The main goal in fluency is to read accurately & quickly. This is important because once fluency is strengthened the reader is able to focus on comprehension than decoding.
How do you strengthen a struggling readers fluency?
First, you read & re-read! Boring, right? Not so much. This is the main problem area for Momma’s Boy, so we have spent a lot of time working on his reading fluency & we have been having a lot of fun doing it. Here are some suggestions for developing reading fluency:
*These are all activities suggested by The University of Texas at Austin, Texas Center for Reading & Language Arts in their guide, Essential Reading Strategies for the Struggling Reader: Activities for an Accelerated Reading Program
- Audio Books
- Allow your child to follow along in a book while listening to it on audio. In addition to this, I talk about the readers prosody with my son & then have him read the same story into an audio recorder. Next, we listen to his recording allowing him to hear himself & recognize his own mistakes.
*I found several popular short stories for $1 on iTunes!! (Where the Wild Things Are, Blueberries for Sal, The Hungry Caterpillar, etc.)
- “Cloze It”
- Begin reading a book/passage & stop at target words or phrases in the text, allowing your child to complete the reading, continuing to take turns “clozing” the text. My son LOVES this game.
- Page Races
- Tell your child they will be timed while reading a page (or passage) from a book. Time them as they read & record the time. Review any words read inaccurately. Then have your child to read it two more times in an effort to increase his/her speed & accuracy in reading the text. You can increasingly build the content of what is being read to more than one page & you can also add one second to the total reading time for every word read incorrectly, omitted, substituted, or added.
- Reading & Rereading – How Speedy Are You?
- Explain to your child that he/she will be reading the same book or selection each day for a week & graphing their speed results. *Using the same error rule as above.
- Word Phrase Cards
- We review these once a week. I time my son & record his time & errors on a note card with the date. He reads through the words twice, trying to beat his first attempt, as well as previous times. At first he was not excited about this, but as he began to see his progress his confidence built & he became excited.
- We review these once a week. I time my son & record his time & errors on a note card with the date. He reads through the words twice, trying to beat his first attempt, as well as previous times. At first he was not excited about this, but as he began to see his progress his confidence built & he became excited.
- Sight Words
- Reading words in isolation will help your child transfer those words to reading of connected text later.
- Word Wall File Folder
- Create a word wall using a file folder with the letters of the alphabet written on the inside in rows & columns. Add misread words to the file folder (under the first letter it begins with) as well as to a index card. Each time your child reads through his set of word cards place a checkmark on the back of all words that are read correctly without your help. When a card has five checkmarks, allow your child to place a small stamp or sticker next to the word on his word wall.
- Word Pattern/Sight Word Road Race
- Using a file folder & a game board write words on each space (*you can laminate it & write words with a dry-erase maker). Write the same words on a small index card. Use plastic animal, colored candy, etc as a game piece. Play like you would play Candyland. You can also add two words to one card, or special spots, etc to make the game more fun.
- Using a file folder & a game board write words on each space (*you can laminate it & write words with a dry-erase maker). Write the same words on a small index card. Use plastic animal, colored candy, etc as a game piece. Play like you would play Candyland. You can also add two words to one card, or special spots, etc to make the game more fun.
- Pick-Up Word Game
- Bingo
I’m hesitant to offer a range of timed reading by level, so please use this lightly as a goal to a measure of your child’s reading speed:
- 2nd grade: 85 wpm (w/ a range of 50-80 words)
- 3rd grade: 110 wpm
- 4th grade: 120 wpm
- 5th grade: 130 wpm
More so, a better measure for setting goals would be to see your child’s reading speed increase with 2 wpm per week.
Read, read, read.
~ William Faulkner ~
