Developing Fluent Readers

Viewing fluency as a bridge between foundational skills and open-ended learning, this book guides teachers through effective instruction and assessment of fluent reading skills in the primary grades. Fluency?s relationship to phonological awareness, phonics, and print concepts is explained, and practical methods are shared for integrating fluency instruction in a literacy curriculum grounded in the Common Core State Standards (CCSS). Classroom examples, weekly lesson plans, and extensive lists of recommended texts add to the book?s utility for teachers.

Introduces oral reading teaching methods for developing word recognition and comprehension in students.

Reading fluency has been identified as a key component of proficient reading. Research has consistently demonstrated significant and substantial correlations between reading fluency and overall reading achievement. Despite the great potential for fluency to have a significant outcome on students’ reading achievement, it continues to be not well understood by teachers, school administrators and policy makers. The chapters in this volume examine reading fluency from a variety of perspectives. The initial chapter sketches the history of fluency as a literacy instruction component. Following chapters examine recent studies and approaches to reading fluency, followed by chapters that explore actual fluency instruction models and the impact of fluency instruction. Assessment of reading fluency is critical for monitoring progress and identifying students in need of intervention. Two articles on assessment, one focused on word recognition and the other on prosody, expand our understanding of fluency measurement. Finally, a study from Turkey explores the relationship of various reading competencies, including fluency, in an integrated model of reading. Our hope for this volume is that it may spark a renewed interest in research into reading fluency and fluency instruction and move toward making fluency instruction an even more integral part of all literacy instruction.

Viewing fluency as a bridge between foundational skills and open-ended learning, this book guides teachers through effective instruction and assessment of fluent reading skills in the primary grades. Fluency?s relationship to phonological awareness, phonics, and print concepts is explained, and practical methods are shared for integrating fluency instruction in a literacy curriculum grounded in the Common Core State Standards (CCSS). Classroom examples, weekly lesson plans, and extensive lists of recommended texts add to the book?s utility for teachers.

This timely book offers two distinct approaches to oral reading instruction that can easily be incorporated into primary-grade literacy curricula. It enables teachers to go beyond the conventional "round-robin" approach by providing strong instructional support and using challenging texts. Grounded in research and classroom experience, the book explains what works and why in helping students build comprehension along with word recognition and the expressive elements of oral reading. Specific lesson plan ideas, helpful vignettes and examples, and reproducibles make this an indispensable classroom resource. Included are chapters on fluency's role in learning to read, motivation, the home-school connection, fluency assessment, and strategies for struggling readers.

All the latest research on fluency plus dozens of practical lessons and ready-to-use fluency-priming tools, including partner poems, word ladders, and more!

Incorporating cognitive, neuropsychological, and sociocultural perspectives, this authoritative text explains the psychological processes involved in reading and describes applications for educational practice. The book follows a clear developmental sequence, from the impact of the early family environment through the acquisition of emergent literacy skills and the increasingly complex abilities required for word recognition, reading fluency, vocabulary growth, and text comprehension. Linguistic and cultural factors in individual reading differences are examined, as are psychological dimensions of reading motivation and the personal and societal benefits of reading. Pedagogical Features *End-of-chapter discussion questions and suggestions for further reading. *Explicit linkages among theory, research, standards (including the Common Core State Standards), and instruction. *Engaging case studies at the beginning of each chapter. *Technology Toolbox explores the pros and cons of computer-assisted learning.