This link has been bookmarked by 2 people . It was first bookmarked on 09 Feb 2008, by Marie Coleman.
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23 Aug 08
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09 Feb 08
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most basic definition of fluency is simply the ability to read text accurately and quickly.
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Researchers add a few more characteristics: for example, good prosody. This is a linguistic term that refers to the melody in our speech and our ability to express it. That’s what underlies what we often call “good expression”.
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reading words and sentences with melody or prosody aids comprehension and this is the most basic reason why fluency is so important: comprehension. Fluent reading is the bridge to comprehension.
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The first and most common reason for not being a fluent reader is that the child does not yet know how to decode very well yet.
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econd reason why some children do not acquire early decoding skills is because they have weaknesses in areas called phoneme awareness. They literally are not as aware as other children of the tiny sounds or phonemes that make up words in speech.
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Third, there are other children whose decoding skills are accurate but halting, and who simply need a great deal of practice. Some of these children may be second language learners. For these children the best resource for a teacher or parent is to supply your child with every opportunity to practice -
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And finally, a fourth reason why some children don’t become fluent readers is a very subtle one,
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For them, quite literally the areas in the brain that put together visual and verbal processes don’t work together as automatically. The good news is that we can predict who these children are as early as kindergarten,
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three measures to every kindergarten teacher to predict fluency, it would be: 1) a phoneme awareness task; 2) a set of rapid automatized naming tests or naming speed tests (for letters, numbers, colors, objects); and 3) a vocabulary test.
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three things: phoneme awareness, automatic decoding skills, and practice you probably already knew before you came to this course. But there are two or three areas that you might not know that can contribute mightily to the development of fluency. First, vocabulary development
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children’s growth of fluency begins with word knowledge
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The child who knows that the same words can be used in multiple ways depending on the context is already bringing more knowledge to what they read that will translate into more speed and thus more fluency AND comprehension in reading.
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Until now, most research viewed fluency as an outcome. And for years most people have used something called “repeated reading” techniques as the best way to increase fluency. It is a method where the child is given a passage at his/her level or just above (90-95% accuracy), and reads it repeatedly till their reading becomes smooth, accurate, and faster. This is a great method for the child who already has some skills, but you can tell it is aimed at an outcome view of fluency, not a whole developmental process perspective.
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fluency is a developmental process and that many linguistic areas contribute to it. You can almost guess from my other remarks what these other linguistic areas are: phonology, orthography (knowledge of letter patterns), vocabulary, syntax (knowledge of grammatical functions), and finally an area called morphology, which simply means a knowledge of word roots and parts like affixes. What makes this view so interesting to us is that it means you can be developing fluency from the start and not waiting till you know it’s a problem. Further, we think fluency instruction begins with letters and word levels, not just later developing text.
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explicitly connecting your decoding, spelling and vocabulary work together? Are you trying to encourage children to read “am” words accurately and THEN ever more rapidly? Game formats are wonderful for steadily moving your students from accuracy to faster and faster speeds.
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Teach the connections between types of word knowledge. EXPLICITLY teach spelling, vocabulary, suffixes, grammar. Teach words, words, words. Teach accuracy, and then give opportunities to move to fluency, BUT don’t push too fast. Use partner reading. Read to them yourselves! Finally, use repeated reading techniques for stories, and have children graph them.
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