A Sin of the Second Kind

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A Sin of the Second Kind

• The Neglect of Fluency Instruction
• and What We Can Do About It

Timothy Shanahan University of Illinois at Chicago
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What is fluency?

• Fluency is the ability to read a text quickly,
  accurately, and with proper expression.
• --National Reading Panel

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Unpacking the Fluency Definition

• Ability

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Unpacking the Fluency Definition

• Text

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Unpacking the Fluency Definition

• Quickly

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Unpacking the Fluency Definition

• Accurately

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Unpacking the Fluency Definition

• Proper Expression

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Unpacking the Fluency Definition

• Oral

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Unpacking the Fluency Definition

• Role of Comprehension

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Isnt fluency just highly proficient word
reading?
--Jenkins, Fuchs, Espin, van den Broek,
Deno, 2000
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Isnt fluency just highly proficient word
reading?
--Jenkins, Fuchs, Espin, van den Broek,
Deno, 2000
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Isnt fluency just highly proficient word
reading?
Oral reading fluency was more closely related to
reading comprehension (as measured by a
standardized test) than to word recognition of
words drawn from the oral reading passage.
--Jenkins, Fuchs, Espin, van den Broek,
Deno, 2000
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Isnt fluency just reading comprehension?

• No.
• Fluency can be independent of reading
  comprehension.

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Isnt fluency just reading comprehension?

• No.
• Word learning is often one of the outcomes of
  fluency training.

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Who Needs Fluency Instruction?
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Who Needs Fluency Instruction?
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Who Needs Fluency Instruction?

• National Reading Panel based its fluency
  conclusions on studies conducted in
• Grades 1 through 9.

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How Do You Teach Fluency?

• National Reading Panel Report (2000)

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How Do You Teach Fluency?

• NRP 4 kinds of evidence
• 14 immediate effects studies
• 16 group learning studies
• 12 single subject learning studies
• 9 method analysis studies

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How Do You Teach Fluency?

• Immediate Effects Studies
• 14 studies of impact of oral reading repetition/
  feedback on improvements with the practice
  passages

• Studies examined 473 students grade 1 through
  college

• All studies found clear improvements

• Improvements were in word reading accuracy,
  rate,
• recall

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How Do You Teach Fluency?

• Group Learning Studies
• 16 studies of generalization of oral reading
  practice on other reading measures
• Studies examined 752 students grade 2 through 9
• All but one study found clear improvements
• Normal reader studies were done in grades 2-4

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How Do You Teach Fluency?

• Group Learning Studies
• 11 studies emphasized poor readers (average
  effect size .49)
• 5 studies emphasized normal readers (average
  effect size .47)

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How Do You Teach Fluency?

• Group Learning Studies
• Group learning studies included 99 comparisons

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How Do You Teach Fluency?

• Single Subject Learning Studies

• 12 single subject design studies looked at
  learning of 2-13 children per study
• All but one study found clear improvement for all
  children

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How Do You Teach Fluency?

• Guided oral reading practice with repetition.
• --National Reading Panel Report (2000)

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How Do You Teach Fluency?

• Oral
• Studies show that oral reading practice works
• Studies do not consistently show that silent
  reading practice works.

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How Do You Teach Fluency?

• Guided
• Students benefit from feedback
• Feedback from peers, tutors, parents, teachers
• Appropriate feedback

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How Do You Teach Fluency?

• Repetition
• Rereading up to criteria
• Reading a text 3 or more times

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How fluent do you need to be?

• Accuracy
• 95100

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How fluent do you need to be?

• Proper Expression
• 3 or 4 on NAEP Scale

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How fluent do you need to be?

• Speed
• Grade 1 60 wpm Grade 4 130 wpm
• Grade 2 90 wpm Grade 5 140 wpm
• Grade 3 120 wpm Grade 6 150 wpm
• --Hasbrouck Tindal (1992)

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What are students learning when they work on
fluency?

• Depending on relative text difficulty
• How to read words efficiently
• How to make sense of the text/prosodic features

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What kind of text is used to teach fluency?

• Nature of text
• Text difficulty
• Length of text

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Other Questions
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A Sin of the Second Kind

• The Neglect of Fluency Instruction
• and What We Can Do About It

Timothy Shanahan University of Illinois at Chicago