A Missing Ingredient: Oral Reading Fluency

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A Missing Ingredient Oral Reading Fluency

• Timothy Shanahan
• University of Illinois at Chicago
• shanahan _at_uic.edu
• www.shanahanonliteracy.com

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Test Your Knowledge

• 1. What is reading fluency?
• 2. Why is it important?
• 3. What grade levels should focus on fluency
  instruction?
• 4. Can you teach fluency through silent reading?

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Test Your Knowledge

• 5. What reading skills are improved through
  fluency practice?
• 6. Is round robin reading a good idea? Why or
  why not?
• 7. What are three research-supported methods for
  teaching oral reading fluency?

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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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Putting Oral Fluency in Context

• Phonemic awareness
• Phonics
• Oral reading fluency
• Reading comprehension
• Vocabulary
• Writing

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Isnt fluency just highly proficient word
reading?

• No. Fluency is more closely correlated to
  comprehension than to word reading.

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Isnt fluency just highly proficient word
reading?
--Jenkins, Fuchs, Espin, van den Broek,
Deno, 2003
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Isnt fluency just reading comprehension?

• No. Fluency can be independent of reading
  comprehension.

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Does fluency matter?

• Yes.
• Fluency training was found to improve reading
  comprehension including silent reading
  comprehension.

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Who Needs Fluency Instruction?

• Everybody

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Who Needs Fluency Instruction?

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

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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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Do We Need to Teach Fluency?

• National Reading Panel Report (2000)

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Why 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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Since then

• Several additional studies supporting the
  teaching of fluency
• Now studies have been done that support teaching
  fluency to second language learners
• Fluency instruction helps ELL students, but not
  as much as it does native English speakers

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How Do You Teach Fluency?

• Guided oral reading practice with repetition.

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Methods that have worked

• Neurological impress
• Reading while listening
• Echo reading
• Paired reading
• Etc.

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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 modeling
• Students benefit from guidance or feedback
• From peers, tutors, parents, teachers
• Appropriate feedback

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How Do You Teach Fluency?

• Pause Prompt Praise
• Pause
• Prompt
• Praise

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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 Do You Teach Fluency?

• Not round robin.
• Too little practice
• Little repetition
• Diverts attention from essentials

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How Do You Teach Fluency?

• Paired Reading
• Types of partners
• Partner training
• Coaching the coaches
• Keeping track

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How Do You Teach Fluency?

• Repeated Reading
• Numbers of repetitions
• Lengths of texts
• Charting improvement

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How Do You Teach Fluency?

• Readers Theatre
• Revise text into scripts
• Practice before presentation
• Lack of research and some concerns

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How fluent do you need to be?

• Speed
• Grade 1 60 wcpm Grade 4 125 wcpm
• Grade 2 90 wcpm Grade 5 140 wcpm
• Grade 3 110 wcpm Grade 6 150 wcpm
• end of year norms, 50ile

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What kind of text should be used to teach
fluency?

• Studies showed learning from texts that ranged
  from instructional level to frustration level
• The harder the text, the greater the need for
  support and repetition
• Both narrative and expository text
• Lots of word repetition within and across
  selections
• Brief pieces 50150 words

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Chunking or Parsing

• Students practice reading divided text
• Students work together to parse text
• Students read as if text is parsed

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A fluency curriculum?

• Systematic repetition of high-frequency words

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Example of Repetition of High-Frequency Words

• Once I was a baby. What did I do? I looked up
  at my moms face. I looked up at my toy.
• Once I was one. What did I do? I looked at some
  flowers.
• Once I was two. What did I do? I played with
  some toys.
• Once I was four. What did I do?

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A fluency curriculum?

• Systematic repetition of key phonics patterns

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Examples of Repetition of Phonics Patterns

• Ottos Lunch
• packed
• worked
• liked
• asked
• opened
• turned
• looked

• The Ugly Duck
• duck
• ducklings
• up
• ugly
• us

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A fluency curriculum?

• Systematic focus on punctuation

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Examples of focus on punctuation

• Every year, people from all over the world visit
  some amazing buildings in Egypt. What are these
  buildings? They are the pyramids of Giza.
• Bell said, Mr. Watson, come here. I want to see
  you. Watson rushed into the room. He had heard
  Bells voice over the wire!

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A fluency curriculum?

• Systematic focus on text format

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Examples of focus on text format

• Dear Miss Pumpkin,
• MORE housework? Tomorrow Ill wash all the
  clothes myself. But please be ready to GET ME OUT
  OF HERE!
• Percy

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A fluency curriculum?

• Systematic focus on expression of meaning

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Example of Expression of Meaning

• Did you see that? Jessie shrieked.
• I started to wish we hadnt come. Then we heard
  a noise from the house. Get down! I hissed.
• Wed better go! said Jesse. He was almost
  crying.

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A fluency curriculum?

• Systematic focus on building speed

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Example of Building Speed

Hey Doc, where is the example?
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The Missing Ingredient Oral Reading Fluency

• Timothy Shanahan
• University of Illinois at Chicago
• shanahan _at_uic.edu