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"Creating Fluent Readers"

 Students' ability to read with fluency is one of the best indicators of student success in reading and writing. To fully understand reading, one must be able to not only read individual words but must also be able to comprehend what they are reading at the same time. Students need to be reading at 90-95% comprehension to be considered reading on appropriate level. Teachers can help strengthen student fluency through read alouds, repetition of readings, and making sure that the student is reading texts they can easily understand.

This article was very helpful in elaborating on what it means to be fluent, how your fluency can be hindered, and what I as a teacher can do to help student's fluency increase. Before reading the articles on improving fluency, I probably would have thought that we need to push students to read higher level books as oppose to "easy" books which they can easily understand. I am glad that I am now aware of what a positive impact rereading books can have on a child learning to read and recognize words. I also have been opened to the fact that when teaching young elementary students, you must be careful as to how critical you are of their work and to focus more on their personal progress.

"Classrooms that Work" Chapter 4: Fostering Fluency

Once again, this chapter introduced me to what it means to be fluent, the three components that encompass fluency, and ideas for promoting fluency within the classroom. Students who are fluent, have become so through reading and rereading many easy books. As a teacher I can model fluency through read alouds, incorporating my students in echo and choral readings, and providing them with plenty of independent reading time where they should be reading easy, yet high interest texts. The article also encouraged the use of multiple media texts (newspaper, magazine) for students to engage in during personal reading time. High frequency words, the, with, to, be, what, are abstract to children and therefore hard for define in text. Yet, 100 high frequency words constitute nearly half of everything we read and write. It is so important to teach students these words. Doing word walls and chanting these words is a good way to help students

This chapter furthered my knowledge on what it means to be fluent and ways to promote fluency in beginning or struggling readers. It has been interesting for me to learn that I need to place emphasis on first learning how to read easy books before encouraging students to really challenge themselves with literature. However, after completing the readings, it does only make sense that students should focus on mastering reading easy books due to the fact that high frequency words are often abstract and confusing to young students.

"One-Minute Fluency Measures: Mixed Messages in Assessment and Instruction"

This article exposes the misinterpretation of one-minute fluency tests, in deciding if a student is in fact fluent or dysfluent. This article gives four components, as oppose to the three referenced in the other readings, to fluency. This article adds comprehension, which is implied in the other texts as a product of accuracy, speed, and prosody. Generally, speed has a positive correlation with comprehension of text. However, the article argues that if you only test a student at one-minute intervals, they perhaps could show speed proficiency. This is where endurance is introduced as a factor of fluency. A student may perform adequately on one of these one-minute tests, yet still struggle as a reader. While one-minute tests are helpful for identifying those that struggle greatly with reading, others who may have endurance deficits may be over looked.

This article was interesting and got me thinking about many different components of what it means to be fluent. Simple equations that produce the readers fluency ratio focus on accuracy and rate. A student may read at 93% but the word(s) they missed or mistake for one similar in spelling, could completely skew their interpretation of the passage. Also important in comprehending the tone of the passage is the ability to read with emotion. However, this is not tested on one-minute assessments but failure to read with prosody may hinder overall understanding. This article provided me with further components to consider when testing a student for fluency. While one-minute tests do serve a purpose in identifying the struggling readers, it cannot be the only measure of fluency.