Effective Interventions for Struggling Readers Fluency

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Effective Interventions for Struggling Readers
Fluency

Your name here Date, location, etc.
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Agenda

• Goals and Objectives
• Research Terms and Components
• Students Who Struggle
• Assessment
• Strategies

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Goals and Objectives

• Goal To promote knowledge understanding of
  effective interventions in fluency for students
  who struggle with reading.
• Objectives
• Participants will
• Articulate research on fluency instruction.
• Outline the importance of assessing fluency
  progress.
• Identify components of fluency.
• Implement research-based fluency instructional
  strategies that can be used to teach struggling
  readers.
• Handout 1

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The Connections Between Reading Interventions,
NCLB, and YOU!
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Gap
Benefit Students Teachers Schools Districts
States
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The Five Components

• Phonemic Awareness
• Phonics
• Fluency
• Vocabulary
• Comprehension
• FLUENCY

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Why Fluency?

• Fluency is a critical skill
• Good reading comprehension rests on a foundation
  of fluent reading of words.
• Good readers rapidly recognize words without
  having to think about what the words are, and
  automatically activate the meaning of the words
  they are reading.

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Research Base for Fluency InstructionKey Findings

• Fluency is
• Improved through guided repeated oral reading
  procedures.
• Strengthened by feedback and guidance
• Effective for both good and struggling readers.
• Critical for students to process meaning and
  build comprehension skills.
• Neglected in many reading programs.
• National Reading Panel (2002)

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Common Terms

• Fluencythe ability to read text automatically,
  accurately, and effortlessly.
• Irregular wordswords that cannot be decoded.
• Letter-sound fluencythe ability to produce
  sounds of letters quickly.
• Irregular word fluencythe ability to identify
  irregular words automatically.
• Oral reading fluencythe ability to identify
  words in a passage accurately.
• Prosodythe intonation and expression used in
  reading.

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Fluency Components
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Students Who Struggle

• Approximately 40 percent of American 4th grade
  students cannot read fluently.
• National Assessment of Educational Progress
  (2002)
• Handout 2

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Discussion Question

• What are some behaviors you may observe in the
  classroom that indicate some students are
  struggling with fluency?

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Possible Observations

• Student has difficulty and grows frustrated when
  reading aloud.
• Student does not read aloud with expression.
• Student does not chunk words into meaningful
  units.
• Student doesnt pause at meaningful breaks within
  sentences or paragraphs.
• Reading Rockets. Target the Problem (2006)

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Assess the Problem

• Use multiple types of assessments formal and
  informal.
• Measure speed, comprehension, types of errors,
  and expression.
• Select and administer assessment tools that are
  valid and reliable in the measurement of fluency.
  
• Monitor student progress regularly to ensure
  student achievement in fluency is progressing.
• Administer assessments one on one.
• Use screening and progress monitoring assessment
  to form flexible instructional groups.
• Good Kaminski (2002)

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Discussion Question

• What type of assessment procedures do you
  currently use for fluency?

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Measuring Fluency

• Informal
• Informal reading inventories (IRI)
• Running records
• Miscue analysis
• Reading speed calculations
• Formal
• Gray Oral Reading Test (GORT-4)
• Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills
  (DIBELS)
• Handout 3

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Average Fluency Rates

• Grade Level
• 2.5 121 words per minute
• 3.5 135 words per minute
• 4.5 149 words per minute
• 5.5 163 words per minute
• 6.5 177 words per minute
• 7.5 191 words per minute
• Mather Goldstein (2001)

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What Is Your Fluency Rate?

• Find a partner.
• Read your assigned passage to your partner.
• Record your fluency rate.
• Handouts 4 and 5

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Charting Progress

• What do you see as possible advantages for having
  students chart their own progress?

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Student Progress Monitoring

• National Center on Student Progress Monitoring,
  American Institutes for Research
• Mission To disseminate practices proven
  effective in grades K5.
• http//www.studentprogress.org/
• Handout 6

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Effective Strategies for Teaching Fluency

• Guided Reading
• Books on Tape
• Explicit and Systematic Instruction
• Opportunities for Practice
• Appropriate Text Level

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Guided Reading

• Steps
• Teacher reads passage aloud.
• Students reread same passage silently.
• Students read the passage aloud.
• Students reread the same passage aloud.
• Handout 7

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Books on Tape

• Provides students with a model for reading with
  expression and punctuation.
• Fun and independent activity to support fluency
  development.
• Effective strategy but not a substitute for
  direct instruction.

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Explicit and Systematic Instruction

• Model Provide explicit examples of new material.
• Practice Provide ample opportunities for
  students to practice new material. Ample is
  defined by the individual needs of each student.
• Assess (ongoing) Check students understanding
  of the new material throughout the lesson.
• Feedback Immediately correct any incorrect
  student responses by repeating the teacher model.

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Tips for Providing Feedback

• Be positive.
• Be attentive.
• Be precise.
• Be mindful.

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Opportunities for Practice

• Daily
• Model fluent reading
• Phrasing
• Following along with a tape
• Readers theater
• Choral reading
• Repeated reading chart
• Reading buddies
• Self-recordings
• Amplification

Hudson, Lane, Pullen (2005) Partnership for
Reading (2004) Handout 8
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Appropriate Text Level

• How to determine
• Have student read aloud from a book at the level
  you feel is appropriate for him/her.
• Calculate the number of words read correctly and
  divide by the total words read.
• Higher than 97 accuracy independent reading
  level
• 9097 accuracy instructional level
• 89 or below frustration level
• Five Finger Rule

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Summary

• Mastery of Phonemic Awareness and Phonics is
  necessary before working on fluency.
• Fluency is often left out of reading instruction,
  but it is an essential component.
• Assessment is critical to inform fluency
  instruction.
• Fluency must be taught explicitly and
  systematically.
• The essential components of early reading must be
  mastered before vocabulary and comprehension
  skills can be developed.

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• CLOSING QUESTIONS
• COMMENTS

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• THANK YOU!