Tips for Helping Your Child Become a More Fluent Reader

How to Develop Reading Fluency

If your child struggles with reading fluency—and listening to him read aloud is a painful experience—then this article is for you!

We've all heard kids who read aloud with a inclement, almost robotic tone. Information technology'southward difficult to grasp the meaning of what they're reading. They may read too fast, or they may read too slowly and laboriously.

On the other hand, when someone reads aloud with fluency, information technology'due south easy to sympathize what they are reading, and it's a delight to listen to them. Fluent readers add emphasis to sure words and convey meaning with their expression.

What Is Reading Fluency?

Fluency is the ability to read with accurateness, proper speed, and meaningful expression.

Fluency is likewise a significant indicator of reading comprehension. When children can read fluently, it means that instead of using brain power for decoding, they can turn their attention to the pregnant of the text.

And it gets even amend. When students reach higher levels of fluency, they're able to tap into metacognitive strategies. This means that they tin can visualize, question, and interpret what they are reading, and they can think nearly their own feelings and opinions while reading text. This is the highest level of reading comprehension.

Obviously, fluency is highly desirable. Then permit'due south talk about how we can become your child to this point.

Proficient Decoding Skills Come up Outset

Don't even outset working on fluency until your child can decode all the words in the text.

Does your child stumble over words? Substitute words? Need to sound out multiple words on the page? These are all signs that you demand to piece of work on decoding first; otherwise, y'all volition both be frustrated.

In All About Reading, we give a lot of attending to decoding earlier we expect fluency.

• Kids read words in isolation (on flashcards that we call Word Cards).
• They read words in phrases.
• Then they read words in sentences.
• They encounter the words on fun and motivating activity sheets.
• And finally, they encounter the words in short stories.

By this point, students have significantly expanded their sight word vocabulary, and they have reached the point of automaticity for most of the words in the story.

THEN—and just then—we work on fluency skills.

The Importance of Vocabulary for Fluency

Does your kid empathize the pregnant of all the words he'due south reading?

If not, fluency will be an uphill battle for both of you. Even if he can decode the words properly, when he runs into a give-and-take he doesn't understand, he will be unable to read smoothly and with expression.

Take you e'er tried to read a book on a topic you were unfamiliar with? As you lot encountered words you didn't know or understand, your fluency probably faltered. And quite likely, by the time you reached the end of a sentence, you had probably forgotten what the first part of the sentence even said.

That's why we make certain students understand all the words in the brusk stories in our reading programwithout dumbing down the stories with simplistic words. On the contrary, nosotros purposely innovate words that are very probable new to the reader. We use interesting, mind-expanding geographic locations, equally well every bit a large variety of historical settings and nationalities.

Only we don't leave readers stranded with no hope of understanding what they are reading.

Instead, we have short attending-grabbing discussions earlier each story is read. We highlight new vocabulary words through illustrations, and take what the student already knows and use that equally a "hook" for the new vocabulary words.

With this method, the pupil is mentally prepared when he encounters the word again in the brusk stories. He can read the word smoothly because he knows how it should be pronounced, and he can continue visualizing the storyline in his heed considering he isn't wrestling with the meaning.

When it comes to fluent reading, it's easy to encounter why information technology'southward a big help to accept a adept vocabulary that is relative to what your child is reading about.

Provide a Good Function Model

Another of import gene in the evolution of fluency is the need for fluency function models. When your child hears fluent reading, it will exist easier for him to mimic information technology and then eventually go far his own.

When you read aloud to your child, yous're setting an case. Your child is mentally absorbing your tone, your speed, and your inflections. That's ane of the reasons nosotros encourage you to read aloud to your child for at least twenty minutes every day. Your child volition go familiar with how a reader's voice helps written text brand sense.

Audiobooks are another fantastic resource for providing role models, not to mention they help you requite your voice a balance! Here are some current favorites, to get you started.

• The Ramona Quimby Collection by Beverly Cleary (narrated past Stockard Channing)
• Charlotte's Web by Eastward.B. White (narrated by George Plimpton)
• Redwall by Brian Jacques (narrated by full cast)

Another thing that happens when your kid hears books read aloud is that he learns "phrasing."

Why Phrasing Helps

Consider this sentence:

This sentence would exist really tiresome to mind to if each discussion were spoken with fifty-fifty pacing.

Fluent readers naturally group phrases, similar this:

They automatically divide text into meaningful chunks, which is chosen phrasing . Children who have skilful phrasing intuitively know when to interruption.

But what if your child doesn't know how to do this still? How can y'all teach phrasing?

To help your kid go the hang of it, you can utilise a pencil to "swoop" under each phrase.

Phrasing usually occurs with prepositional phrases, but honestly, your own intuition will serve you well every bit you mark the page. Think of how you would read the text; there are no absolutely right answers here, especially every bit you get into more avant-garde text.

If you use All About Reading, yous'll see that our Level 1 readers and Practice Sheets from Levels 1-4 are designed with intentional line breaks to help your child larn and understand phrasing. Here's an example:

The pages are formatted to let get-go readers to read more than smoothly and comprehend the text more easily. The line breaks promote natural phrasing.

Encourage Expressive Reading

Afterward years of listening to read-alouds, your child is probably familiar with how to interpret dialogue—reading text the way someone would say it. But it can however have some practice for novice readers to get the hang of adding expression to their own voices.

One way to encourage good expression is to model it with buddy reading. There are several forms of buddy reading, merely for encouraging expression, it is almost helpful if you read a folio and and so have your educatee read the same page after you. Demonstrate how to pay attending to punctuation, and how to emphasize of import words.

Another nifty way to do expressive reading is with an activity like this i from All Near Reading.

In "Round Upwardly the Sheep," your child will discover that the same words can accept on a completely different meaning when you lot say them with different expression. As you tin see, encouraging expression and increasing fluency doesn't have to be dull!

Silent Reading Isn't as Constructive for Improving Reading Fluency

This idea is probably clear from the previous sections, but information technology's important enough that I want to exist certain to say it outright:

Accept your kid read aloud, non silently.

Silent reading certainly has its place, just oral reading practice is much more than effective in developing fluency.

Having an audience tin exist motivating and tin can give your student an opportunity to exercise meaningful expression. Encourage your child to read to someone else, such as a sibling, a visiting neighbour, Grandma, or a parent.

Kids Tin Cocky-Assess, Likewise!

Information technology can be actually helpful for kids to hear themselves read. And recording themselves tin can be fun!

Need an like shooting fish in a barrel style to record? Hither'due south a recording program you tin download for complimentary.

Afterward recording, let your child assess his ain reading. How did it sound? Did information technology sound natural? Choppy? Did he pay attention to punctuation? Encourage him to notice ane thing he did well and one thing that needs improvement. Then he tin re-record and try to improve. Even professional speakers practise this!

The Bottom Line on Improving Reading Fluency

Reading fluency develops gradually, simply equally you can see, in that location is a lot you tin can exercise to promote it.

Equally long as your child has strong enough decoding skills, the next steps are to:

• Help build a stiff vocabulary.
• Provide a good function model, whether that is you lot or fantastic audiobook narrators.
• Use phrasing and "swooping" to break sentences into meaningful chunks.
• Tap into buddy reading to encourage expressive reading.
• Have your kid record himself reading, and then cocky-assess.

And finally, keep encouraging your child! With your help, he won't read similar a robot forever. Fluency volition come up!

The All About Reading plan walks you and your child through all the steps to aid your child attain fluency. The plan is multisensory, motivating, and complete, with everything you need to heighten a stiff reader. And if yous need a helping hand, we're hither for you.

What's your take on teaching reading fluency? Have anything else to share? Let me know in the comments below!

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Source: https://blog.allaboutlearningpress.com/reading-fluency/

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