Need tips and tricks for improving reading fluency? Keep reading to learn what to consider when it comes to reading fluency and ways to help your students improve.
Have you ever wondered what sets a good reader apart from a great reader? It’s all about oral reading fluency!
Not only does oral reading fluency make a reader more enjoyable to listen to, but it is also a strong indicator of reading comprehension. After all, it’s hard to read with expression if you don’t understand what’s happening in the text – or if you are having to pause to solve every third word.
Let’s look at what fluent reading really means (rate, intonation, phrasing, and all the rest), and then talk about what actually helps, including one of my favorite tools, Readers’ Theater.
What is Fluent Reading?
It’s easy to think about reading fluency in terms of reading speed. That’s how it’s measured on many common assessments (like DIBELS and FastBridge, or any other CBM tool.)
And, we’ve all listened to painfully slow readers and realized that they are definitely not fluent readers.
But, reading speed is only one piece of reading fluency.
Phrasing, expression, and intonation matter are just as important. A truly fluent reader uses their voice to bring the story to life, not just say the words correctly.
That’s because fluency and comprehension are closely connected. The reason those words-per-minute assessments are considered helpful is because they do correlate to measures of comprehension.
Despite that, it’s important to focus on more than simply words-per-minute when teaching for oral reading fluency.
What are at the key indicators of reading fluency?
Rate:
Reading rate is the piece most assessments capture, the DIBELS and FastBridge scores you’re probably already collecting. It’s simply how many words a child reads correctly in a minute.
However, it’s easy for students to over-focus on speed, hoping for a “high score.” In reality, we want readers to read at an appropriate reading speed – one that is neither too fast nor too slow.
Clearly, reading too slowly is not good. Many times slow readers are spending so much time solving words that they are unable to pay attention to the meaning of the text. Their reading sounds disjointed and is not enjoyable to listen to.
On the other hand, overly fast readers can be so focused on their reading speed that they race through the text, without paying attention to what the words are telling them. This becomes a bigger challenge when students are reading more complex texts with longer, complicated sentences (or less familiar vocabulary.)
Speedy readers aren’t always better readers either – they tend to skip right past expression and phrasing, which ends up sounding pretty robotic. Not exactly fun to listen to.
So, much like Goldilocks, we are looking for readers who read the speed that is just right for the text they are reading.
Expression:
Expression and intonation are what make reading sound like talking instead of reciting. The voice rises and falls with the punctuation, drops to a whisper for a quiet moment in the story, gets louder for an exclamation point.
Reading with intonation conveys meaning and emotion to the listener. When a student reads with intonation, it usually shows that they are aware of the meaning of the text.
Without intonation, reading can sound pretty robotic, flat and mechanical, like a computer reading the words instead of a person telling a story.
Phrasing:
Phrasing means a reader’s words come out in natural chunks, the way we’d actually say them out loud, with little pauses at commas and periods instead of one long run-on or a stop after every single word.
When a reader naturally groups words into phrases, it’s a good sign they understand the sentence, not just the individual words.
Reading without phrasing can either sound very choppy or rushed. Not only is this kind of reading hard to listen to, but it might also compromise comprehension for the reader.
Stress:
Stress is the way we lean on certain words when we talk to get our point across, and it matters just as much when kids read out loud. Shifting which word gets the emphasis can completely change what a sentence means.
For instance, “Today I am going to make cookies,” emphasizes the day for baking. You will do it today, as opposed to tomorrow.
On the other hand, “Today I am going to make cookies,” implies that perhaps you are baking a different treat at a different time.
Why does improving reading fluency matter?
Fluency and comprehension go hand in hand. Since making meaning is the whole point of reading, fluency matters most for the kids who are working hardest to get there.
But, reading fluency also impacts enjoyment of text, for both the reader and the listener. Reading with expression (and all the other components of fluency) can really capture a listener’s attention, helping to engage the audience.
Kids who read fluently tend to enjoy it more, which means they read more, which means they keep getting better. It’s a nice little cycle once it gets going.
What are ways for improving reading fluency?
Great news! There are several ways to improve reading fluency, and most of them are highly enjoyable to students!
My favorite ways for improving reading fluency involve modeling fluent reading, engaging in repeated reading, using readers’ theater, and participating in partner reading. These strategies involve social connections, which often make learning tasks more rewarding.
Modeling:
We can all remember listening to a parent or favorite teacher read aloud to us when we were little. We were often on the edge of our seats, waiting to know what happened next – and the adult knew it!
That adult was likely a fluent and engaging reader. Their ability to read with expression, phrasing and varied rate pulled us right in!
Little did we know that the highly enjoyable task of listening to a story was also setting us up to become fluent readers. The modeling of fluent reading helps children develop of sense of rhythm, pace and expression. (It’s a great way to support vocabulary and oral language, too!)
If you’ve got dysfluent readers in your group, make time to model fluent reading for them, maybe during read-aloud, maybe somewhere else in your day.
But it could also be within a small group lesson. You wouldn’t have time to read an entire book during that time, but you could read a page from their book, modeling how to read it with expression (or phrasing, or stressing a particular word). Then have the child reread the same page back to you, applying this fluency skill.
When using modeling to support a particular child, pick one fluency component to focus on and point it out directly as you read. Here are a couple of examples:
Expression: “Listen to how I make my reading sound like talking. I change my voice to show if the book is exciting or sad. When the characters talk, I make them sound like people talking.”
Phrasing: “Notice how I take a slight break at the period and the comma. That helps you understand what’s happening in the book.”
The same idea works for rate (point out how you keep moving instead of pausing between every word) and stress (point out a bold word and explain why the author wants it said louder).
Repeated Reading:
Repeated reading has been a go-to fluency strategy for ages, and for good reason. It’s also a few different ways, depending on the classroom.
In some repeated reading structures, the child rereads a book they read in an earlier lesson. This can be done within the small group lesson structure, as independent reading, or as homework.
When focusing on fluency, it is often helpful to use texts that are short and relatively easy for the student. This allows them to focus their attention on the desired aspect of fluency (phrasing, expression, etc.), rather then spending significant energy on solving unfamiliar words.
As a teaching point before rereading a text, you may prompt the reader to pay close attention to one of the components of fluency, using some of the prompts in the “modeling” section of this blog.
Readers’ Theater:
Readers’ Theater is a simple dramatization of a story. Students read from a script, but do not fully perform a play.
However, students are encouraged to read their lines with phrasing and expression, similar to actors. This makes Readers’ Theater a perfect strategy for improving reading fluency. Plus, kids love it!
One big reason Readers’ Theater supports fluency is because the scripts tend to involve a great deal of dialogue. Students can be encouraged to read their lines in a way that sounds like that character.
Because students enjoy Readers’ Theater so much, they’re excited to read the scripts again and again, an easy way to build in some repeated reading with a real purpose behind it.
They also enjoy reading scripts to friends or family, in addition to performing them in the classroom. Students have a built-in reason to read with expression once they know someone’s listening.
Want to try it yourself? The Fox and the Crow – free Readers’ Theater script is a great starting point, a short, funny fable written for early readers, with color-coded parts so kids can easily follow along.
Partner Reading:
Kids love reading with a partner! The social aspect of partner reading is highly engaging and rewarding to students.
During partner reading, students can reread familiar books, building fluency as they go, This becomes, once again, a simple way to encourage rereading.
You can structure this a few different ways: choral reading (everyone reads together, best for shorter books), alternating pages, or echo-reading, where a more fluent reader models a page and their partner reads it right back.
Partner reading is wonderful, but let’s be real, it can also get loud and scattered fast if you don’t set it up carefully first.
Be clear with students about why you’re doing this, to practice reading and build fluency.
Then model the process. Spend a few days on each format, showing exactly what it looks like before turning kids loose to try it.
Have a few volunteers demonstrate for the class first. Then let everyone practice, with quiet voices, starting with short stretches of time and building up from there. Keep revisiting the routine until it feels automatic for your group.
Make Fluency Fun
Improving reading fluency matters because comprehension depends on it, and the good news is that most of the strategies for getting there are genuinely fun for kids.
Whether you start with modeling, repeated reading, Readers’ Theater, or partner reading, pick one and try it this week. Fluent reading opens the door to a lifetime of enjoying books, and these little routines are how kids get there.
You Might Also Like:
- How to Do Readers’ Theater in Your K-2 Classroom – a full walkthrough of running Readers’ Theater in your classroom, from picking parts to building fluency through repeated reading
- 7 Reading Fluency Activities: Make Your Young Readers Sound Great! – more practical strategies for building phrasing, expression, and rate
- Easy Ways to Turn High Frequency Words into Sight Words – because word-level automaticity is part of the fluency puzzle too
