All three of the readings assigned for this week had much to say about the concept of fluency. Fluency involves many aspects of reading including the rate of reading, comprehension of the materials, and the way a reader reads the given materials. In the Rasinski and Deeney articles, the authors agree that something needs to be changed about the way in which children are tested for fluency. They state that current fluency tests are designed to test the rate of words per minute, but not designed to test if children are comprehending the text. Comprehension of text is a large part of the definition of fluency. The Deeney article provided some helpful charts that explained what teachers should be looking for when they are doing the one minute fluency tests. it requires the teacher to go more in depth and take the extra mile, but it is so much more beneficial when it comes to readjusting curriculum to fit your students' needs more appropriately. The Allington chapter was a wonderful resource to have when it comes to helping children better their fluency. It provides great strategies and tips like "echo readings," word walls, and the FDL(Fluency Development Lessons). They even provided examples of great books for children to read and suggested to provide fun and interesting texts that are below grade level reading for the children who are struggling with reading in your classroom.
-What types of strategies and techniques would you include in your teaching practices and classroom?
-How would you include students who are struggling with reading in your classroom?
Some strategies I would implement is groups reading with the teacher and partner reading for those who are not with the teacher. With the teacher students can do read alouds and role playing so the teacher may identify accuracy. When it comes to comprehension things may become more difficult but I would have them do book reports/ projects that draws their interest. Those students in the pairing activities can depend on their partner to help them and they each can provide helpful feedback for one another.
ReplyDeleteIf I see a student that appears to be struggling with reading fluency I think I would encourage them to take a step back and find a book they can read with ease just so I can see where they are with their reading fluency. Reading fluency can seem less intimidating and daunting when focusing on what you can do as opposed to going into it struggling from the very beginning. Once it is clear where they got lost we could go from there and form a plan.
ReplyDeleteA strategy in the book for teaching fluency was the reading theatre. I thought this was a great idea to get kids actively reading in the class. At first I was hesitant to fully accept this strategy because I was worried it would put weaker readers on the spot and make them feel uncomfortable. However, I think it would be a great way to help kids that struggle with reading. Give those readers more time to get comfortable with the book. Give them the book before everyone else is given it and provide them with extra help if needed. This way when you do readers' theatre with the class, they can participate and become comfortable with reading.
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