FLUENCY “Fluent readers raise and lower the volume and pitch of their voices, they speed up and slow down at appropriate places in the text, they read words in meaningful groups or phrases, they pause at appropriate places within the text. These are elements of expression, or prosody—the melody of language.” —Dr. Timothy Rasinski, professor of literacy education, Kent State University
KEY FINDINGS
> > The research of the past two decades clearly demonstrates a robust correlation between expressive oral reading and silent reading comprehension That is, students who read orally with good expression are more likely to comprehend deeply when reading silently. So we see fluency as a critical bridge between word recognition and comprehension. If students are unable to develop that bridge, they will likely have difficulty in achieving necessary levels of comprehension when reading (Rasinski and Cheesman Smith, 2018). > > Successful reading requires readers to process the text (the surface level of reading) and comprehend the text (the deeper meaning). Reading fluency refers to the reader’s ability to develop control over surface-level text processing so that he or she can focus on understanding the deeper levels of meaning embedded in the text” (Rasinski, 2004, 2018). > > Voluminous, independent reading is the primary source of reading fluency (Allington, 2012). > > Unless children read substantial amounts of print, their reading will remain laborious, lacking fluency and limited in effectiveness (Allington, 2012). > > Fluency is not a stage of development. For any reader, fluency varies with the complexity of the text, the purpose for reading, the genre, the reader’s familiarity with the text, and the like (Fountas and Pinnell, 2006). > > “The fluent reader is demonstrating comprehension, taking cues from the text and taking pleasure in finding the right tempo for the text” (Newkirk, 2011).
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FLUENCY
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