Teaching reading fluency

[Tanikit]

Reading fluency is not something I thought I would have to teach my daughter - we have a tape of my elder sister reading at 2 years of age with extreme expression and total fluency and I thought that all early readers would have this - I actually had to hunt through the youtube videos of early readers to find very young readers who were less fluent.

My daughter struggled with fluency when she was 3 years old and eventually I decided I needed to do something to help as it was making her dislike reading. She by that stage knew the sight words well up to grade 2 and 3 level (Dolch words) and was starting with phonics but she was also starting to tell us to slow down when we read to her as she knew she couldn't read as fast and fluently - she was reading often one word at a time in a very stilited pace.

I read about a number of methods to help with fluency and started using some of them - we printed nursery rhymes (only one verse each) and got her to read them out loud as though putting in a show. She loved doing this and while she probably memorised the rhymes when my husband pointed out individual words to her she could read them out of context too. I also started shared reading of books with plenty of direct speech and also plenty of exclamation marks, words in capital letters for emphasis and also books that didn't use the word "said" as much but rather shouted, yelled, cried etc and then got her to read them as the character might have said it.

We briefly tried to get her to follow along with books on CD (or Youtube) or an android tablet, but it is not as easy to get versions she can follow as easily as it was when I was younger and I am not sure why - possibly it is because I do not want to pay money for both the book and CD especially when they are often sold separately. This is also supposed to help with fluency.

In only about a month of working on fluency her fluency has increased dramatically, she is using more expression in her reading when reading out loud and she is also reading longer more difficult books suddenly. She does still ask me to read more slowly sometimes but this time when I do so she tells me that I am not reading it correctly and then goes on to correct me and read with expression. I believe this is also helping her comprehension.

What have you done to promote reading fluency with your children or did they perhaps not need anything?

[Stodd]

I'm happy to read your post, because I've never thought about fluency before. I mean I just go with the flow right now, teaching my son to read and of course I try to challenge him..How old is your DD now?
Thank you for the ideas anyways! I've learned something again!

[Mandabplus3]

When my daughter needed to improve her fluency, I had her read books that were too easy for her. This way she only had one thing to focus on, speed. She continued to read books at her level but also added in an easy one. It was an exercise in eye training for her mostly as her fluency dropped when the print got smaller. Bt I have used the same technique in the class room with other children successfully too. Re reading the same book is another great way to improve fluency.

[Tanikit]

Stodd my daughter turned 4 in September (so almost 4.5 years old now). Mandabplus - thanks yes I do also ask her to read easier books and read a few multiple times - these are probably one of the best ways for increasing fluency .

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