Reading: “A complex, multidimensional process in which readers bring their own meaning and experiences to the printed page to obtain meaning from it” (Opitz & Rasinski, 1998).
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| The three components of effective reading |
Accuracy: "I can read the words" (Boushey & Mosher, 2006).
Decoding: The ability to correctly pronounce the written word. Just because one is able to decode written words, however, does not mean that he or she is able to comprehend the words.
Through our research, we found that fluency has not been researched as a critical component of reading until recently. Due to the recent increased interest in fluency as a crucial reading component, not much research has been conducted in the way of determining the effect of fluency on reading comprehension. Because of this rise in studying fluency by leading researchers, the FAD group's motto is "FAD: It's what's in right now!"
While much of the research we found discusses a loose correlation between fluency and comprehension, Rasinski, amongst others, argues that in order to reach greater levels of comprehension, one must be able to exert his or her cognitive energy on comprehension, rather than fluency, accuracy, and decoding. Therefore, if a reader is expending much of his or her cognitive energy on fluency, accuracy, and decoding, he or she will be less likely to comprehend texts.
Through our collaborative process, we have identified the many ways in which elementary, middle, and high school teachers have addressed, or failed to address, fluency, accuracy, and decoding in their own classrooms. In our quest of becoming teachers who promote a balanced literacy program, we aim to brainstorm and present ways in which fluency, accuracy, and decoding can be effectively addressed in your own classrooms.
Therefore, we would like you to share some ways that you already address teaching fluency, accuracy, and decoding in your own classroom. What is your opinion on one or each of these areas in the ultimate pursuit of creating efficient and effective readers? Are these components important? Why or why not? What is one question you have about one or all of these components? Please comment below. Please be prepared to share your thoughts in class as well.
I do believe that all three components are necessary for students to become successful, effective, and efficient readers. I don't necessarily think one is more important than the others, but I feel that all three combined are essential. This reminds me of the diagram we just used for the comprehension presentation where comprehension is at the top of the pyramid, but there are many other aspects of reading that support it. I agree that without these three components, comprehension would be very difficult. In classrooms, I have seen teachers use beanie baby strategies to help with decoding, reminding students to note if the word looks right, sounds right, and makes sense in the sentence. I have not really seen much on fluency, other than teachers modeling fluency during read aloud.
ReplyDeleteHow can you teach students about fluency and encourage them to be fluent readers, other than through modeling? Are any one of these more important than the other two or a precedent for the other two?
I believe that fluency, accuracy, and decoding all contribute to students' development as readers. I think they are all important in their own way but work together to contribute to students becoming effective readers. For example, just being able to read the words isn't enough. They need to eventually be read accurately and with fluency in order to allow for accurate comprehension. That being said, I am not sure that any of the components should be focused on above the others, or pushed to an extent where children neglect comprehension or are intimidated by reading. In the classrooms I have worked in, I have seen some strategies used to teach fluency, accuracy, and decoding. One of the main ways I have seen fluency taught is through modeling. When requested by the teacher, I have also conducted activities meant to increase students' fluency. The student would read a piece three times and I would record the speed at which it was read and the accuracy. I don't particularly like the idea of having students try to increase their speed when reading, but I think having them read something more than once to see the difference can be helpful in increasing fluency. I'm afraid that students will see speed as the meaning of fluency, when that is not the case. The only way that I can think of accuracy being taught is through the CAFE strategy of "Does it look right? Does it sound right? Does it make sense?" I have also seen students use accuracy when picking good fit books for Daily 5. They need to be able to read a certain number of words accurately in order for the book to be a good fit. In terms of decoding, I have seen students taught to chunk the sounds and use beginning and ending sounds.
ReplyDeleteHave you found that one of the three areas is more important than the others?
Is there an order in which fluency, accuracy, and decoding should be taught?
I completely agree with the girls above. These three aspects of reading are very important. I feel not one of them are any more important than the others. I do feel each of them bounce off each other. What I mean by this is students' skills in each of these effect the others. If you can accurately decode words than in turn you can become a fluent reader. In my past experience I have seen a lot of instances where a student struggles on a word when they are reading outloud to the class or is reading in a small group, and the teacher or even other classmates just tell them the word. This does not help students increase their abilities to read with fluency, accuracy and decode hard words. I was in a 21 day subbing job where I noticed this was a huge problem. I set up a quick and condensed version of the Daily 5 and made sure kids really worked on not telling their classmates words they stumbled on. I had them practice reading together and if there was a word that tripped the reader up, they used strategies to help each other figure out the word on their own. I guess I struggled on teaching the kids that stumbling on a word does not mean you stink at reading. So my question is how can you teach students that it makes you a stronger reader when you come upon a word that you have trouble reading and you use strategies to figure out the word on your own?
ReplyDeleteI believe that all three aspects fluency, decoding and accuracy are crucial in both a developing and practiced reader. Students should be taught and be encouraged to use all of these strategies in sync. We want our students to have a variety of different strategies and methods at their disposal when they come to a word or phrase that may be unfamiliar to them. I think that as teachers it is our job in turn to encourage all of these different strategies. Students are told too many times to "sound it out," and most of the time I feel that they are unaware of what this even means. Therefore, I am a big advocate for teaching students early on the importance of all three of these aspects, rather than just emphasizing the importance of one. I am interested in learning some different methods and strategies you have researched to help students decode an unknown word, especially student's in secondary settings.
ReplyDeleteI also believe that all three of these skills are important in reading. I don't feel that any of them are more important than the others, they all work together to help students comprehend what they are reading. Although these are all important skills, I feel that I have seen more strategies to teach decoding and accuracy than fluency. When I thought about it, I am not sure if I know of any strategies really to teach fluency. With this in mind, I am most interested in learning about effective strategies to use for teaching fluency.
ReplyDeleteAll aspects, fluency, decoding and accuracy are essential to teaching students to read. Not all students will learn to read at the same time or the same way; therefore, they should be taught many different strategies in various areas of reading to learn. It is funny to see how many kids say the "sound it out" method of reading helps them when in all actuality they struggle reading the words that you can't "sound out". Unfortunately, there are many teachers that still teach that method. Some students in my class have more success learning how to read by reading passages multiple times to build their fluency, while others find success in breaking apart words and others with reading sight words on flash cards. I think it is important to teach students how to reading using all three aspects and give them a variety of strategies and methods. I would like to learn how to teach student sight words in a more interesting ways so I can add it to my bag of tricks.
ReplyDeleteIt seems to me that at the secondary level people expect the students to just already have all the skills associated with fluency, decoding and accuracy to be able to move to a higher level with ease, but what about the large portion of the class that is still not ready to use fluency, decoding and accuracy skills? I think these presentations are very helpful because they help aspiring teachers like myself going into the secondary level address the students in my classes who are behind the rest of the group's achievement level still be able to allow the student to take something from my class.
ReplyDeleteHave you found any research about focusing on parts of speech? If so, have you found that it does indeed aid fluency, decoding and therefore comprehension?
ReplyDeleteAs a foreign language teacher, I often focus on what the word is doing in the sentence, for example, the subject is the doer of the action.
I wonder what the most recent studies are saying about such focus.
One way to practice fluency is to have students read different dialogues using character voices. I prefer to use puppets to work on this too!
ReplyDeleteMy question is how can we demonstrate the role that meaning plays in reading aloud fluently?
(BTW) Tim Rasinski is a very nice guy.
I also agree that all three aspects are important in teaching literacy. However, many students that I have worked with can not retain skills and strategies to help decode challenging words while reading. What are some strategies that could "stick" with the student to reduce the amount of reteach time of previous learned strategies?
ReplyDelete