Building Fluent Readers: How Oral Reading Practice Helps Reading Comprehension

• October 25, 2011 by Cory Armes

In my former work as a teacher, one of the best moments of the day in my classroom took place when I read aloud to my students.  It was a magical time for all of us as the words on the page and the characters in the story seemed to come alive right before us as I used different voices and accents. Sometimes I read very fast and other times I created long pauses that kept my students hanging, wondering what would happen next.  I wanted them to love reading as much as I did – to enjoy that excitement you feel when you solve a mystery, are saved from catastrophe, or discover a wild and wonderful new world.  Sharing this gift with my students was possible only because I am a fluent reader.

In his book The Fluent Reader, Dr. Timothy Rasinski says that fluency is a critical but sometimes ignored link between the basic reading of words and achieving comprehension.  With fluency, the foundational skills of phonics and word recognition have progressed to the point that only a minimal amount of cognitive energy is needed for decoding so that the reader can focus on understanding what is being read.   When you are a fluent reader, you are able to read easily and efficiently with prosody, or meaningful expression, and that enhances your comprehension. 

Students must have some degree of fluency in order to comprehend text, so if you have students who easily understand what is read to them but have difficulty when reading independently, fluency may be the source of that problem.  A study of fourth graders sponsored by the US Department of Education demonstrated that the most fluent readers had the strongest comprehension scores.  In addition, every decline in oral reading fluency in the study had a corresponding decline in reading comprehension.^[i]  The study was replicated ten years later with about 1,500 students and had similar results.^[ii]  In both studies, close to half of the students who were not adequately fluent in reading also demonstrated significant problems with comprehension.

Practice is essential to learning and mastering any skill – sports, music, cooking, etc. - so it makes sense that this also would apply to the skill of reading.   By including consistent oral reading practice during the school day, the reading process becomes transparent so it can be observed, examined and supported until students become independent readers.   Readers must transition from being tied to the individual words so they can achieve higher levels of comprehension as they read.  A great way to encourage this is through repeated oral practice of the same reading selection, which helps students with word recognition, fluency and prosody as well as general reading and comprehension. 

There is something special about reading aloud regardless of who does the reading.  Oral reading is a powerful tool that can help students not only learn to read fluently but also to experience the joy of reading. 

The transition from rote to rapture - that’s what fluency can do for you.

Want to learn more?  Check out Dr. Rasinski’s free on-demand webinar on scilearn.com, Teaching Fluency:  The Neglected Goal of the Reading Program.

[i] Gay S. Pinnell et al. Listening to Children Read Aloud: Data From NAEP’s Integrated Reading Performance Record (IRPR) at Grade 4, 1995.  http://www.eric.ed.gov/ERICWebPortal/search/permalinkPopup.jsp?accno=ED378550

[ii]Mary C. Daane, Jay R. Campbell, Wendy S. Grigg, Madeline J. Goodman, and Andreas Oranje. Fourth-Grade Students Reading Aloud: NAEP 2002 Special Study of Oral Reading, October 2005. http://nces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard/pubs/studies/2006469.asp

Related Reading:

The Essential Nature of Developing Oral Reading Fluency

How Learning to Read Improves Brain Function

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Categories: Education Trends, Reading & Learning, Reading Assistant

Tags: child reading development, cognitive skills, elementary learning, fluency, improving reading skills, learning to read, literacy, reading comprehension, student growth, teacher impact

Inspiring Fluency: One School’s Journey to Improve Reading Skills

• July 21, 2011 by Jacqueline Egli

A focus on core reading skills has recently been promoted in college coursework for beginning teachers, statewide initiatives for student achievement, and professional development for teachers across the curriculum in all levels of education. One of the five core skills, fluency, is still being heavily debated among the researchers, but is gaining traction as an instructional skill that is necessary to the efficiency of reading. Differences in word reading or naming speed, two aspects of fluency, have been identified as early as kindergarten levels in struggling readers (Wolf, Bally, & Morris, 1986), and can continue to be tracked into middle and high school (Meyer, Wood, Hart, and Felton, 1999). Many students who struggle and are identified as having reading deficits have difficulty with reading speed and accuracy. 

Although there seems to be a significant and growing body of research on reading skills, including fluency, there is still much to be learned about the impact of fluency on overall learning. The typical definition of fluency is “the ability to read connected text rapidly, smoothly, effortlessly and automatically with little conscious attention to the mechanics of reading, such as decoding” (Meyers and Felton, 1999). Reading fluency problems of children with reading difficulties, according to Torgeson (2006), are a result of students’ difficulties forming large vocabularies of words that they can recognize “by sight” or at a single glance. If students receive “powerful and appropriately focused interventions many of them can become accurate readers and their reading comprehension improves as a result of being able to correctly identify more of the words in text” (Torgeson, 2006).

Bridges Academy, located in Winter Springs Florida, serves students with specific learning disabilities. The overall purpose of the program is to remediate the learning gaps for the students and to “bridge” them back into mainstream schools with mainstream curriculum. Ninety-nine percent of the students who attend the school have an identified deficit in reading and many are considered to be dysfluent readers. Several years ago, Bridges Academy incorporated a computer-based instructional tool, Reading Assistant software, that provided a highly focused intervention for fluency to address the skill development of reading fluency, as a trial implementation.

For the pilot program, 10 middle school aged students were selected to try the Reading Assistant program. Each middle school student was invited to participate, if they desired to do so, during their homeroom time at the end of the day. Homeroom time, of course, is a very social time and many of the middle school students looked forward to spending some time connecting with their peers before leaving campus for the day. Each of the students was asked to commit to no more than 10 days, so they did not feel that they were giving up their social time for the rest of the school year. 

To get familiar with the program and the process, each student was assigned a level of the computer program that was instructionally suited to their present independent reading level. The requirements were straightforward. Students were to listen to a selected story read aloud on the computer a total of three times. Then each student was required to review any words that were unfamiliar to them by selecting the word and seeing or hearing an example of that word in a picture or sentence. After this initial step the students were required to orally read the story selection. Words Correct Per Minute (WCPM) was tracked by the software and students were directed to complete a series of comprehension questions when done. One key component unique to this product was the requirement that the student listen to their own voice recording of the selection after each of the three required oral reading samples. 

The interest and enthusiasm amongst these 10 middle school students as the project began was very exciting to the faculty and administration. All 10 students shared information with their parents and their classmates about the project and the way the program worked. During their lunch break, they discussed the various stories that they were reading amongst themselves   and shared their present WCPM scores with their peers with tremendous pride!  These students would celebrate their promotion to a new story with a “high five” and pored over their data reports at the end of the week to see what types of gains in fluency they were making. What was most encouraging? All 10 of the students chose to work on the program for the duration of the school year, a period of eight weeks. One student even elected to come back to the campus during summer vacation to complete the stories he was reading, so he could reach his own set goal of 200 WCPM! 

The impact of this implementation of the Reading Assistant program is now being realized across the campus at Bridges Academy. All students who are reading above a second grade level are provided access to the Reading Assistant program two to three times a week, throughout the school year. Students who are preparing to “bridge” to a new school program are provided the opportunity to work four afternoons a week as an after school option, so that they may increase their proficiency rate with above grade level material in preparation for their move to the mainstream schools. Every January through April, 80% of the students eligible for bridging can be observed working in the afterschool program. What is most impressive is that these students have chosen to participate in this afterschool program! 

The assessments, data analysis, and individual summary reports built into Reading Assistant track the overall impact of the program in improving reading skills for student participants.  Bridges Academy staff and administration are pleased with the overall improvements in the students’ reading skills and confidence. The students perceive themselves as readers, and parents report that the students are now becoming more confident readers who enjoy reading--many for the first time!

References:

Meyer, M.A., & Felton, R.H. (1999). Repeated reading to enhance fluency: Old approaches and new directions.  Annals of Dyslexia, 49, 283–306.

Meyer, M.S., Wood, F.B., Hart, L.A. & Fenton, R. H. (1999) Longitudinal course of rapid naming in disabled and non disabled readers. Annals of Dyslexia, 48, 89-114.

Torgeson, J.K. & Hudson, R. (2006) Reading fluency: critical issues for struggling readers. In S.J. Samuels and A. Farstrup (Eds.). Reading Fluency: The forgotten dimension of reading success. Newark, DE: International Reading Association

Wolf, M., Bally, H., & Morris, R. (1986) Automaticity, retrieval process and reading: A longitudinal study in average and impaired readers. Child Development, 57, 988-1000.

Related Reading:

Truth in Numbers: School Achieves Statistically Significant Improvements on TAKS

The Essential Nature of Developing Oral Reading Fluency

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Attend one of our popular webinars with thought leaders in learning. Live and pre-recorded webinars are available. Register today!

Categories: Reading & Learning, Reading Assistant, Special Education

Tags: academic success, child reading development, fluency, improving reading skills, learning to read, literacy, motivating students, reading comprehension, reading intervention, self-esteem, struggling readers, student growth, success stories, technology in education

The Essential Nature of Developing Oral Reading Fluency

• June 7, 2011 by Bill Jenkins, Ph.D.

As we head into summer break, the farthest thing from most of our minds is the first day of school. That said, that day is surely on its way. And while day one is always unpredictable, the kindergarten and first grade teachers know that better than anyone: you never know what skills those students will have when they come in the door.

While evaluating each student’s capabilities is by no means an easy task, we can get a head start through having a solid understanding of how the brain learns best and under what conditions. If we can understand that, we can more effectively direct children’s learning and give them what their hungry brains need so they learn with optimal effectiveness.

When it comes to reading skills, children show up on that first day of school with an incredible variety of experience. Many have parents who have read to them every day since day one. Many have constant access to books and other materials to promote pre-literacy. At the same time, many have parents with busy lives who have not made that commitment to reading, or parents who simply do not understand the importance of these early literacy experiences and simply to not cultivate these skills. Judgment aside, it is up to educators in these classrooms to apply the latest research-based knowledge to ensure success for each student and bring the class along as a whole as effectively as possible.

Of course, standardized assessments help us to zero in on needs. But even once we understand those needs, how can an educator focus their efforts to cultivate success for a group with disparate skill levels? One way, as stated above, is to understand the brain and how it builds skills. What are the first skills that educators should focus on in terms of reading skills so that students can continue to build success?

A study in 2010 by Young-Suk Kim, Christopher Schatschneider and Barbara Foorman of Florida State University and Yaacov Petscher, all in association with the Florida Center for Reading Research, posed this very question. Their study looked at how growth in oral reading fluency, vocabulary, phonological awareness, letter-naming fluency, and nonsense word reading fluency skills related to reading comprehension skills.

Interestingly, through their study of all these skills areas or “predictors,” they learned that the greatest predictor of a child’s ability to develop comprehension skills by the third grade was their growth rate in oral reading fluency early on in the first grade.^[i]

This study tells us that, as early as possible in first grade, educators need to both get a bearing on each student’s oral reading fluency capabilities and encourage development of those skills as quickly as possible to lay the foundation for the development of subsequent skills.

That said, from a practical perspective, what kinds of activities are best for developing oral reading fluency? Here are a few:

• Modeling: Reading to children allows them to hear the sound, rhythm and phrasing of language.
• Vocabulary Development: Since fluency depends upon the reader’s ability to quickly recognize and decode words on sight, having a solid vocabulary foundation and a bank of sight words to draw upon is key.
• Choral Reading: Reading along out loud with a student and following along in a text together allows educators to help students experience hearing and sounding out words at the same time.
• Silent Sustained Reading (SSR): Through SSR students get the freedom to develop their own taste for reading, unfettered by the pressures and anxieties of reading aloud. SSR both increases motivation and ability to focus.
• Guided Oral Reading: Oral reading by a student with guidance and feedback from a patient coach allows children to apply and build their phonics skills to sound out words and helps them crack the alphabetic code. Repetitive oral reading helps these children increase their familiarity with vocabulary and pronunciation while increasing reading fluency. The connection between reading fluency and comprehension is strong, in part because it facilitates the efficient use of language working memory.

Part of the wonder and excitement of being an elementary school teacher certainly comes from that experience of getting to know the new set of students, with all their smiles and faults, talents and deficiencies. If we can focus on—and have some fun with—developing oral reading fluency with our youngest students, research shows that we should be setting each individual, as well as the class as a whole, on the road to reading success.

For more detail on the above methods and access to helpful reading resources and to learn how computers can provide accurate, patient guided oral reading for all students, visit http://www.scilearn.com/products/reading-assistant/.

[i] Kim, Y S. Petscher, Y. Schatschneider, C. Does growth Rate in Oral Reading Fluency Matter in Predicting Reading Comprehension Achievement. Journal of Educational Psychology. 2010. 102:3. 652-667.

Related Reading:

Engaging Children in the World with Words

How Learning to Read Improves Brain Function

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Attend one of our popular webinars with thought leaders in learning. Live and pre-recorded webinars are available. Register today!

Categories: Brain Fitness, Education Trends, Reading & Learning

Tags: child reading development, early learning, elementary school learning, fluency, how children learn, improving reading skills, learning to read, literacy, oral language skills, reading comprehension, student growth, teacher impact, vocabulary

5 Insights from our Recent Brain Fitness Webinars

• January 6, 2011 by Carrie Gajowski

As we look ahead to the 2011 webinars and get ready to hear more experts in the field of brain fitness and education, I wanted to take a moment to review the 2010 webinars and share the top 5 points of the webinars that I am still thinking about today.

1. We have learned more about the brain in the last 10 years than in the previous 100 years (Eric Jensen, 7 Discoveries From Brain Research That Could Revolutionize Education).
2. The frequency of autism is increasing. It used to be 2 to 5 for every 10,000.  Now research suggests 1 in 110 live births with more cases of autism happening in boys (CDC Report in 2009) (Ann Osterling, Autism: What is the Latest Research?).
3. The repeated practice of texts helps build fluency.  Have students read poetry out loud, sing songs, and do cheers and chants.  (Dr. Timothy Rasinski, Teaching Fluency:  The Neglected Goal of the Reading Program).
4. Students today are part of a global community and need to prepare to be global researchers and global communicators (Alan November, Creating a New Culture of Teaching and Learning).
5. We used to be able to teach education as a top-down model. Education is not something to do to students but rather with students.  It is critical that we learn how to engage with students, listen to them and help them find their passion in life (Marc Prensky, Engage Me or Enrage Me: Educating Today's ‘Digital Native' Learners).

Check out our webinars page for recorded webinars and to learn how you can subscribe to a podcast.  Subscribe to this blog to receive the 2011 webinar schedule in your inbox, coming soon!

Subscribe to this blog to get new blog posts right in your inbox and stay up to date on the science of learning!

Attend one of our popular webinars with thought leaders in learning. Live and pre-recorded webinars are available. Register today!

Categories: Brain Fitness, Brain Research, Education Trends, Reading & Learning

Tags: autism, brain plasticity, child reading development, digital natives, early learning, fluency, innovation, learning to read, motivating students, technology in education, webinar

What Makes Superman So Great? Closing the Achievement Gap

• December 14, 2010 by Terri Zezula

He gets results! Rescuing the good citizens of Metropolis and instilling hope and wonder in all citizens. Yes, it’s a comical notion but we love to believe in the Superheroes and their ability to get things done!

When it comes to education, we look to our school district leaders to get things done – improved student achievement, high quality schools and low cost education programs that get maximum results. Especially in light of recent reports that show the US lagging behind other countries in reading, math, science and social studies. But there is one district in Louisiana that is getting things done – their results are proof that good leadership, a supporting community and proven education programs can turn a district around, from failing to proficient in a short amount of time.

Once a low performing district, the St. Mary Parish Public School System has achieved significant gains to become a role model for schools looking to make dramatic changes in their performance. After using the Fast ForWord® and Reading Assistant™ family of educational software products to strengthen students’ brain processing and literacy skills, students have increased their reading proficiency, and improved their achievement on state tests. In addition, fourth grade promotion rates have increased and test scores for student subgroups have improved, with the district making significant progress toward closing the achievement gap.

During the 2006-07 school year, St. Mary Parish started school-wide use of the Fast ForWord software at eight elementary schools that were in Academic Assistance. During the 2008-09 and 2009-10 school years, the Fast ForWord program was extended to the rest of the district. Students in grades three through five work with the Fast ForWord products 30, 40 or 50 minutes a day, depending on the school. Since 2008, the district has implemented Reading Assistant software as well.  Reading Assistant combines advanced speech-verification technology with the latest reading science to help students strengthen their fluency, comprehension, and vocabulary.

Results

• Improved state test scores
• Increased fourth grade promotion rate
• Fewer students required to attend summer remediation
• Reduced achievement gap

From 2006 to 2010 the percentage of fourth graders performing at or above the Basic level on the initial LEAP ELA test increased from 55 percent to 78 percent. In 2008, for the first time in a decade, the district exceeded the state average for the percentage of fourth graders reading at or above Basic on the initial ELA test. In addition, for the first time in years, the district had no schools labeled Academically Unacceptable.

Similarly, from 2006 to 2010, the percentage of fourth graders performing at or above Basic on the initial LEAP test rose from 59 to 79 percent in Math, from 53 to 69 percent in Science, and from 59 to 72 percent in Social Studies.

Fourth Grade Initial LEAP Test
Subject	2003	2004	2005	2006	2007	2008	2009	2010	Net Change*
ELA	53%	54%	60%	55%	64%	73%	73%	78%	+25%
Math	54%	54%	62%	59%	59%	71%	69%	79%	+25%
Science	45%	56%	59%	53%	59%	66%	67%	69%	+24%
Social Studies	56%	58%	55%	59%	66%	63%	63%	72%	+16%

*Net Change is measured from the year before Fast ForWord participation to 2010, i.e. 2006-2010 for 4th graders.

Fourth Grade Promotion Rates

In addition to improving LEAP scores, St. Mary Parish collected longitudinal data about the percentage of fourth grade students each year who were promoted to fifth grade. From 2006 to 2010, the district’s fourth grade promotion rate improved from 65 to 85 percent.

Both general education and special education students showed a positive trend in fourth grade promotion rates. Between 2006 and 2010, the fourth grade promotion rate improved from 67 to 88 percent for general education students, and from 33 to 59 percent for special education students.

 “Over the past four years, our fourth grade students have made astounding gains, outpacing their state counterparts in English language arts as well as math and science,” said Superintendent Dr. Donald Aguillard. “Our fourth graders now rank 14th in the state, signifying a continuance of annual proficiency increases since 2006. As a result, the number of fourth graders who require summer remediation has declined significantly, and students’ self-confidence and motivation have soared. In reading and across the curriculum, our students are clearly benefitting from our ongoing efforts to provide effective, targeted instruction and interventions through the Fast ForWord and Reading Assistant programs.”

St. Mary Parish Public School System is an example of a district that is getting results – making significant gains in reading, math, social studies and science. Providing the standard for making our education system No. 1 in the world again!

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Attend one of our popular webinars with thought leaders in learning. Live and pre-recorded webinars are available. Register today!

Categories: Education Trends, Fast ForWord, Reading & Learning, Reading Assistant, Special Education

Tags: academic assistance, academic proficiency, academic success, accelerate learning, achievement gap, below grade level, elementary learning, elementary school learning, fluency, improving reading skills, increased test scores, LEAP, Louisiana, math, motivating students, reading comprehension, reading intervention, school leader effectiveness, science, social studies, struggling readers, struggling students, student reading growth, technology in education, vocabulary

Teaching Children to Read

• July 6, 2010 by Martha Burns, Ph.D

According to the Report of the National Reading Panel: Teaching Children to Read Reports of the Subgroups, the capacity to learn and grow as a reader depends on five essential skills:

Foundational Skills for Beginning Readers:

1) Phonemic Awareness: The insight that every spoken word can be conceived as a sequence of phonemes. Phonemes are the speech sounds that are represented by the letters of an alphabet.

2) Phonemic Decoding: The ability to capture the meaning of unfamiliar words by translating groups of letters back into the sounds that they represent, link them to one's verbal vocabulary, and access their meaning.

Skills Needed to Read for Meaning:

3) Vocabulary: Understanding the words in a passage, including the specific dimensions of their meanings or usage that matter in context.  For example, knowing that “tree” when reading about a “family tree” has a different meaning from “maple tree.”

4) Fluency: The ability to read with sufficient ease and accuracy that active attention can be focused on the meaning and message of the text and the text easily retained.

5) Comprehension: Thinking about the meaning of each segment of the text as it is read, building an understanding of the text as a whole, and reflecting on its meaning and message.

Teachers today are fortunate to have access to a wealth of scientifically based research into what works when teaching children to read.  The links that follow are courtesy of the National Institute for Literacy:

Birth to Early Childhood

Children begin building literacy skills long before they go to school.  Even very young children can be prepared to become successful readers later on.  Research has identified certain skills that are important for later literacy development; these skills include knowing the names and sounds of printed letters, manipulating speech sounds, and remembering what has been said for a short time.  Here are some ways to teach younger children these pre-reading skills.

Childhood

From kindergarten through third grade, young readers are actively developing all five of the core reading skills from phonemic awareness to fluency and comprehension.  Research has shown that teaching children to read successfully during this window requires a combination of strategies and instructional approaches.  Teachers must know how children learn to read and be able to tailor instructional approaches to individual children--especially those who are struggling readers.  Here are some instructional approaches for the five essential skills.

Adolescence

While many adolescent readers have mastered phonemic awareness and decoding strategies, they are often still challenged to fully understand what they read.  In middle and high school, it is common for literacy skills to be developed not only in language arts courses, but also in a variety of different content areas.  To prepare students for the literacy challenges of secondary school, language arts and content area teachers need to focus on the last three components of reading: vocabulary, fluency, and comprehension.  Here are some approaches to teaching vocabulary and comprehension skills.

 

Related reading:

Sing the Alphabet Backwards Sometimes: Kindergarten Phonemic Awareness Activities

Sharing the Practices of Phonics Practice: 5 Instructional Approaches

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Attend one of our popular webinars with thought leaders in learning. Live and pre-recorded webinars are available. Register today!

Categories: Reading & Learning

Tags: child reading development, early learning, elementary learning, elementary school learning, fluency, high school learning, how children learn, improving reading skills, intervention, learning through play, learning to read, literacy, memory, oral language skills, phonemic awareness, phonics, reading comprehension, reading intervention, struggling readers, struggling students, teacher effectiveness, teacher impact, vocabulary

Announcing Our Spring Webinar Series--Register today!

• April 27, 2010 by Denise Ruvalcaba

It’s almost here!  I’m happy to announce Scientific Learning’s Spring Webinar Series 2010 featuring five must-hear presentations by experienced, committed educators. 

Register for one or all five of the webinars and stimulate your own brain while you absorb ideas and techniques that you can use with your own students.

1) Building Brain Fitness for Struggling Students to Succeed

Presenter: Dr. Deborah Kolonay, Superintendent at Penn Trafford SD
Date & Time: Wednesday, May 12 at 10:00am Pacific

2) Teaching Fluency:  The Neglected Goal of the Reading Program

Presenter: Timothy Rasinski, Ph.D.
Date & Time: Wednesday, May 19 at 11:00am Pacific

3) Moving Students to Proficiency

Presenters: Dr. Mark Keen & Cindy Keever at Westfield Washington SD
Date & Time: Wednesday, May, 25 at 10:30am Pacific

4) Autism:  Support and Interventions

Presenter: Ann Osterling
Date & Time: Thursday, May 27 at 10:00am Pacific

5) Autism:  What is the Latest Research?

Presenter: Ann Osterling
Date & Time: Tuesday, June 15 at 10:00am Pacific

For a fuller description of each session, please visit our webinars page.  And be sure to follow @scilearn on Twitter for updates as the webinar dates approach!

Subscribe to this blog to get new blog posts right in your inbox and stay up to date on the science of learning!

Attend one of our popular webinars with thought leaders in learning. Live and pre-recorded webinars are available. Register today!

Categories: Brain Fitness, Brain Research, Education Trends, Fast ForWord, Reading & Learning, Reading Assistant, Special Education

Tags: academic problems, academic success, autism, behavior, below grade level, child reading development, cognitive skills, fluency, high school learning, how children learn, increased test scores, Indiana, intervention, learning to read, literacy, Pennsylvania, phonics, reading intervention, struggling readers, technology in education, webinar