Robertson
ASHA
ASHA, 2007
Reading Fluency:
Building a Bridge
to Comprehension
CONVENTION,
BOSTON, MA
NOV, 2007
Shari Robertson, Ph.D., CCC-SLP
Indiana University of PA
I. ASHA Position Statement
II. Critical Skills for Literacy
-National Literacy Panel
III. Reading Fluency and Reading Comprehension
-Maximizing Cognitive Resources
IV. Exploring Strategies for Increasing Fluency
V. Favorite Materials
Robertson
ASHA, 2007
STRATEGIES FOR IMPROVING READING FLUENCY
o Choose books that are appropriate for child’s reading level
(not age level) but be sure to keep the content age appropriate
(AND FUN!)
o Repeated Oral Readings – very powerful in creating fluency
-typical readers-4 repetitions to achieve fluency
-challenged readers-many more!
o Use Echo Reading to model Reading Fluency– including
expression. Then, have students duplicate your model (you
might want to use an audio or video recorder for selfassessment).
o Take advantage of the inherent intonation in books that
support Paired Reading. These types of books have a strong
rhythm and predictable rhyme or a repetitive phrase. Also,
using Paired Reading reduces the cognitive load and allows the
child to concentrate on achieving fluency and building
comprehension.
o Explicitly point out pausing and intonational cues. For
example, children may not have figured out that a question
mark requires a rising intonation or a comma signals a good
time to take a breath.
o Progressive stories can be particularly fun and a powerful way
to build fluency as the student reads the same passage over
and over while adding a new “piece” each time. Intonation and
expression are inherent in most progressive stories. You can
use books or make up your own as a small group or an entire
class!
Robertson
ASHA, 2007
o Try choral reading where you or fellow students read aloud
together. This helps the less-fluent reader experience
fluency, including appropriate pausing and expression.
o Chants - short stories or songs –especially thosethat call for
physical participation at various points - are a wonderful way to
develop rhythm and cadence (and have fun, too!).
o Read along with an audiotape or CD (great for reading
expression). There are numerous books available in this
format – all levels and types. This can also be accomplished as
an independent activity where a reader listens to a text read
with appropriate fluency with the expectation that the reader
will “copy” what they have heard and, in turn, use appropriate
fluency when they read aloud.
o Poetry has many forms which demonstrate rhythm and
cadence, expression and emotions and help readers to develop
a broad range of fluency skills.
o Practice sight words generated from words most used in
reading and writing. Readers are expected to learn them by
sight, not sound them out. Achieving automaticity with sight
words allows increased ease and accuracy in reading.
o Tune into morphology. Helping students understand and
recognize grammatical morphemes increases word recognition
and comprehension of written text.
o Movie Scripts - Many students enjoy practicing fluency by
reading scripts from favorite movies. In effect, they have had
the lines modeled by the original actors and they can try to
Robertson
ASHA, 2007
imitate the delivery when they read it. (Check out www.scripto-rama.com
o Shared readings can be undertaken with young students who
have generated a piece of writing as a group with their
teacher. The passage is written on a large chart in front of the
class and then read as a group.
o Buddy Reading includes two readers taking turns reading, page
by page. Each listens and learns from the other and may
develop new and improved fluency skills.
o Reduce the Cognitive Loads by tapping into previous
knowledge. For example: The Stinky Cheeseman – This
collection of “fractured fairytales” has proven to be very
popular with older elementary and middle school students.
Since students may already know the original fairytale (e.g.,
The Stinky Cheeseman story is based on the Gingerbread
Man), they have an established comprehension base from which
to work. This frees up cognitive resources for practicing
reading fluency.
Robertson
ASHA, 2007
ASHA POSITION STATEMENT
Speech-Language Pathologists play a critical and direct role in the
development of literacy for children and adolescents with communication
disorders.
PUT READING FIRST
•Describes findings from the 2000 National Reading Panel Report.
•Comprehensive review of research relevant to effective reading instruction
to identify methods that consistently led to reading success.
Inclusionary Criteria for Studies (100,000 screened)
•Must have addressed one or more skills in reading.
•Must be generalizable to the larger population of students.
•Needed to examine the effectiveness of the approach.
•Research had to be regarded as high quality through the peer
process.
Critical Skills for Developing Literacy
1. Phonemic Awareness
2. Phonics
3. Reading Fluency
4. Vocabulary
5. Text Comprehension
review
Reading Fluency
Reading Text Accurately, Quickly, and with Appropriate Expression
•Fluency allows readers to comprehend the text better, because they don’t
have to waste cognitive resources on decoding.
•Fluency provides the bridge between word recognition and comprehension.
•Readers need to learn how to divide text into meaningful chunks, not just
read individual words.
•Close relationship noted between fluency and comprehension.
More Fluent Readers:
•Focus their attention on making connections among the ideas in a text and
between these ideas and their background knowledge.
•Are able to focus on comprehension
Less Fluent Readers
•Must focus their attention primarily on decoding individual words.
•Have little attention left for comprehending text.
Robertson
ASHA, 2007
Favorite Materials
Echo Reading Books
I Went Walking
Dinosaur Roar
Bears in Pairs
Rosie’s Walk
Goodnight, Moon
Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?
Paired Reading Books
Dinosaur Stomp
Time for Bed
Silly Sally
The Very Busy Spider , The Very Quiet Cricket,
The Very Lonely Firefly (and others)
Quick as a Cricket
The Wide-Mouthed Frog
The Silly, Slimy, Smelly, Hairy Book
Animals Should Definitely Not Wear Clothing
Click Clack Moo. Cows that Type
Dogs Don’t Wear Sneakers
To Market, To Market
You Read to Me, I'll Read to You:
Sue Williams
Paul and Henrietta Strickland
Niki Yekai
Pat Hutchins
Margaret Wise Brown
Bill Martin, Jr.
Paul and Henrietta Strickland Time
Mem Fox
Audrey Wood
Eric Carle
Audrey Wood
Kevin Faulkner
Babette Cole
Judi Barrett
Dorren Cronin
Laura Numeroff
Anne Miranda
Mary Ann Hoberman
Wordless Books
Good Night, Gorilla
Good Dog, Carl Series
Picnic (one of a series of wordless books)
Deep in the Forest
Tuesday (Wordless)
Peggy Rathmann
Alexandra Day
Emily Arnold McCully
Brinkton Turkle
David Weisner
Tuesday
David Weidner
Freefall (Wordless)
The Silver Pony (Wordless)
David Weisner
Lynd Ward
Chants, Rhymes.Songs
Hand Rhymes
Marc Brown
Five Little Monkeys Jumping on the Bed
Eileen Chistelow
The Seals on the Bus
Lenny Hort
Mary Wore Her Red Dress
Merle Peek
Sing Along Songs
Marsupial Sue
Mary Ann Hoberman
John Lithgow
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ASHA, 2007
Classic Jump Rope Rhymes: The Schoolyard All-Stars Klutz Press
Schoolyard Rhymes: Kids' Own Rhymes for Rope-Skipping, Hand Clapping, Ball Bouncing, and
Just Plain Fun
Judy Sierra
Poetry
Anything by Shel Silverstin (Where the Sidewalk Ends, The Light in the Attic, Falling Up, A
Giraffe and a Half)
Anything by Jack Prelutsky (For Laughing Out Loud: Poems to Tickle Your Funnybone, Behold
the Bold Umbrellaphant, The Frog Wore Red Suspenders, Read Aloud Poems for the Very
Young, It’s Raining Pigs and Noodles).
The Llama Who Had No Pajama: 100 Favorite Poems
Mary Ann Hoberman
Books on Audiotape
Hank the Cowdog Series
Harry Potter Series
Progressive Stories
In a Napping House
Audrey Wood
Drummer Hoff Fired it Off
Barbara Emberly
The House that Jack Built
Various versions available
Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly
Various versions available
I went on vacation and packed a ____________ in my suitcase
I’m going to Grandma’s house for Thanksgiving and I will eat____________
I went to the zoo and I saw_______________.
www.script-o-rama.com
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ASHA, 2007
References
National Institute for Literacy (2001) Put reading first: The research building blocks for
teaching children to read. Jessup, MD: National Institute for Literacy ED Pubs Based on
Teaching children to read: An evidence-based assessment of the scientific research
literature on reading and its implications for reading instruction – Reports of the subgroups.
Report by the National Reading Panel (2000).
Craig, H., Thompson, C., Washington, J., & Potter, S. (2004). Performance of
Elementary-Grade African American Students on the Gray Oral Reading Tests
Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools Vol.35 141-154
Crowe, Linda K. (2003). Comparison of two reading feedback strategies in improving the oral
and written language performance of children withlanguage-learning disabilities. American
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Gutierrez-Clellen, V. (1999). Mediating Literacy Skills in Spanish-Speaking Children With
Special Needs. Language Speech and Hearing Services in the Schools. 30: 285 - 292.
Levy, B. A. (2001). Moving the bottom: Improving reading fluency. In M. Wolfe (Ed.),
Dyslexia, fluency and the brain: A model of individual differences in the development of
reading fluency. Reading Research Quarterly, 16, 3271
Kouri, S., Selle, C. & Riley, S. (2006) Comparison of Meaning and Graphophonemic Feedback
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Cook Moats, L. & Smith, C. (1992). Derivational Morphology: Why It Should Be Included in
Language Assessment and Instruction. Language Speech and Hearing Services in the
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Robertson, S. and Davig, H. (2002). Read with Me: Stress-Free Strategies for Building
Language and Literacy. Eau Claire: Thinking Publications.
Robertson, S., & Sweeney James, S. (2006) Reading Fluency: Building a Bridge to
Comprehension. Thinking Publications On-Line Language Conference.
www.thinkingpublications.com
Smith, A., Roberts, J., Lambrecht Smith, S., Locke, J., & Bennett, J. (2006) Reduced
Speaking Rate as an Early Predictor of Reading Disability. American Journal of SpeechLanguage Pathology, 15: 289 – 297
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ASHA, 2007
Stanovich, K. E. (1980). Toward an interactive-compensatory model of individual differences
in the development of reading fluency. Reading Research Quarterly,16, 32-71.and the brain
(pp. 357379).
Tyler, B. J. (2002). A synthesis of research on effective interventions for building reading
fluency with elementary students with learning disabilities. Journal of Learning Disabilities,
35, 386-406.