Self-selected members of the MiddleWeb Discussion List are
joining together to explore the Reading Workshop and other ideas
about supporting young adolescent readers. Juli Kendall, a reading
teacher/coach in Long Beach, California, is helping moderate the
discussion. Juli is also keeping a weekly journal of her own Reading
Workshop initiative. Find out more about our project at our Reading Workshop homepage. You'll find
Juli's background article here. Links
to many of the tools created by Juli and her colleagues are embedded
in these journals. Most often, when you click on them, a PDF file
will begin to download. You'll find a list of the downloads here.
So now we get to the hard part p; how do you help students
read fluently at high levels with comprehension? This is what
we are currently puzzling out in our Reading Workshop. A number
of studies have shown that reading fluency is highly related to
reading comprehension. Even so, it's tough to figure out just
the right approach to take.
Partner reading has turned out to be the best time for our students
to work on their reading fluency spontaneously in a low anxiety
environment. We have overheard students doing a partner reading
of the 3 Billy Goats Gruff p;Vanessa, Leti, Susana,
and Jenny actually turned it into Readers' Theater. They chose
parts, and then read it several times getting a feel for how the
story goes.
Vuthy and Chandra chose stories with animals speaking. They used
various sounds and experimented with different voices for the
characters. Several other partners read Captain Underpants'
books (a 5-book series by Dave Pilkey) with expression including
sound effects and all the other necessary things.
Looking at research helped us come up with a plan. According to
Pinnell et al. 1995, reading fluency "is evidence that the
reader is accessing the deeper meaning of text. It is associated
with rate, accuracy, and scores on comprehension tests."
(Listening to Children Read Aloud: Data from NAEP's Integrated
Reading Performance Record (IRPR) at Grade 4.)
Susan K. Strecker, in her article on Reading Fluency states
that research has shown three instructional principles to support
fluency:
* Repeated reading
* Reading in manageable text (text the child can read with at least 95% accuracy)
* Hearing good models.-- "Reading Fluency," Susan K. Strecker
The California Reader, Vol. 34, No. 3, Spring 2001
Since reading is all about understanding, we want
to be sure that our students are reading manageable text and understanding
what they read. That's why we decided to come at the topic of
reading fluency from the direction of choosing a Just Right book.
The list of items that we took from The
Art of Teaching Reading, to help students know what a "Just
Right" book feels like, includes:
* It feels smooth.
* It is calm; it doesn't make you feel nervous.
* It only has a few tricky words.
* You know what to do in the "tricky spots."
* It makes sense.
* You really understand it.
Kids really understood the idea of how reading a book makes you
nervous. As we discussed the wall chart we made about Just Right
books, they talked about the books they had read that made them
"feel like I have butterflies" or "sick in my stomach."
This surprised me. I thought that they would have difficulty understanding
how books make people nervous. But I was wrong. These struggling
readers are very familiar with this concept. Somewhere deep inside,
I feel like I should have known that they would understand.
As a part of Reading Workshop, we also incorporated other instructional
strategies to promote reading fluency. They included Read Alouds,
repeated choral readings of poetry, using appropriate text and
engaging in Independent Reading (silent reading).
In Chapter 7, "Fostering Reading Fluency," from Supporting
Sruggling Readers and Writers: Strategies for Classroom Intervention
(Stenhouse p; text
available online) the authors have included many ways for
readers to improve fluency. They have a great idea called "visiting
readers" that we want to try. It involves older students
reading and practicing stories or poems until they become very
good at reading them. Then they go to "visit" younger
students to read to them.
Several years ago, some 7th and 8th grade students from the middle
school where I worked were "visiting readers" at the
local elementary school when they celebrated Dr. Seuss' birthday.
(I think it was in March.) The elementary school turned it into
a huge literacy event with guest readers and the "Cat in
the Hat" in attendance. The middle school students had a
great time reading Dr Seuss' books to the younger students and
having lunch with them. They didn't even know that they were practicing
fluent reading.
That's what we want to do p; help our students find the joy
in reading, even if they are working on their fluency.
Choosing a Just Right book
Leti is doing better at choosing books for Independent and Partner
Reading that are Just Right for her. When I asked her what a Just
Right book felt like, she said that "it doesn't make you
nervous and it feels really quiet." I am not sure where the
"quiet" part came from but perhaps she is referring
to feeling calm when you read.
Understanding What She Reads
Leti's challenge is understanding what she reads. Actually, if
she doesn't understand it, even though she is decoding, it's not
"reading." On a running record, she read a selection
of 4th grade level text, with 97% accuracy, but misread can't
for can. This caused her to misunderstand the reading selection.
What does this have to do with Reading Fluency?
As she works to find Just Right books, she needs to be aware of
how they sound and feel to her (fluency). If she is reading text
that she doesn't understand, even if the accuracy rate is ok,
the selection is too difficult for her. Reading is all about
understanding.
See Juli's November
curriculum map.
Read Juli's next journal entry
Read Juli's previous journal entry
Read Juli's backgrounder about her
work
Back to Juli's journal index
Back to the Reader Workshop Index Page