Building Fluent Readers

If you subscribe to any reading journals, or even if you just receive any periodicals on teaching, you've probably been reading a lot of articles lately about "fluency". It seems that every journal I pick up lately has some information about this topic. When we think of fluency, we think of the speed at which a student reads, but we're learning that it's so much more. It's also the intonation or "feeling" that's used during reading and the emphasis on the words. Together, these factors can influence the way a student comprehends.
Simply reading fast doesn't necessarily result in increased comprehension, although it certainly plays a role. When a student has to slow down to decode a word, we all know that meaning is lost or at the very least, interupted. If this happens too frequently, then comprehension is compromised. If reading is "flat" and monotone (even silently), comprehension is also compromised.
Recently, some of our AIS teachers attended a workshop put on by GV BOCES. The speaker was Tim Rasinski. They came back reporting that he was wonderful, sharing many tips and techniques for improving fluency for all students. One of the key findings of the work on fluency is that it should be explicitly taught. In other words, students may not just naturally develop into fluent readers, but rather, through modeling, thinking aloud by teachers, and explicit practice with fluency building exercises, it can be improved. Fluency can also be measured fairly simply and easily. Students can be involved in this measurement and help track their reading rate. This helps empower them and build confidence as a developing reader.
If you have some tips/tricks that you use to teach fluency, please share them with us by adding a comment to the Comments section below. I've also added a link to Tim Rasinski's web site in the links section of this blog.