Building Fluency

Reading has so many components and so many factors.  After 20 years of teaching kids how to read, they continually surprise me, and they also follow some predictable patterns, which comfort me. Each child seems to attack reading differently, whether they favor whole word reading, phonetic reading, or a mixture of the two.  My own two kids at home, were perfect examples of different reading styles.  Both my kids loved to listen to stories and we would spend hours curled up reading in the mornings, naptimes, and evenings.  My daughter, memorized books very early on and focused keenly on words as I read them to her in story books.  My son, contrastingly, focused on details in pictures and imagery in his own mind.  We all were great at thinking aloud, as I modeled this from day one (perk of taking all those education classes and the 7 years of shared reading I did with students before I was blessed with my own loves).  We wondered about characters, imagined them in different situations, and read all the books by our favorite authors to compare the writing, the characters, illustrations, and messages.  This, to me, was stage one in their reading development.  My excitement spilled over to them.  I viewed it as fun, so in turn, they did too.  To me, this is an important part fluency building and an essential part of teaching. 

Once they started reading on their own I figured out that they had different attack skills that they favored.  My daughter, a whole word reader, saw a word once and photographically knew it.  But, when faced, with an unknown word, needed help to decode it.  That's when I started breaking down the phonics rules for her. She didn't love how it slowed her down a bit, but once she had enough practice with them, it was all automatic and she could read anything.  My son, on the other hand, attacked things in part, phonetically.  He needed a lot of work memorizing sight words (as a whole).  We wrote sight words with shaving cream, created elaborate matchbox car roads that had sight words at each turn that he had to read before his car could pass, and played a variety of games to cement the sight words for him.  He needed a lot of repetition and he needed the phonics to crack the reading code.  Once you figure out a student's unique pathway then you can help them access reading. That is the beauty of teaching.

What all kids need, though, is practice.  Some devour books and practice is natural because it is something they love to do. Some need it to be more game based and center like.  Most need a combination.  What has worked best for me in teaching reading is a balanced, blended program.  Essential is reading aloud, thinking aloud, students talking verbalizing and synthesizing their comprehension (partner reading, literature circles, discussion roundtables, etc...), strong, explicit phonics instruction through the context of reading, sight word automaticity, and fluency practice.  One of the best tools that have worked for ALL my students (even those with the most challenges) is phrasing.  Even 6 years olds don't want to be held back on what they read.  They often grab books that are too hard for them, but don't let go at library time or free choice reading of that one special book because they love it.  Phrasing is a way of letting all kids have access to core material like articles and close reading passages because it offers practice in small chunks, scaffolding the core for all.  I usually use phrasing for my "lovable" readers as a preteaching tool in small group the week before we start a new close read so that they have a leg up and can access the reading.  This gives them confidence, and the bonus is most of the words are sight words so they are gaining valuable practice with automaticity. 

I decided to take it a step further and make this phrasing activity a center after I work with the kids in small group, and it has worked out great.  I'm in the process of "beautifying" these units to put on TPT and I have just finished my first one.  It focuses on informational text and is centered around arctic animals.  Below is a link if you are interested.  I'll be coming out with a lot more soon.  Also linked below is a sight word center using ladder writing which is great for those kids who need to connect the reading memorization of the word with writing.

Warmly,
Valerie
http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Fluency-Center-Arctic-Animals-1620448

http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Sight-Word-Writing-Center-1597770