I have always thought my kids were great readers. From the time they could barely make out words to now when they are reading most books in our house, I thought my kids were always right on track!
Enter… THE THIRD GRADE!! I started to notice my daughter sounded a bit choppier in her reading, compared to my son. I thought it was just her being more cautious compared to him being more cavalier. I soon learned that she needed to work on FLUENCY. I had never thought about how fluid her reading was before and soon realized we could use some practice.
I quickly scoured the internet to find some things to help her at home… especially since school was now AT HOME! I soon learned that there are not a lot of resources and not a lot of people talking about this in the pre-reading stages. It would have been nice to be thinking about FLUENCY and the goal we were aiming towards BEFORE it got to the point that we were maybe behind the curve.
“When kids can read fluently, it’s easier for them to understand what they’re reading. And they read aloud easily and with expression — this makes reading a lot more enjoyable!” (from Fluency: reading with accuracy and expression )
I wish I had been given a list of things I could have been doing as a parent all along to help reading FLUENCY before we were told we needed to work on reading FLUENCY.
So, lucky for anyone reading this, I have now put together what I think are the most helpful things we can do as parents to encourage reading FLUENCY with our kids. Here are my top 5 EASY things to do:
1. Read out loud! One great tip is to read out loud more often to your kids so they can HEAR what a fluent reader sounds like. You can also ask them what they noticed about your reading afterwards. Even better if you pick something funny or with different voices so you can change your expressions and intonations as you read.
2. Simultaneous and Repeated Readings! Pick a passage or POEM that they like and first try reading it simultaneously with them. Then have them repeatedly read it to you so that they become comfortable enough with the words that they can focus on HOW they read it to you… smoothly and with appropriate voice inflections.
3. Act out a Play! Print out an age-appropriate script, or make one up together. They will have to work on reading the script AND figuring out how to change their voice to express the feelings in the words.
“Because reader’s theater is an oral performance of a script, it is one of the best ways to promote fluency. In the exercise, meaning is conveyed through expression and intonation. The focus thus becomes interpreting the script rather than memorizing it.” (from 5 Surefire Strategies for Developing Reading Fluency)
4. Re-read favorite books! Let them re-read their favorites again and again, even if they already know every word. Following along in a book they are familiar with, allows them to focus more on speed and smoothing everything out.
“…constantly reading new material doesn’t help reading fluency at all. In fact, the more accustomed to reading a particular book your child is, the more fluent he becomes at reading it. This gives them the confidence, accuracy, and speed needed to read fluently without focusing on just reading and instead more on comprehending and mimicking expressions.” (from 5 easy ways parents/guardians can increase their child’s reading fluency)
5. Practice Sight Words! If they are comfortable with common sight words, their brain doesn’t have to work as hard. Another idea is to separate any harder vocabulary in the text or book beforehand and practice the words on their own or in a list. Then when they read the text, they can focus on FLUENCY.
“Around 50% of all books and classroom based materials for young readers are composed of words from the Dolch List.” (from 10 Fluency strategies for struggling readers)
Does your kid struggle with reading FLUENCY? What have you tried that has worked the best? I’d love to hear from you in the comments below.