Fluency and Comprehension

This is an interesting topic when working with emergent readers. People often think that students are fluent so they can read. Parents can't understand why their child is in a lower guided reading group because they can read all of the words correctly. But what is reading really? As the readings have pointed out fluency is the act of decoding and "reading" words correctly but comprehension is actually understanding what all of these words mean. Without comprehension, students are not effective readers and cannot learn or process what they read.

This struggle between fluency and comprehension is especially prevalent within my classroom. Out of 27 students i have 14 that are bilingual and are English language learners. We had an incredibly interesting professional development seminar during one of our staff meetings based on our ELL learners because many of the teachers in the buildings are new and have no experience working with ELL students who come into the classroom with little to no English background. During this seminar we learned that although our students can survive in our classroom with basic commands, can speak english with their peers, and can read this is only the beginning. Our students who are learning English for the first time will pick up phrases and will be able to decode words. They even might have a high level of fluency but comprehension is so crucial for these students. Teachers and parents struggle with separating the two and this was an emphasis at the meeting. We learned that ELL will not be able to actually read for context fluently with comprehension and retain information until they have been immersed in the language for 4-7 years. Teachers need to be aware of this and really focus on comprehension along with fluency.

After this meeting I saw this exact phenomenon in the classroom. I have an Arabic student in my class who is an ELL learner. He is completely fluent in speaking and communicating but is a struggling reader. In first grade he was originally scored at an 18 DRA level but after recent DRA testing his score has gone down to an 8. After progressively testing him at easier and easier levels we noticed that it was not his fluency that is not up to par but it is his comprehension. He could not reiterate simple stories and tell us what was occurring within the book even though he was fluently reading with intonation, heading punctuation and correctly decoding words. As a teacher this was a learning experience for me. He was an excellent reader but did not have comprehension. Now we have sent home a list of questions for his parents to ask before, during and after reading. We have already seen improvement in this student and believe he is going to fly through his reading group!