Fluency

I love that this is this weeks post because I was actually doing a quick assessment of students' fluency during Daily 5 today. In TE 301, the biggest thing about fluency that was stressed to me that you cannot be a fluent reader unless you comprehend the text. Deeney describes a fluent reader as "any person who reads smoothly, without hesitation, and with comprehension" (pg. 85). It is very easy for a student to read the words on the page quickly but if they do not understand what they are reading, they become just good decoders. Therefore, it is so important to check with a student to make sure that they know what they are reading. During my assessment today, I made sure to focus on a couple of items. First, I had the student read to me for a minute or two and I simply listened to their fluency. Secondly, I looked at the book with the child so I could monitor his or her accuracy. Finally, I asked the child after a page or two, what we read or another question pertaining to the next. From my previous classes, I know that my anecdotal notes would have been somewhat useless if I did not link these couple of items.

During my assessment, I also noticed that some children's fluency changed drastically when the next they were reading changed. For example, one boy chose a Magic School Bus  book to read. This book was full of scientific terms and names that he he had never heard of. This meant that he spent a majority of his time reading, decoding the different words. Decoding had sucked all of the fluency out of him and he was left not even understanding what he had read. However when we changed the text he was reading to a narrative, his fluency and comprehension improved. It is amazing how quickly his literacy skills were improved by just changing the text.

My CT has yet to start reading groups, but I know that this is where fluency, comprehension, accuracy, and expanding vocabulary will be worked on. (We use the C.A.F.E. literacy program in our classroom). My CT will assign the different reading groups based on the students DRA scores. I am excited to see how reading groups work and what types of mini lessons she will perform.