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An engaging and evidence-based examination of how reading instruction has been misinterpreted and misapplied for decades and how to right the course to impro…

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We're in the dog days of summer. Not many questions coming in right now - normal for periods when schools aren't in session. But the following query came to me this week from Ireland via Twitter.
Teacher question: Any link to how the Repeated Reading strategy works? How long text can be repeated, how long can text be, depends on accuracy? Shanahan's response:
This is such a basic question that I was gobsmacked by it. These are just the kinds of queries that I love to respond to on this site: Topics that many teachers assume they know about, but that often turn out to be full of surprises.

The idea of repeated reading emerged in the late 1970s ... as a result of the writings of S. Jay Samuels (1979) and Carol Chomsky (1978). They found, in separate studies, that engaging kids in repeatedly reading texts aloud improved reading ability. It was kind of a no-brainer that such approaches were beneficial by the time the National Reading Panel (NICHD, 2000) concluded that they were (that portion of the report was written by Jay Samuels and me - and even he was a bit taken aback by how that work had proceeded since when he'd first written about it).

Multitasking is essential to good reading.

Scientific studies (e.g., LaBerge & Samuels, 1976) revealed the importance of "automaticity" to reading. Readers have to be able to decode without thinking about decoding. We only have so much thinking space available. The more cognitive space devoted to figuring out words, the less available to grasp the text's meaning.

Samuel's idea of repeated reading was that it could help readers to gain automaticity. He thought it would help readers to master the art of reading words accurately and with sufficient speed.

When children are learning to read, they initially struggle to read words accurately. That is very common in Grade 1. These students then often gain mastery over accuracy at the expense of speed - such accurate but slow reading tends to emerge in Grade 2 (Morris, 1999). Samuels' goal was to build accuracy and speed to a point where comprehension would be possible. The more efficient the reading of the words, the more that readers' attention could be turned to meaning.

Carol Chomsky (1978) had a similar notion of the problem. She thought there was a subgroup of poor readers who "knew" phonics - that is, they knew the letters and sounds and could decode words reasonably well. However, these strugglers couldn't apply these skills fluently during the reading of a text.

Chomsky believed that this special group of readers might benefit from reading texts aloud repeatedly since it would give them essential practice in applying those known skills.

Samuels and Chomsky both reported research studies that had positive results, as have many other researchers since that time.

What specifically is "Repeated Reading?"

Repeated Reading is a particular method proposed by S. Jay Samuels to develop decoding automaticity with struggling readers. In this approach, students are asked to read aloud short text passages (50-200 words) until they reach a criterion level of success (particular speed and accuracy goals).

However, research shows there are many ways that teachers can successfully exploit the idea of repeated oral reading, so I'll talk about "repeated reading" here (rather than Repeated Reading).

What are some of those other ways of doing repeated reading?

In Chomsky's scheme, the kids listened to audiotapes of a text and then worked on making their own tapes - trying to match the quality of the originals. Reading while listening or echo reading works too, as does Radio Reading (in which kids work with scripts - making the oral reading purposeful), and Neurological Impress (don't ask).

All of these schemes include oral reading. They also all include reading the texts multiple times (either to a particular quality criterion, such as a particular number of words correct per minute - or a set number of repetitions, usually 3).

What's the goal of such instruction, to get kids to read fast?

No, the goal is to get students to read the author's words accurately, to read texts at about the speed of oral language, and to make this reading sound like language (pausing in the right places so that ithe text makes sense).

What is the outcome of such practice?

Repeated reading usually leads to better reading performance. The biggest payoffs tend to be with word reading, but it also has been found to improve oral reading fluency and reading comprehension (the most frequently reported area of improvement). This comprehension finding surprised Jay Samuels. Remember the comprehension impact should be indirect - through word reading improvement. He was shocked that so many researchers failed to include word reading measures in their studies, even though they always tested reading comprehension. There was a very good chance that such studies would have found no differences in comprehension and would have, therefore, concluded that repeated reading didn't work. Fortunately, the comprehension payoffs were large enough and consistent enough that it didn't turn out to be a problem.

Were there special kids who needed repeated reading?

The research suggests that part of Chomsky's theory was wrong. Studies of repeated reading sometimes aimed at these special "average phonics skills but low reading" kids, and other times they just focused on all readers in regular classrooms. The results were exactly the same: repeated reading improved reading ability across the board.

How many re-readings should kids be doing?

The research suggests that three readings should be sufficient so I would limit it to that. Three readings and it is time to move on to another text.

How long should the passages be?

Samuels used passages of 50-200 words; with the shorter texts used with the students with the lowest reading abilities. That makes sense to me. In classroom reading practice, that would be like a page or two in a primary grade reader. It is important to keep the texts brief for this work so that when students reread, memory becomes a useful scaffold. The longer the text, the harder to carry over what was figured out on the first reading. (Joe Torgesen has emphasized the importance of using texts that share a lot of vocabulary. That way, when a student improves with one text, it is certain to immediately carry over to the next.)

How challenging should the texts be?

The texts used for fluency practice should be at students' so-called "frustration levels." If students don't make many mistakes with a text (say 10 or more per hundred words), then the repetition is unlikely to improve their reading very much.

What about integrating comprehension work into this kind of fluency practice?

Some of the repeated reading routines have included a comprehension component, such as asking students a different question at the conclusion of each reading or having the student complete some kind of comprehension task each time. Other approaches do not do this. The research says that repeated reading pays off, whether there is a comprehension step or not. I'd include one under the well-known scientific precept: "It couldn't hurt."

How can a teacher listen to a whole classroom full of kids?

I recommend paired reading. Have one youngster read to another. Then they switch. While this practice is going on, the teacher circulates among the students listening to several one-at-a-time and giving feedback.

What about silent reading?

Silent reading should also take place regularly - I try to provide both an oral reading fluency period and a reading comprehension period daily. In the latter, except with beginners, the reading is silent. There are also a couple of studies in which kids read silently while a computer monitored their reading that has led to fluency improvement (Rasinski, Samuels, Hiebert, Petcher, & Feller, 2011).

What about round robin reading? We do "popcorn" in my class?

Schemes in which one child reads aloud and the rest of the students wait their turn are lousy. They don't allow much oral reading; simply not enough practice to foster improvement. This is because only one child reads at a time. Second, repeated reading is very rare in round robin, making learning unlikely. Third, you may get pushback; kids who read poorly may refuse to read - something that never occurs when everyone is doing the reading.

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Everything You Wanted to Know about Repeated Reading

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We're in the dog days of summer. Not many questions coming in right now - normal for periods when schools aren't in session. But the following query came to me this week from Ireland via Twitter. Teacher question: Any link to how the Repeated Reading strategy works?

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Lesson Resources

The UFLI Foundations Toolbox contains all the lesson resources to accompany the lesson plans provided in the UFLI Foundations manual. (Don't have a manual yet? Click here to order one) Every lesson has companion resources that will help you implement the lessons efficiently, effectively, and consistently.

Some of the companion lesson resources you will find below include:

Lesson slide decks (in PowerPoint and Google Slide formats)

Decodable passages

Homework sheets

Games and activities for additional practice

We have grouped the lessons into smaller units so you can access these resources more easily. Scroll down to use the buttons below to find the resources for each lesson or groups of lessons.

Please note that we are still building out these free resources, and we will be editing this page over the next few weeks. We wanted you to be able to access some materials as soon as possible, but be sure to come back later to see the rest!
New to UFLI Foundations? Learn about its development, check out a sample lesson plan, view the scope and sequence, and more.

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The UFLI Foundations Toolbox contains all the lesson resources to accompany the lesson plans provided in the UFLI Foundations manual. (Don't have a manual yet? Click here to order one) Every lesson has companion resources that will help you implement the lessons efficiently, effectively, and consistently.

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From 2004 to 2010, a team of researchers and teachers at FCRR collected ideas and created Student Center Activities for use in pre-kindergarten through fifth grade classrooms. The activities are designed for students to practice, demonstrate, and extend their learning of what has already been taught, sometimes with teacher assistance and sometimes independently. Students can complete the activities in small groups, pairs, or individually.

Accompanying these Student Center Activities is a Teacher Resource Guide that offers important insights on differentiated instruction and how to use the Student Center materials.

Component

Name of the reading component: Phonological Awareness (PA), Phonics (P), Fluency (F), Vocabulary (V), or Comprehension (C). Each component is color coded: PA is purple, P is orange, F is red, V is green, C is blue.

Subcomponent

Name of the reading subcomponent, which is a subskill of the component.

Activity Name

Activity Number

The letters correspond with the reading component (PA, P, F, V, or C). The numbers are listed in ascending order within each component. The activities are sequenced from simple to more complex within each component and subcomponent.

Student Icon

The suggested number of students for the activity. One student icon indicates that students may work independently or with a small group. Two student icons indicate that the activity requires students to work in pairs. Two student icons with a plus sign indicate that the activity requires two or more students.

Objective

States the goal of the activity, which is aligned with the subcomponent.

Materials

Materials are located on the pages that follow the Activity Plan. Most materials are non-consumable to be prepared and used repeatedly (e.g., word cards can be laminated). Some materials are consumable and will need to be duplicated for each student doing the activity. Other materials, such as counters, are commonly found in most classrooms.

Activity Statement

One sentence explanation of the purpose of the activity and what students do to complete the activity.

Activity Steps

The first step describes how to setup the center. The second step begins with: The student, Students, Working in pairs, or Taking turns depending on the number of students needed to complete the activity. The second step also starts the series of steps to complete the activity. The next steps explain what the student does to complete the activity. The last step lists one of three accountability methods: Self-check, Peer evaluation, or Teacher evaluation.

Example

A visual of the activity and key materials.

Extensions and Adaptations

Suggestions that extend or provide an adaptation for additional practice on the skill addressed in the activity. Materials for the extensions and adaptations are included after the pages that align to the Activity Plan.

Users may use the FCRR Student Center Activities resources as long as modifications are not made, the resources will only be used for non-profit educational purposes, and the copyright belong jointly to the Florida Department of Education and the Florida Center for Reading Research. These resources may not be used for any commercial purposes. These resources on our site may be linked to but not reposted, reproduced, modified, or copied to other sites. For questions about the use of these resources, please contact The Florida Center for Reading Research at fcrr@fcrr.org.

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From 2004 to 2010, a team of researchers and teachers at FCRR collected ideas and created Student Center Activities for use in pre-kindergarten through fifth grade classrooms. The activities are designed for students to practice, demonstrate, and extend their learning of what has already been taught, sometimes with teacher assistance and sometimes independently.

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Project Read, your AI Co-Teacher for the Science of Reading

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Science of Reading decodables generated for each student and an AI tutor which gives students feedback as they read.

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I teach, I write, I travel, I talk—to help students become better readers and writers.

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About the Online Materials
About the Editor
About the Contributors.
Foreword  Sharon Vaughn
Preface
Acknowledgments

I   Introduction to English Learners, Language, and Literacy
1  Teaching Literacy Skills to English Learners
Elsa Cárdenas-Hagan

2   Language and Literacy Development
Elsa Cárdenas-Hagan

3   Components of Literacy Instruction for English Learners
Eric Tridas

II  The Components of Literacy and English Learners
4  Phonological Awareness Development Among English Learners
Virginia Lovelace-Gonzalez

5  Phonics Development Among English Learners
Kenneth Nieser and Elsa Cárdenas-Hagan

6   Reading Fluency Among English Learners
Coleen D. Carlson

7   Vocabulary Instruction Among English Learners
Sharolyn D. Pollard-Durodola

8   Reading Comprehension Among English Learners
Colleen K. Reutebuch

9   Spelling Development Among English Learners
Elsa Cárdenas-Hagan and Alessandra Rico

10   Writing Development Among English Learners
Linda O. Cavazos and Elsa Cárdenas-Hagan

Appendix  Using Technology to Adapt and Enhance Instruction for English Learners
Elaine Cheesman

Index

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english language learners; els; esl; esol; teaching reading to english learners; language and literacy for english learners; bilingual instruction; teaching bilingual children; knowledge and practice standards; national literacy panel; components of reading; big five essentials of reading; dual language learners; structured literacy; ida; elsa cardenas-hagan; elsa cardenas hagan

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Literacy Foundations for English Learners

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About the Online Materials About the Editor About the Contributors.

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Partner Reading Instructions _ Elementary

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Read Like Us: Building Fluency Through Repeated Reading & Challenging Texts with Jake Downs & Chase Young

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Podcast Episode · Melissa & Lori Love Literacy ® | Science of Reading for Teachers · 6 February · 49min

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ReadWorks | Award-Winning, EdTech Nonprofit Organization

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ReadWorks is an edtech nonprofit organization that is committed to helping to solve America’s reading comprehension crisis.

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Literacy and Text in Middle and HS SS and ELA classrooms

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Listen Again-56-Reading Fluency and the Science of Reading with Dr. Tim Rasinski

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Podcast Episode · The Literacy View · 18 July 2025 · 1hr

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TextProject is the only website with student texts and teacher guides based on the science of reading-available for free download. Download our research-based, open-access resources for teachers, teacher educators, parents, tutors, and students.

TextProject is the only website with high-quality student texts and teacher guides that are all available for free download.

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Vocabulary instruction through networks of words

Vocabulary instruction through networks of words

A blog and video series based on evidence from reading research

A blog and video series based on evidence from reading research

Free Classroom Materials for Teaching Reading

Classroom-proven resources including favorite books, reading passages, vocabulary lessons, word pictures, literacy lists & forms.

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Free texts for reading instruction! TextProject is the sole website with free texts based on the science of reading.

For programs such as BeginningReaders and FYI for Kids, world-renowned researcher and teacher educator, Patricia Cunningham, has written lessons to accompany the texts.

Vocabulary Instruction

Vocabulary is the strongest predictor of reading comprehension. TextProject provides free resources for the four kinds of vocabulary words that contribute to reading comprehension: core, academic, content-area, and literary.

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Strategies, tools, and texts to bring beginning and struggling readers to proficient levels of literacy

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Oh goodness, everybody's least favorite topic (except maybe Tim Rasinski). What I'm talking about is fluency instruction/practice for older students... grades 4 and up, let's say.

No one gets too bent out of shape if I talk about little kids working on their oral reading, but when those young'uns reach 9- or 10-years-old that presumably is baby stuff.

I get why that is.

First, the research on fluency instruction has focused heavily on two groups: kids in grades 1-4 and remedial readers in grades 1-12 (NICHD, 2001). I can't tell a 6 th grade teacher that there is research showing that if she devotes sufficient time to fluency her students will do better with reading comprehension. My own professional practice suggests that it can be powerful but that's a different level of support.

Second, round robin reading has given oral reading a bad name. Most teachers have memories of hating round robin when they were kids, so being enlightened they avoid oral reading at much cost. Kids should be able to develop fluency from silent reading practice. Unfortunately, you can't tell if kids are making progress unless you listen to them read and it is hard to intervene and help without that kind of monitoring. Practice can "make perfect" as the old saying claims but it often doesn't. (Given this, perhaps it shouldn't be surprising that research has found the amount of oral reading practice in high school is correlated with reading achievement gains more closely than the amount of in class silent reading practice (Stallings, 1980).

Third, older kids will often resist. One of my least favorite instructional activities (Popcorn) sometimes results in kids balking: "You can call on me, but that doesn't mean that I'm going to read aloud to the class!"

Recently, I've astonished some teachers and district administrators by encouraging fluency teaching with older kids. They are getting a lot of pressure these days to emphasize phonics - yeah, phonics in regular high school English classes (which I think is lunatic) and they have no idea that oral reading fluency instruction has been found to improve kids' word reading and decoding. Many of these kids have had a ton of phonics instruction and don't know how to apply it. Fluency instruction began with the notion that such practice would enable the application of what the kids had already learned about letters, sounds, spelling patterns.

Don't get me wrong. There definitely are a relatively small number of high school kids who would likely get some benefit from explicit phonics. That instruction, however, should be relegated to remedial reading or special education, not the English class. Likewise, the idea of English classes devoting some of their valuable minutes to morphological study - which can impact decoding - makes great sense, too. That should be a regular part of the vocabulary teaching that should be going on.

Nevertheless, fluency training can have a remarkable impact on kids' reading comprehension in the upper grades - most likely by consolidating what those kids have already learned about decoding along the way.

Let me define and explain a few basic ideas about fluency and then the rest of this blog is aimed at providing instructional advice on fluency teaching with older students.

Fluency refers to the ability to read text accurately, with automaticity, and with proper expression (NICHD, 2001).

Accuracy is about reading an author's words. If you don't do that, then miscomprehension may occur. Students must get into the habit of respecting authors. That means reading the words that the author put on the page, rather than replacing them with context-based guesses as to what may have been meant. Words matter and becoming an effective reader requires reading the author's words; not substituting them with our own.

This word reading must be accomplished with automaticity. That means reading the words accurately without conscious attention. Automaticity is usually estimated by tracking reading speed. If a student reads text too slowly, comprehension deteriorates. Adult proficient readers read text aloud at about 166-178 words correct per minute (Baer, et al., 2009). Fourth graders who read at fewer than 100 words correct per minute tend to be "below basic" in reading comprehension. Reading so slowly makes it difficult to integrate information. By the time you get to the end of the sentence, you've likely lost the thread of the first part.

Proper expression is important because there are many aspects to translating text that are not on the page. Except for punctuation, authors do little to help readers to group words together, pause appropriately, or raise or lower pitch. If you don't get those things right it can be difficult to understand.

Here are some activities that have been used successfully in upper elementary, middle, and high school.
Instructional Activities Aimed at Building Fluency
Paired reading: Pair students up. Have them take turns reading the text to each other. One student read a page or paragraph and the other gives feedback. Then the students switch roles. During this activity, the teacher circulates throughout the room, giving feedback as needed. Link some comprehension work to this. At the end of each section of reading, have the students determine the main point(s) of that section or compose a good test question about that part of the material.

Repeated Reading: Students read aloud a portion of text (perhaps a 100-word chunk, or the first couple of paragraphs). The teacher or another student gives feedback, and the student tries it again. This repetition continues three times or until the student can read it with 99% accuracy, at more than 100 words per minute, and with expression that suggests successful comprehension (White, et al., 2021). This can be combined with paired reading. Repeated reading is especially valuable with content materials. Understanding such texts often requires this kind of intensive rereading anyway, so the rereading is appropriate.

Pause, Prompt, Praise: Not all students are great fluency partners. PPP provides some support in this area. Partners and teachers are encouraged to give students some slack if a mistake is made. Let the student read to the end of the clause or sentence and see what they do. Better readers try to fix the mistake. That's the pause. But if a student can't remedy the error (or doesn't notice it), then provide a Prompt. If the mistake doesn't make sense, then give some feedback about meaning. If the word read doesn't look or sound like the word in the book, then direct the student to look more closely. If the student can't fix the error after one prompt, tell them what the word is. Finally, for anything done well, provide praise.

Recorded Readings: Students can make progress without much individual feedback. Consider having students record oral reading for homework. Have them read an assigned portion of text (no more than 5-10 minutes worth). To complete the assignment successfully, the students will likely need to practice prior to recording. Teacher can spot check these to check on performance. Again, it is a good idea to link to some comprehension tasks.

Chunking: Studies suggest that chunking can be helpful with older students. In this, the teacher initially provides text with phrasal boundaries marked. Students of all ability levels tend to get a boost from this material. After they have had some practice reading materials so marked, then give them unmarked texts and have them working in teams or individually to identify phrasal boundaries.
Here are some FAQs about Fluency Instruction
No, not all older students need fluency work. Some students are particularly good at fluency. If students can read grade level text with a high degree of accuracy, speeds of about 150 wcpm, and with proper expression, then fluency instruction/practice is a time waster. As kids progress through the grades, the proportion who are sufficiently fluent increases. Fewer students should require fluency work as time goes on.

Our students are getting low test scores in reading comprehension. Why no focusing on rather than fluency?

Low comprehension scores can result from many things. One of those things is fluency. For those kids, improving fluency has a direct positive impact on their reading comprehension.
How much fluency teaching should we provide?
I recommend up to 30 minutes a day of fluency instruction. But remember, this is across all classes. If every middle school or high school class provided 10 minutes of fluency work once or twice a week, that should do the trick.
Isn't oral reading embarrassing for struggling readers?
Fluency work is a kind of practice activity, not much different from Lebron James shooting free throws to get ready for a big game. Practice isn't embarrassing, as long as everyone recognizes it as practice. Most students enjoy the fluency work as it is involving, and they can see their own improvement. Avoid situations like round robin, in which a student is supposed to perform before the group or the whole class. But having everyone or half the class reading aloud at the same time does not get the same push back that more performance-oriented tasks do.
How do I pair the kids?
Don't make a big deal out of pairing up, as that can be a real time waster. One rule is to make sure that the students who are working together on a given day are using the same book. That's easy to do in most classrooms. A second rule is don't pair up the same kids all the time; kids differ in their ability to give feedback, so share the wealth.
Does fluency work make sense in a content classes like science or math?
Yes. It is important that students learn how to read those books well. If students are to become independent learners in algebra or chemistry, they must read those texts fluently. Technical subjects require that students read texts intensively, rereading some parts again and again. Unfortunately, many high school students read this material once for gist only. Fluency work can become a powerful way for teaching students how to understand these materials.
Paired reading, repeated reading, and the other recommended activities don't look difficult, but how do I know that they'll work?
Research on these techniques has found them to improve word reading, fluency, and reading comprehension. Whatever it is that students learn from fluency training with particular texts has been found to transfer to their performance with other texts.
References
Baer, J., Kutner, M., & Sabatini, J. (2009). Basic reading skills and the literacy of America's least literate adults: Results from the 2003 National Assessment of Adult Literacy (NAAL). Washington, DC: National Center for Education Statistics, Institute of Education Sciences, U.S. Department of Education.

Stallings, J. A. (1980). Allocated academic learning time revisited, or beyond time on task." Educational Researcher 9 (11):11-16.

White, S., Sabatini, J., Park, B. J., Chen, J., Bernstein, J., and Li, M. (2021). The 2018 NAEP oral reading fluency study. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Education, Institute of Education Sciences, National Center for Education Statistics.

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how to teach oral reading fluency to older students

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best practices to teach oral reading fluency to older students

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Teaching Oral Reading Fluency to Older Students

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Teaching Oral Reading Fluency to Older students, This blog entry provides lots of specifics about how best to build oral reading fluency with older students.

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Do Adolescent Learners Need Fluency Instruction? - Keys to Literacy

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Fluency is often described as the bridge between word recognition and comprehension. It is best observed during oral reading. For older students, fluency also plays a key role in maintaining motivation to read. This raises an important question: Do adolescents require explicit instruction in fluency, or is fluency instruction necessary only in the elementary grades?