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: a list or collection of words or of words and phrases usually alphabetically arranged and explained or defined :

The vocabulary for the week is posted online every Monday.

: a sum or stock of words employed by a language, group, individual, or work or in a field of knowledge

a writer known for employing a rich vocabulary

: a list or collection of terms or codes available for use (as in an indexing system)

... the oldest Sumerian cuneiform writing could not render normal prose but was a mere telegraphic shorthand, whose vocabulary was restricted to names, numerals, units of measure, words for objects counted, and a few adjectives. - Jared Diamon

: a supply of expressive techniques or devices (as of an art form)

Did you know?

For many people, the word vocabulary is primarily associated with the number of words that a person knows; one either has a large or a small vocabulary. But the word has many shades of meaning and is nicely representative of the nuanced and multi-hued nature of so much of the English lexicon.

Vocabulary may indeed refer to the collection of words known by an individual or by a large group of people. It may also signify the body of specialized terms in a field of study or activity ("the vocabulary of science"). It may designate a physical object, such as a book, in which a collection of (usually alphabetized) words is defined or explained. And it may name things other than words, such as "a list or collection of terms or codes available for use," "a set or list of nonverbal symbols" (such as marine alphabet flag signals), and "a set of expressive forms used in an art" (as in "the vocabulary of dance").

Synonyms

Example Sentences

These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'vocabulary.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

Word History

Middle French vocabulaire, probably from Medieval Latin vocabularium, from neuter of vocabularius verbal, from Latin vocabulum

1532, in the meaning defined at sense 1

The first known use of vocabulary was in 1532

Dictionary Entries Near vocabulary

Cite this Entry

"Vocabulary." Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/vocabulary. Accessed 26 May. 2023.

More from Merriam-Webster on vocabulary

- Updated example sentences

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Merriam-Webster unabridged

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a list or collection of words or of words and phrases usually alphabetically arranged and explained or defined : lexicon; a sum or stock of words employed by a language, group, individual, or work or in a field of knowledge... See the full definition

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Reference:
Kreno. (2002, May 13). Second language? HOW "Fluent" IS FLUENT? Student Doctor Network Communities. https://forums.studentdoctor.net/threads/second-language-how-fluent-is-fluent.7047/.

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Also found in: Thesaurus, Medical, Wikipedia.

flu·ent
(flo͞o′ənt)
adj.
1.

a. Able to express oneself readily and effortlessly: a fluent speaker; fluent in three languages.

b. Flowing effortlessly; polished: speaks fluent Russian; gave a fluent performance of the sonata.

2. Flowing or moving smoothly; graceful: a yacht with long, fluent curves.

3. Flowing or capable of flowing; fluid.

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

fluency
(ˈfluːənsɪ)
n

the quality of being fluent, esp facility in speech or writing

Collins English Dictionary - Complete and Unabridged, 12th Edition 2014 © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1994, 1998, 2000, 2003, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2011, 2014

Thesaurus Antonyms Related Words Synonyms Legend:

Noun 1.
fluency - powerful and effective language; "his eloquence attracted a large congregation"; "fluency in spoken and written English is essential"; "his oily smoothness concealed his guilt from the police"

expressive style, style - a way of expressing something (in language or art or music etc.) that is characteristic of a particular person or group of people or period; "all the reporters were expected to adopt the style of the newspaper"

2.
fluency - skillfulness in speaking or writing

disfluency - lack of skillfulness in speaking or writing

3.
fluency - the quality of being facile in speech and writing

Based on WordNet 3.0, Farlex clipart collection. © 2003-2012 Princeton University, Farlex Inc.

fluency

noun

1. ability to speak or write, good command, articulateness To work as a translator, you need fluency in at least one language.

2. ease, control, facility, command, assurance, readiness, smoothness, slickness, glibness, volubility, articulateness He was praised for speeches of remarkable fluency.

Collins Thesaurus of the English Language - Complete and Unabridged 2nd Edition. 2002 © HarperCollins Publishers 1995, 2002

fluency
noun

Ready skill in expression:

The American Heritage® Roget's Thesaurus. Copyright © 2013, 2014 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

Collins Spanish Dictionary - Complete and Unabridged 8th Edition 2005 © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1971, 1988 © HarperCollins Publishers 1992, 1993, 1996, 1997, 2000, 2003, 2005

fluency

[ˈfluːənsi] n

[ speech, reading, writing] → aisance f

Collins English/French Electronic Resource. © HarperCollins Publishers 2005

Collins German Dictionary - Complete and Unabridged 7th Edition 2005. © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1980 © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1997, 1999, 2004, 2005, 2007

Collins Italian Dictionary 1st Edition © HarperCollins Publishers 1995

fluent
(ˈfluənt) adjective

1. (of a language etc) smoothly and skilfully spoken. He spoke fluent French.

2. (of a person) able to express oneself easily. He is fluent in English.

ˈfluency noun

ease in speaking or expressing. Her fluency surprised her colleagues.

ˈfluently adverb

He speaks Spanish fluently.

Kernerman English Multilingual Dictionary © 2006-2013 K Dictionaries Ltd.

Want to thank TFD for its existence? Tell a friend about us, add a link to this page, or visit the webmaster's page for free fun content.

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References in classic literature?

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Also found in: Thesaurus, Medical, Wikipedia. (flo͞o′ənt) adj. 1. a. Able to express oneself readily and effortlessly: a fluent speaker; fluent in three languages. b. Flowing effortlessly; polished: speaks fluent Russian; gave a fluent performance of the sonata. 2. Flowing or moving smoothly; graceful: a yacht with long, fluent curves.

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***Rare for Middle and High School to use

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***Rare for Middle and High School to use

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Reference:
Put reading first. Put Reading First -- K-3. (n.d.). https://lincs.ed.gov/publications/html/prfteachers/reading_first1.html.

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First of all, Phonemic awareness is not phonics. Phonemic awareness is the ability to hear, identify, and manipulate individual sounds-phonemes--in spoken words. Before children learn to read print, they need to become more aware of how the sounds in words work. They must understand that words are made up of speech sounds, or phonemes (the smallest parts of sound in a spoken word that make a difference in a word's meaning).

Why Phonemic Awareness Is Important

Phonemic Awareness Can Be Developed Through Activities

Identify and categorize sounds

Blend sounds to form words

Delete or add sounds to form new words

Substitute sounds to make new words

Phonemic Awareness Instruction Is Most Effective When--

Students are taught to manipulate phonemes by using alphabet letters.

Instruction focuses on only one or two rather than several types of phoneme manipulation.

Phonemic instruction is taught in Kindergarten or First Grade.

Phonemic Awareness Instruction Basics

Children who cannot hear and work with the phonemes of spoken words will have difficult time learning how to relate these phonemes to graphemes (A letter of an alphabet, or all of the letters and letter combinations that represent a phoneme, as f, ph, and gh for the phoneme- American Heritage Dictionary) when they see them in written words. Early readers can show they have phonemic awareness in several ways:

recognizing which words in a set of words start with the same sound

isolating and saying the first or last sound in a word

combining or blending the separate sounds in a word in order to say the word

breaking up or segmenting a word into its separate sounds.

Examples of Phonemic Awareness Skills

Blending: What word am I trying to say? Nnnnn-oooo--t.

Segmentation (first sound isolation): What is the first sound in not?

Segmentation (last sound isolation): What is the last sound in not?

Segmentation (complete): What are all the sounds you hear in not?

"One of the most compelling and well-established findings in the research on beginning reading is the important relationship between phonemic awareness and reading acquisition." (Kame'enui, et. al., 1997)

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First of all, Phonemic awareness is not phonics. Phonemic awareness is the ability to hear, identify, and manipulate individual sounds-phonemes--in spoken words. Before children learn to read print, they need to become more aware of how the sounds in words work.

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Students can hear sounds within words by manipulating words, breaking them into parts and rhyming. Awareness is to know the words are made up of the combination of individual sounds. 

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Students can hear sounds within words by manipulating words, breaking them into parts and rhyming. Awareness is to know the words are made up of the combination of individual sounds. 

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Phonemic awareness is not causal.  It is often correlational in that it is a result of exposure to books and words early on.

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Phonemic awareness is not causal.  It is often correlational in that it is a result of exposure to books and words early on.

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Phonemic awareness is not used once a child reads well at level 1.  

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Phonemic awareness is not used once a child reads well at level 1.  

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**exception is ESL or severe reading disability

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Definition: The relationship between a letter and its sound.

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Definition: The relationship between a letter and its sound.

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: a method of teaching beginners to read and pronounce words by learning the phonetic value of letters, letter groups, and especially syllables

Dog Words Quiz

Which of the following animals has a dog in its etymology?

Test your knowledge - and maybe learn something along the way.

TAKE THE QUIZ

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a method of teaching beginners to read and pronounce words by learning the phonetic value of letters, letter groups, and especially syllables Dog Words Quiz Which of the following animals has a dog in its etymology? Test your knowledge - and maybe learn something along the way. TAKE THE QUIZ

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Most people will agree that phonics is a necessary part of reading instruction. It only varies when you look at the "how" or "how much" of instruction is taught.

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Most people will agree that phonics is a necessary part of reading instruction. It only varies when you look at the "how" or "how much" of instruction is taught.

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Reading is not the sounding out of letters but actually putting meaning to word or text.

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Reading is not the sounding out of letters but actually putting meaning to word or text.

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Fluency helps develop the ability to understand text quickly.

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Fluency helps develop the ability to understand text quickly.

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This is where the student is focusing on meaning and not individual letters/words.

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This is where the student is focusing on meaning and not individual letters/words.

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Word knowledge itself is the biggest prediction of reading achievement in early elementary starting in Pre-K thru Kindergarten.

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Word knowledge itself is the biggest prediction of reading achievement in early elementary starting in Pre-K thru Kindergarten.

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Exposure to words and concepts while reading add depth and knowledge.  

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Exposure to words and concepts while reading add depth and knowledge.  

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Writing definitions for repetition as well as vocabulary worksheets have shown to have little use in learning vocabulary.

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Writing definitions for repetition as well as vocabulary worksheets have shown to have little use in learning vocabulary.

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Definition: Creating meaning within text.

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Definition: Creating meaning within text.

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[ kom-pri-hen-shuhn ] SHOW IPA

/ ˌkɒm prɪˈhɛn ʃən / PHONETIC RESPELLING

perception or understanding: His comprehension of physics is amazing for a young student.

capacity of the mind to perceive and understand; power to grasp ideas; ability to know.

Logic. the connotation of a term.

SEE MORE SEE LESS

SPRINT TO THE FINISH WITH THIS OLYMPICS QUIZ!

Compete in our Olympics quiz to see if you can take home the gold medal in Olympics knowledge.

Where was the Olympics first held?

Origin of comprehension

1400-50; late Middle English <Latin comprehēnsiōn- (stem of comprehēnsiō), equivalent to comprehēns(us) (past participle of comprehendere to comprehend) + -iōn- -ion

OTHER WORDS FROM comprehension

mis·com·pre·hen·sion, noun non·com·pre·hen·sion, noun pre·com·pre·hen·sion, noun su·per·com·pre·hen·sion, noun

un·com·pre·hen·sion, noun

SEE MORE RELATED FORMS SEE FEWER RELATED FORMS

Words nearby comprehension

compound time, compound-wound, comprador, comprehend, comprehensible, comprehension, comprehensive, comprehensive school, compress, compressed, compressed air

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2021

Words related to comprehension

apprehension, awareness, ken, perception, conception, knowledge, intelligence, sense, discernment, take, realization, grasp, capacity, judgment, cognizance, apperception, prehension, double take, aha

How to use comprehension in a sentence

SEE MORE EXAMPLES SEE FEWER EXAMPLES

British Dictionary definitions for comprehension

the act or capacity of understanding

the state of including or comprising something; comprehensiveness

education an exercise consisting of a previously unseen passage of text with related questions, designed to test a student's understanding esp of a foreign language

logic obsolete the attributes implied by a given concept or term; connotation

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Medical definitions for comprehension

n.

The American Heritage® Stedman's Medical Dictionary Copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company.

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Definition of comprehension | Dictionary.com

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kom-pri-hen-shuhn ] SHOW IPA / ˌkɒm prɪˈhɛn ʃən / PHONETIC RESPELLING perception or understanding: His comprehension of physics is amazing for a young student. capacity of the mind to perceive and understand; power to grasp ideas; ability to know. Logic. the connotation of a term.

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Word identification and other sub skills are severely under taught.  

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Word identification and other sub skills are severely under taught.  

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To comprehend is to use enhanced thinking and to teach that skill to students.  We should be teaching cognitive processes. Use of -pre, -during, and -post reading activities are how you can strengthen comprehension within text. 

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To comprehend is to use enhanced thinking and to teach that skill to students.  We should be teaching cognitive processes. Use of -pre, -during, and -post reading activities are how you can strengthen comprehension within text. 

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Worksheets are also of little use in developing this skill.

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Worksheets are also of little use in developing this skill.

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Subscribe to our Blog
To access a fun activity, word list, & phonological awareness survey, don't miss our Teacher Tips, Fun Facts, Check It Out!, and Word of the Week at the end of the blog!

What Is Phonemic Awareness?

Phonemic Awareness is the awareness of and ability to manipulate the individual sounds (phonemes) in spoken words (Kilpatrick, 2015). Phonemic awareness is a subset of the broader category of phonological awareness, which is one's conscious awareness of and ability to "play with" the sound structures in oral language (Paulson & Moats, 2010).
Download our Phonological Awareness Assessment>>
Six Layers of Phonemic Awareness: Improve Students' Reading Using Their Ears

Reading With Your Ears? What if we told you that you could improve your students' ability to read unfamiliar words without showing them a single printed letter? As crazy as it sounds, it's true! This is because one of the major skills underlying the successful decoding of printed words, phonemic awareness, is a purely auditory and oral skill. It may not be "reading with your ears" in the literal sense, but the sounds we hear and play with words are what allow us to ultimately pull the print off the page with our eyes when we decode.

Read our Blog What Is the Difference Between Phonological Awareness & Phonemic Awareness?

What Is the Importance of Phonemic Awareness in Decoding?

Kilpatrick (2015) tells us that phonemic awareness is an essential part of the process of storing words in one's sight word vocabulary; that is, the body of words (high-frequency or not) that an individual can decode quickly and effortlessly. "Phonemic awareness is what allows us to anchor the sounds in a word to the written sequence of letters that represent those sounds" (Kilpatrick, 2015). This process is called orthographic mapping. Studies have shown that students with better phonological awareness skills can handle this mapping process more proficiently than those with weaker phonological awareness skills (Kilpatrick, 2015). The goal of decoding is to build words into our sight word memory, and phonemic awareness allows this to happen!

Why Are the Six Layers of Phonemic Awareness Essential to Learning to Read?

Adams (1994) emphasizes that while phonemic awareness is essential for learning to read, it is not easily established, and children need explicit instruction to gain the necessary skills. This makes it extremely important for teachers to understand that there are various layers of phonemic awareness and that each of these layers represents a skill that can be developed through targeted instruction and practice. These layers build from the simplest phonemic awareness skills at the bottom of the pyramid to the most complex at the top. These are skills that can be modeled, practiced, and established through oral wordplay.

The Six Layers of Phonemic Awareness: Definitions & Examples of Instruction at Each Layer

Phoneme Isolation: Hearing and isolating the individual phonemes (sounds) in spoken words represents the first layer of skilled phonemic awareness. Isolating phonemes entails knowing that a word is made up of a sequence of sounds and that the individual sounds in words can be differentiated from one another. Beginning sound isolation activities are a great way to help students develop their phoneme isolation skills. Beginning sound isolation is simply pulling the first sound off of a spoken word. Students can isolate the first sounds in words, as in /b/, bear, or /s/, soap.

Blending: Moving up the pyramid, we come to a slightly more complex phonemic awareness skill, phoneme blending. Phoneme blending, which is basically combining sounds, involves listening to and pulling together isolated phonemes to create words. This process requires a student to hold the individual elements in his/her mind as the word is created, thus challenging a student's active working memory. When beginning readers sound out a word, they use letter-sound knowledge to say each sound in a word (/b/ /ă/ /t/), and then blend the sounds quickly together to read the word ( bat).

S egmenting: The third layer in the pyramid is phoneme segmentation. This is the ability to divide a spoken word into its component sounds (phonemes). In a segmentation activity, students are given a word like mad, and then they segment it, or "stretch" the phonemes, /m/ /ă/ /d/. As they are saying the sounds, they can extend a single finger for every phoneme that they hear, starting with the thumb: /m/ (extend thumb), /ă/ (extend index finger), /d/ (extend middle finger). Lastly, they blend the phonemes together as they bring their hands back to their chests and say the word, mad.

Manipulation: Truly refined phonemic awareness includes even more advanced skills, like phoneme addition, deletion, and substitution, all three of which are considered phoneme manipulation. These are the top three layers of the pyramid. Phoneme manipulation is generally more challenging than segmenting and blending phonemes. Manipulation requires students to hold phonemes in their working memories long enough to isolate specific phonemes, add, delete, or substitute (delete and then add) specific phonemes, and then blend the phonemes back together to form a new word. These types of activities are an excellent way to build refined phonemic awareness, particularly for students who may have already mastered phoneme segmentation and blending.

Phoneme Addition: Phoneme addition involves adding phonemes to a given word to produce a new word. For instance, starting with the word we and adding the phoneme /k/ to the end turns it into week. Phoneme addition can be done with more complex words as well; starting with the word bell and adding the phoneme /t/ at the end turns it into belt.

Phoneme Deletion: Conversely, starting with the word guide and deleting the final phoneme, /d/, creates the new word, guy. A more complex example of phoneme deletion might include removing one phoneme from a two-sound blend. Starting with the word blast and deleting the initial phoneme, /b/, results in the new word, last.

Phoneme Substitution: Phoneme substitution, the most advanced of all the manipulation skills on our pyramid, requires that a student knows how to both delete and add phonemes. In a phoneme substitution exercise, a student might be asked to drop the short i sound in kit and replace it with the long i sound. When they do, kit becomes kite. This is done through a few intricate steps that are performed automatically and without conscious thought for strong, fluent readers. These steps include recognizing the component parts of the known word (segmenting the word into its phonemes), isolating a specific phoneme, deleting that phoneme, adding the new phoneme, and blending the phonemes together to say the new word. Did you notice that these steps include every one of the lower five layers of the pyramid? That's right -phoneme substitution, our top layer, encompasses every single layer of the phonemic awareness pyramid. If even one of these lower skills is weak, students will struggle to substitute phonemes.

The Importance of Phoneme Substitution

Teachers are often comfortable with and therefore put the instructional focus on the phonemic awareness skills toward the bottom of the pyramid, particularly phoneme blending and phoneme segmentation. Although these skills are undoubtedly important in helping students as they are learning to decode, it is actually the top of the pyramid, with the more complex phonemic skills, that is often left out of classroom instruction and, where we need to pay the most attention, particularly as students move beyond the primary classroom. Kilpatrick (2015) tells us that research suggests that "phonological manipulation tasks are the best measures of the phonological awareness, skills needed for reading because they are the best predictors of word-level reading proficiency" (page 155) because phoneme manipulation (adding, deleting, and substituting) is actually the layer of phonemic awareness that is the most closely related to reading connected text (Kilpatrick, 2015).

Phoneme substitution is the critical breakthrough skill a child needs to teach themselves how to read new words. As illustrated in the images above, if a student encounters a new unfamiliar word, like moth, they can use their knowledge of a word that they already know (like math) to teach themselves how to read this novel word. Remember that manipulation activities require students to hold phonemes in their working memory long enough to isolate specific phonemes, add, delete, or change specific phonemes, and then blend the phonemes back together to form a new word. Kilpatrick (2015) states that "training in phonemic manipulation has a substantial long-term impact on reading."

Fun Strategies to Use
Sneak some advanced phoneme manipulation practice into the school day!

"Reading problems can be prevented if all students are trained in letter-sound skills and phonological awareness, starting in kindergarten."

- Kilpatrick (2016)

When I first learned about phoneme manipulation, I thought there is no way that my kindergarten students will be able to do that this year. I was AMAZED at how quickly my students caught on and they had so much fun doing it. They're more prepared for 1st grade than any other class I've ever promoted, and I have DIBELS data to prove it!

-Jenna K, Teacher, New York

Download our complimentary Teacher Resources
Phonological Awareness Survey.

This survey enables one-on-one assessment of phonological and phonemic awareness skills that are essential underpinnings of accurate and automatic decoding.

Discover Reading at the Word Level

Click here to link to a word chaining activity we call Word Math>> Add word chaining activities to your day and help students practice their advanced phonemic awareness skills. Use deletion, addition and substitution to chain these words:
strap → trap → rap → rash → ash → lash → latch → batch → botch → blotch
This activity can be done as a pure phonemic awareness exercise without showing students any letters. However, in our illustrate that these advanced phoneme manipulation skills can also be used with word chaining activity we letter tiles to help students encode and decode complex single-syllable words with digraphs, 2-sound blends, and 3-sound blends.

We Love Educator Feedback & Questions
Contact us anytime. Our mission is to provide educators with the most efficient and effective tools for teaching phonemic awareness, phonics concepts, word attack skills, accurate reading and fluency. Student outcomes are our number one goal. No one knows their students better than educators. Therefore your thoughts, strategies, student successes and feedback are held in high esteem!

References

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Six Layers of Phonemic Awareness - Really Great Reading Blog

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row][oneThird] Subscribe to our BlogTo access a fun activity, word list, & phonological awareness survey, don't miss our Teacher Tips, Fun Facts, Check It Out!, and Word of the Week at the end of the blog![/oneThird][twoThird] What Is Phonemic Awareness?Phonemic Awareness is the awareness of and ability to manipulate the individual sounds (phonemes) in spoken words

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Phonics instruction teaches the relationships between the letters of written language and the sounds of spoken language. To read, children need to understand the alphabetic principle - the idea that letters represent the sounds of spoken language. Decoding is when we use letter-sound relationships to translate a printed word into speech.

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Learn Phonics Song for Children (Official Video) Alphabet Song | Letter Sounds | Signing for babies

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What Is Fluency?

Fluency is the ability to read "like you speak." Hudson, Lane, and Pullen define fluency this way: "Reading fluency is made up of at least three key elements: accurate reading of connected text at a conversational rate with appropriate prosody or expression." Non-fluent readers suffer in at least one of these aspects of reading: they make many mistakes, they read slowly, or they don't read with appropriate expression and phrasing.

​ Developing reading fluency with Read Naturally Strategy programs

Key Concepts

Why Is Fluency Important?

For many years, educators have recognized that fluency is an important aspect of reading. Reading researchers agree. Over 30 years of research indicates that fluency is one of the critical building blocks of reading, because fluency development is directly related to comprehension.

Here are the results of one study by Fuchs, Fuchs, Hosp, and Jenkins that shows how oral reading fluency correlates highly with reading comprehension.

To interpret this type of correlation data, consider that a perfect match would be 1.0. As you can see, oral recall/retelling, fill in the blank, and question answering are all above 0.6, which indicates there is a strong correlation. But oral reading fluency is by far the strongest, with a .91 correlation.

Many researchers, including Breznitz, Armstrong, Knupp, Lesgold, and Pinnell, have found that fluency is highly correlated with reading comprehension-that is, when a student reads fluently, that student is likely to comprehend what he or she is reading.

Why are reading fluency and reading comprehension so highly correlated? Dr. S. Jay Samuels, a professor and researcher well known for his work in fluency, put forth a theory called the automaticity theory. According to Dr. Samuels, people have a limited amount of mental energy. If you want to multitask or to become proficient at a complex task such as reading, you first need to master the component tasks so you can do them automatically. For example, a reader who must focus his or her attention on decoding words may not have enough mental energy left over to think about the meaning of the text. However, a fluent reader who can automatically decode the words can instead give full attention to comprehending the text. To become proficient readers, our students need to become automatic with text so they can pay attention to the meaning.

See also:

Challenges Faced by Non-Fluent Readers

Students become fluent by reading. Some students learn to read fluently without explicit instruction. For others, however, fluency doesn't develop in the course of normal classroom instruction.

Research analyzed by the National Reading Panel suggests that just encouraging students to read independently isn't the most effective way to improve reading achievement. Too often, simply encouraging at-risk students to read doesn't result in increased reading on their part. During sustained silent reading, at-risk readers may get a book with mostly pictures and look at the pictures, or they choose a difficult book so they will look like everyone else and then pretend to read.

Even if at-risk students do read, they read more slowly than the other students. In a 10-minute reading period, a proficient reader who reads 200 words a minute silently could read 2,000 words. In the same 10 minutes, an at-risk student who reads 50 words a minute would only read 500 words. This is equal reading time but certainly not an equal number of words read.

These students need to read more, but just asking them to read on their own often doesn't work. The National Reading Panel has concluded that a more effective course of action is for us to explicitly teach developing readers how to read fluently, step by step.

Research-Proven Fluency Strategies

How do we explicitly teach students to read fluently? The National Reading Panel found data supporting three strategies that improve fluency, comprehension, and reading achievement-teacher modeling, repeated reading, and progress monitoring.

Teacher Modeling

The first strategy is teacher modeling. Research demonstrates that various forms of modeling can improve reading fluency. Examples of teacher modeling include:

Teacher-assisted reading

Peer-assisted reading

Audio-assisted reading

Teacher modeling involves more than just listening to someone else read. Students must be actively involved 100 percent of the time and in a multisensory way.

Teacher modeling teaches word recognition in a meaningful context, demonstrates correct phrasing, and gives students practice tracking across the page. A child can benefit from teacher modeling once he or she knows at least 50 sight words and has a good sense of beginning sounds.

The reading rate of the model reader is important. Christopher Skinner, a reading researcher, found that students who read lists of words with him slowly were more fluent with the words than students who read with him at a faster rate. The slower rate enables students to learn new words and clarify difficult words. As students learn more words, they naturally become more fluent.

Another form of modeling is the neurological impress method. In the neurological impress method, a proficient and a struggling reader read together from a passage, with the more able reader reading near the rate of the struggling reader. Heckelman (1969) showed that after 29 15-minute sessions, 24 seventh- through ninth-grade boys, who were an average of 3 years behind in reading, gained an average of 1.9 years in reading based on the Oral Gilmore and the California Achievement Test.

Repeated Reading

Another technique that research has shown significantly builds reading fluency is repeated reading. In fact, the National Reading Panel says this is the most powerful way to improve reading fluency. This involves simply reading the same material over and over again until accurate and expressive.

In the 1970s, LaBerge and Samuels studied what happens when students read passages over and over again. They found that when students reread passages, they got faster at reading the passages, understood them better, and were able to read subsequent passages better as a result of the repeated reading.

Repeated reading is a form of mastery learning. The students read the same words so many times that they begin to know them and are able to identify them in other text. Besides helping students bring words to mastery, repeated reading changes the way students view themselves in relation to the act of reading.

Progress Monitoring

People who play video games are presented with a specific goal and with immediate, relevant feedback about their progress toward that goal. This combination of having a goal and getting feedback on progress can be very motivating.

Progress monitoring takes advantage of this combination to motivate students to read. You give students a specific, individual reading goal, and you tell them exactly how you're going to know they've met it. Then, you give them the means to measure how they're doing. Finally, you make it simple enough that they'll know they've met their goal even before you do. This progress monitoring is what motivates students to practice reading the same story over and over until achieving mastery.

​Developing Reading Fluency With Read Naturally Strategy Programs

The research-based Read Naturally Strategy combines these three strategies into highly effective programs that accelerate reading achievement. Students become confident readers by developing fluency, phonics skills, comprehension, and vocabulary while reading leveled text. The time-tested intervention programs engage students with interesting nonfiction stories and yield powerful results.

Learn more about the Read Naturally Strategy
Research basis for the Read Naturally Strategy

The Read Naturally Strategy is available in a variety of formats:

Choosing the right Read Naturally Strategy program

One Minute Reader®
Structured, supplemental reading program for developing literacy skills independently. Available in these formats:
One Minute Reader Live (component of web-based Read Live for supplemental reading at school)
One Minute Reader books/audio CDs (for a school-to-home checkout program)

Bibliography

Armstrong, S. W. (1983). The effects of material difficulty upon learning disabled children's oral reading and reading comprehension. Learning Disability Quarterly, 6, pp. 339-348.

Breznitz, Z. (1987). Increasing first graders' reading accuracy and comprehension by accelerating their reading rates. Journal of Educational Psychology, 79(3), pp. 236-242.

Fuchs, L. S., Fuchs, D., Hosp, M. K., & Jenkins, J. R. (2001). Oral reading fluency as an indicator of reading competence: A theoretical, empirical, and historical analysis. Scientific Studies of Reading, 5(3), pp. 239-256.

Heckelman, R. G. (1969). A neurological-impress method of remedial-reading instruction. Academic Therapy Quarterly, 5(4), pp. 277-282.

Hudson, R. F., H. B. Lane, and P. C. Pullen. (2005). Reading fluency assessment and instruction: What, why, and how. Reading Teacher 58(8), pp. 702-714.

Knupp, R. (1988). Improving oral reading skills of educationally handicapped elementary school-aged students through repeated readings. Practicum paper, Nova University (ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. ED 297275).

LaBerge, D., & Samuels, S. J. (1974). Toward a theory of automatic information processing in reading. Cognitive Psychology, 6, pp. 292-323.

Lesgold, A., Resnick, L. B., & Hammond, K. (1985). Learning to read: A longitudinal study of word skill development in two curricula. In G. Waller & E. MacKinon (eds.), Reading research: Advances in theory and practice. New York, NY: Academic Press.

National Reading Panel. (2000). Teaching children to read: An evidence-based assessment of the scientific research literature on reading and its implications for reading instruction. Washington, DC: National Institute of Child Health and Human Development.

Pinnell, G. S., Pikulski, J. J., Wixson, K. K., Campbell, J. R., Gough, P. B., & Beatty, A. S. (1995). Listening to children read aloud: Data from NAEP's integrated reading performance record (IRPR) at grade 4 (NCES Publication 95-726). Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Educational Statistics.

Samuels, S. J. (2002). Reading fluency: Its development and assessment. In A. E. Farstrup & S. J. Samuels (eds.), What research has to say about reading instruction, 3rd ed., pp. 166-183. Newark, DE: International Reading Association.

Samuels, S. J. (1997). The method of repeated readings. The Reading Teacher, 50(5), pp. 376-381.

Samuels, S. J. (2006). Towards a model of reading fluency. In S. J. Samuels and A. E. Farstrup (eds.), What research has to say about fluency instruction. Newark, DE: International Reading Association.

Samuels, S. J. (1997). The method of repeated readings. The Reading Teacher, 50(5), pp. 376-381.

Skinner, C. H., Logan, P., Robinson, S. L., & Robinson, D. H. (1997). Demonstration as a reading intervention for exceptional learners. School Psychology Review, 26(3), pp. 437-447.

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What is fluency? Reading at a conversational rate with accuracy and expression. Why is fluency important? Fluency directly correlates to comprehension.

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What is reading fluency? Reading resources - readingvine. Improve Reading Skills. (2021, March 31). https://resources.readingvine.com/what-is-reading-fluency.

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If you're the parent of a child who is in the early grades at school, then you've probably heard his teacher talk about reading fluency. Now you have questions. Just what is reading fluency? Why is it important? How does his ability to read fluently affect my child at school?

These are important questions. Knowing the answers can help you assess how well you child is doing in school, will allow you to understand more fully what his teacher is telling you, and can even give you ways to help your child increase his reading fluency skills. So, let's get you some answers!

What is reading fluency?

While we often think of reading as a single skill our children must master, the process is actually a confluence of several different skills, each which must be mastered before reading as a whole becomes easy and effortless. Some of these separate skills include phonemic awareness, comprehension, decoding, phonics and vocabulary. And then there's fluency.

You've probably heard the term "fluently" applied to someone who speaks a foreign language: "She speaks French fluently!" You know that means she speaks French very well and in a way that can be easily understood. When used to describe reading, the term has a very similar meaning. It means you can read well and in a way that is easily understood.

Reading fluency is the ability to quickly and accurately read a passage of text with expression. This means your child can read a sentence smoothly while recognizing most of the words. While reading fluently, he will understand the sentence clearly enough to add expression to the words, making them more meaningful. This means he pauses when necessary, for instance, or lets his voice lilt up at the end of a question, cuing the listener to the fact that it is a question that he's reading.

When a child who is fluent in reading reads silently to himself, he can recognize words by sight and quickly group them into meaningful phrases, phrases that convey the message the words were intended to convey. When reading aloud, the fluent reader doesn't stop and start, or have to sound out many words. He reads smoothly and with the natural cadence and expression that he normally uses when talking. Someone listening to him read will understand clearly what the author of the words meant by them.

What are the three components of reading fluency?

While reading is broken down into component skills, each skill has components of its own. The same is true for reading fluency. Below are its three components. While you may not have heard these terms before, the ideas behind them are fairly simple.

1. Prosody - This means your child is reading with the appropriate intonation and phrasing, giving listeners the clues they need for understanding. This is the "expression" mentioned before.

2. Accuracy - Accuracy simply means that your child is reading each word correctly. He doesn't say "these" when the word is really "this," for example. Reading each word accurately makes fluency possible.

3. Automaticity - This refers to the ability to recognize words immediately, without having to "sound them out" or ask for help. When your child can read with automaticity, he can read through a complete sentence smoothly and without choppy-sounding stops and starts.

Why is reading fluency important?

Fluency is important because it is the bridge between sounding out individual words and truly understanding them. It's the gateway to comprehension, or understanding. Why? Because when your child can read fluently, he no longer has to focus on decoding each and every word; he can now concentrate on what the words he's reading really mean. If your child has to "sound out" each word, or puzzle over its definition, by the time he gets to the end of a sentence, he may not even remember what he's read. Being able to smoothly and quickly read a sentence from beginning to end allows him to "hear" all the words and understand what the sentence means and how it adds to the story or passage he's reading.

Fluency also adds to understanding because the fluent reader reads with expression. There's that word again! Why is it so important? For a number of reasons. Inflection tells us when a question is being asked, for instance. The cadence or rhythm of the words we read tell us when one sentence stops and another begins. It tells us whether the author is speaking directly to us or whether the words are being said by a character in the story. Pauses from those crucial commas can even give a sentence more than one completely different meanings.

How can I help my child develop reading fluency?

As with all aspects of reading mastery, fluency takes practice. Here are a few fun activities you can try with your child.

Make it a race - Let your child race against the timer while he reads a short passage. Choose a passage at, or even a little below, his reading level - ideally something that he's read before. Success is important while your child is improving his reading fluency. Remember, too, to make it a game. Offer a small prize if he beats the timer, then challenge him to do the same passage a little faster.

Play a part - Reading parts in a simple play is a great way to practice reading with expression. After all, your child will have the chance to "become" the character he's playing. Let him choose the character he wants to be, and read the other parts yourself. The interplay between the characters will naturally bring out expressive reading.

Read along with an audiobook - Children love audiobooks. But, rather than just listening to a favorite recording, have your child read along with it. This allows him to mimic the speed, pacing and expression offered by the recording. Choose books he's already heard more than once, however. Trying to keep pace with a story he's never encountered would be frustrating.

Fluency takes time to master, but it's well worth the work. Surround your child with interesting reading materials and encourage him with fun activities, then sit back and watch his mastery grow!

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What is Reading Fluency? | ReadingVine.com

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If you're the parent of a child who is in the early grades at school, then you've probably heard his teacher talk about reading fluency. Now you have questions. Just what is reading fluency? Why is it important? How does his ability to read fluently affect my child at school?

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Reference:
Vocabulary. Read Naturally, Inc. (n.d.). https://www.readnaturally.com/research/5-components-of-reading/vocabulary.

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The Importance of Vocabulary Development

According to Steven Stahl (2005), "Vocabulary knowledge is knowledge; the knowledge of a word not only implies a definition, but also implies how that word fits into the world." We continue to develop vocabulary throughout our lives. Words are powerful. Words open up possibilities, and of course, that's what we want for all of our students.

​ Teaching words and vocabulary-learning strategies with Read Naturally programs

Key Concepts

Differences in Early Vocabulary Development

We know that young children acquire vocabulary indirectly, first by listening when others speak or read to them, and then by using words to talk to others. As children begin to read and write, they acquire more words through understanding what they are reading and then incorporate those words into their speaking and writing.

Vocabulary knowledge varies greatly among learners. The word knowledge gap between groups of children begins before they enter school. Why do some students have a richer, fuller vocabulary than some of their classmates?

Language rich home with lots of verbal stimulation

Wide background experiences

Read to at home and at school

Read a lot independently

Early development of word consciousness

Why do some students have a limited, inadequate vocabulary compared to most of their classmates?

Speaking/vocabulary not encouraged at home

Limited experiences outside of home

Limited exposure to books

Reluctant reader

Second language-English language learners

Children who have been encouraged by their parents to ask questions and to learn about things and ideas come to school with oral vocabularies many times larger than children from disadvantaged homes. Without intervention this gap grows ever larger as students proceed through school (Hart and Risley, 1995).

How Vocabulary Affects Reading Development

From the research, we know that vocabulary supports reading development and increases comprehension. Students with low vocabulary scores tend to have low comprehension and students with satisfactory or high vocabulary scores tend to have satisfactory or high comprehension scores.

The report of the National Reading Panel states that the complex process of comprehension is critical to the development of children's reading skills and cannot be understood without a clear understanding of the role that vocabulary development and instruction play in understanding what is read (NRP, 2000).

Chall's classic 1990 study showed that students with low vocabulary development were able to maintain their overall reading test scores at expected levels through grade four, but their mean scores for word recognition and word meaning began to slip as words became more abstract, technical, and literary. Declines in word recognition and word meaning continued, and by grade seven, word meaning scores had fallen to almost three years below grade level, and mean reading comprehension was almost a year below. Jeanne Chall coined the term "the fourth-grade slump" to describe this pattern in developing readers (Chall, Jacobs, and Baldwin, 1990).

Incidental and Intentional Vocabulary Learning

How do we close the gap for students who have limited or inadequate vocabularies? The National Reading Panel (2000) concluded that there is no single research-based method for developing vocabulary and closing the gap. From its analysis, the panel recommended using a variety of indirect (incidental) and direct (intentional) methods of vocabulary instruction.

Incidental Vocabulary Learning
Most students acquire vocabulary incidentally through indirect exposure to words at home and at school-by listening and talking, by listening to books read aloud to them, and by reading widely on their own.

The amount of reading is important to long-term vocabulary development (Cunningham and Stanovich, 1998). Extensive reading provides students with repeated or multiple exposures to words and is also one of the means by which students see vocabulary in rich contexts (Kamil and Hiebert, 2005).

Intentional Vocabulary Learning
Students need to be explicitly taught methods for intentional vocabulary learning. According to Michael Graves (2000), effective intentional vocabulary instruction includes:

Teaching specific words (rich, robust instruction) to support understanding of texts containing those words.

Teaching word-learning strategies that students can use independently.

Promoting the development of word consciousness and using word play activities to motivate and engage students in learning new words.

Research-Supported Vocabulary-Learning Strategies

Students need a wide range of independent word-learning strategies. Vocabulary instruction should aim to engage students in actively thinking about word meanings, the relationships among words, and how we can use words in different situations. This type of rich, deep instruction is most likely to influence comprehension (Graves, 2006; McKeown and Beck, 2004).

Student-Friendly Definitions

The meaning of a new word should be explained to students rather than just providing a dictionary definition for the word-which may be difficult for students to understand. According to Isabel Beck, two basic principles should be followed in developing student-friendly explanations or definitions (Beck et al., 2013):

Characterize the word and how it is typically used.

Explain the meaning using everyday language-language that is accessible and meaningful to the student.

Sometimes a word's natural context (in text or literature) is not informative or helpful for deriving word meanings (Beck et al., 2013). It is useful to intentionally create and develop instructional contexts that provide strong clues to a word's meaning. These are usually created by teachers, but they can sometimes be found in commercial reading programs.

Defining Words Within Context

Research shows that when words and easy-to-understand explanations are introduced in context, knowledge of those words increases (Biemiller and Boote, 2006) and word meanings are better learned (Stahl and Fairbanks, 1986). When an unfamiliar word is likely to affect comprehension, the most effective time to introduce the word's meaning may be at the moment the word is met in the text.

Using Context Clues

Research by Nagy and Scott (2000) showed that students use contextual analysis to infer the meaning of a word by looking closely at surrounding text. Since students encounter such an enormous number of words as they read, some researchers believe that even a small improvement in the ability to use context clues has the potential to produce substantial, long-term vocabulary growth (Nagy, Herman, and Anderson, 1985; Nagy, Anderson, and Herman, 1987; Swanborn and de Glopper, 1999).

Sketching the Words

For many students, it is easier to remember a word's meaning by making a quick sketch that connects the word to something personally meaningful to the student. The student applies each target word to a new, familiar context. The student does not have to spend a lot of time making a great drawing. The important thing is that the sketch makes sense and helps the student connect with the meaning of the word.

Applying the Target Words

Applying the target words provides another context for learning word meanings. When students are challenged to apply the target words to their own experiences, they have another opportunity to understand the meaning of each word at a personal level. This allows for deep processing of the meaning of each word.

Analyzing Word Parts

The ability to analyze word parts also helps when students are faced with unknown vocabulary. If students know the meanings of root words and affixes, they are more likely to understand a word containing these word parts. Explicit instruction in word parts includes teaching meanings of word parts and disassembling and reassembling words to derive meaning (Baumann et al., 2002; Baumann, Edwards, Boland, Olejnik, and Kame'enui, 2003; Graves, 2004).

Semantic Mapping

Semantic maps help students develop connections among words and increase learning of vocabulary words (Baumann et al., 2003; Heimlich and Pittleman, 1986). For example, by writing an example, a non-example, a synonym, and an antonym, students must deeply process the word persist.

Word Consciousness

Word consciousness is an interest in and awareness of words (Anderson and Nagy, 1992; Graves and Watts-Taffe, 2002). Students who are word conscious are aware of the words around them-those they read and hear and those they write and speak (Graves and Watts-Taffe, 2002). Word-conscious students use words skillfully. They are aware of the subtleties of word meaning. They are curious about language, and they enjoy playing with words and investigating the origins and histories of words.

Teachers need to take word-consciousness into account throughout their instructional day-not just during vocabulary lessons (Scott and Nagy, 2004). It is important to build a classroom "rich in words" (Beck et al., 2002). Students should have access to resources such as dictionaries, thesauruses, word walls, crossword puzzles, Scrabble® and other word games, literature, poetry books, joke books, and word-play activities.

Teachers can promote the development of word consciousness in many ways:

Language categories: Students learn to make finer distinctions in their word choices if they understand the relationships among words, such as synonyms, antonyms, and homographs.

Figurative language: The ability to deal with figures of speech is also a part of word-consciousness (Scott and Nagy 2004). The most common figures of speech are similes, metaphors, and idioms.

Once language categories and figurative language have been taught, students should be encouraged to watch for examples of these in all content areas.

Teaching Words and Vocabulary-Learning Strategies With Read Naturally Programs

Take Aim at Vocabulary: Build Vocabulary in the Middle Grades

These intentional vocabulary learning strategies can be efficiently and effectively implemented using Read Naturally's program Take Aim! at Vocabulary. Take Aim is appropriate for students who can read at least at a fourth grade level. Take Aim is available in two formats:

The semi-independent format provides differentiated instruction for students working mostly independently.

The small-group format is designed for small-group instruction-up to six students.

Each Take Aim level teaches 288 carefully selected target words in the context of engaging, non-fiction stories. The target words are systematically taught using the research-based strategies described above. The intensive and focused lesson design helps students learn the target words and internalize the skills and strategies necessary for independently learning unknown words.

Learn more about how Take Aim teaches vocabulary and word-learning strategies:

Splat-O-Nym: Vocabulary Word Game for iPad

Read Naturally also offers a Splat-O-Nym app for iPad that teaches vocabulary using game-based technology. Splat-O-Nym quizzes students with synonym questions, antonym questions, and meaning-from-context questions and awards points for correct answers.

Learn more about the Splat-O-Nym app:

Other Programs That Support Vocabulary Development

These other Read Naturally programs do not focus on vocabulary but include activities that support vocabulary development:

Read Naturally® Live
Cloud-based software that develops fluency and phonics and also provides support for vocabulary with audio-supported definitions of key words.
Learn more about Read Naturally Live

Bibliography

Anderson, R. C., & Nagy, W. E. (1992). "The vocabulary conundrum," American Educator, Vol. 16, pp. 14-18, 44-47.

Baumann, J. F., Edwards, E. C., Boland, E., Olejnik, S., & Kame'enui, E. (2003). "Vocabulary tricks: effects of instruction in morphology and context on fifth grade students' ability to derive and infer word meanings," American Educational Research Journal, Vol. 40, No. 2, pp. 447-494.

Baumann, J. F., Edwards, E. C., Font, G., Tereshinski, C. A., Kame'enui, E. J., & Olejnik, S. (2002). "Teaching morphemic and contextual analysis to fifth-grade students." Reading Research Quarterly, Vol. 37, pp. 150-176.

Baumann, J. F., Kame'enui, E. J., & Ash, G. E. (2003). "Research on vocabulary instruction: Voltaire redux," in J. Flood, D. Lapp, J. R. Squire, and J. M. Jensen (eds.), Handbook of research on teaching the English language arts, 2nd ed., Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum, pp. 752-785.

Beck, I. L., McKeown, M. G., & Kucan, L. (2002). Bringing words to life. Robust vocabulary instruction, New York: Guilford Press.

Beck, I. L., McKeown, M. G., & Kucan, L. (2013). Bringing words to life. Robust vocabulary instruction, 2nd ed., New York: Guilford Press.

Biemiller, A. & Boote, C. (2006). "An effective method for building meaning vocabulary in the primary grades," Journal of Educational Psychology, Vol. 98, No. 1, pp. 44-62.

Chall, J. S., Jacobs, V. A., & Baldwin, L. E. (1990). The reading crisis: Why poor children fall behind, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Cunningham, A. E. & Stanovich, K. E. (1998). "What reading does for the mind," American Educator, Vol. 22, pp. 8-15.

Graves, M. F. (2000). "A vocabulary program to complement and bolster a middle-grade comprehension program," in B. M. Taylor, M. F. Graves, and P. Van Den Broek (eds.), Reading for meaning: Fostering comprehension in the middle grades, New York: Teachers College Press.

Graves, M. F. (2004). "Teaching prefixes: As good as it gets?," in J. Baumann & E. Kame'enui (eds.), Vocabulary instruction, research to practice, New York: Guilford Press, pp. 81-99.

Graves, M. F. (2006). The vocabulary book, New York: Teachers College Press, International Reading Association, National Council of Teachers of English.

Graves, M. F. & Watts-Taffe, S. M. (2002). "The place of word consciousness in a research-based vocabulary program," in A. E. Farstrup and S. J. Samuels (eds.), What research has to say about reading instruction, Newark, DE: International Reading Association.

Hart, B. & Risley, T. R. (1995). Meaningful differences in the everyday experience of young American children, Baltimore, MD: Paul H. Brookes.

Heimlich, J. E. & Pittleman, S. D. (1986). Semantic mapping: Classroom applications, Newark, DE: International Reading Association.

Kamil, M. L. & Hiebert, E. H. (2005). "Teaching and learning vocabulary: Perspectives and persistent issues," in E. H. Hiebert and M. L. Kamil (eds.), Teaching and learning vocabulary: Bringing research to practice, Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.

McKeown, M. G. & Beck, I. L. (2004). "Direct and rich vocabulary instruction," in J. Baumann & E. Kame'enui (eds.), Vocabulary instruction, research to practice, New York: Guilford Press, pp. 13-27.

Nagy, W. E., Anderson, R. C., & Herman, P. A. (1987). "Learning word meanings from context during normal reading," American Educational Research Journal, Vol. 24, pp. 237-270.

Nagy, W. E., Herman, P. A. & Anderson, R. C. (1985). "Learning words from context," Reading Research Quarterly, Vol. 20, No. 2, pp. 233-253.

Nagy, W. E. & Scott, J. A. (2000). "Vocabulary processes," in M. L. Kamil, P. Mosenthal, P. D. Pearson, and R. Barr (eds.), Handbook of reading research, Vol. 3, Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.

National Reading Panel. (2000). Teaching children to read: An evidence-based assessment of the scientific research literature on reading and its implications for reading instruction (NIH Publication No. 00-4769), Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, pp. 13-14.

Scott, J. & Nagy, W. (2004). "Developing word consciousness," in J. Baumann & E. Kame'enui (eds.), Vocabulary instruction, research to practice, New York: Guilford Press, pp. 201-215.

Stahl, S. A. (2005). "Four problems with teaching word meanings (and what to do to make vocabulary an integral part of instruction)," in E. H. Hiebert and M. L. Kamil (eds.), Teaching and learning vocabulary: Bringing research to practice, Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.

Stahl, S. A. & Fairbanks, M. M. (1986). "The effects of vocabulary instruction: A model-based meta analysis," Review of Educational Research, Vol. 56, pp. 72-110.

Swanborn, M. S. & de Glopper, K. (1999). "Incidental word learning while reading: A meta-analysis," Review of Educational Research, Vol. 69, pp. 261-285.

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Vocabulary development supports reading and increases comprehension. Students need to be explicitly taught words and vocabulary learning strategies.

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Digital, game-based support for vocabulary, spelling, and phonics development and practice.

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Same Word-Different Meaning

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Preinstructional Planning
Students will:

Demonstrate how the Reading Comprehension Strategies can aid in reading one of their content textbooks

Reading Comprehension Strategies Reference Chart printable

Sticky notes, highlighters, colored pencils, or other tools for students to show use of strategies

1. If you didn't before Lesson 1, create a poster, an overhead, or handouts of the Reading Comprehension Strategies Reference Chart printable so that students can easily reference it.

2. Have students sign up for a subject area or assign each to bring a content textbook to class. Math texts are the most difficult to use for this lesson, but any other subject matter textbook will work.

3. Decide on how you'll arrange groups. Students may work alone, in groups with a common textbook, or individually and then have subject area group meetings. (I use the last arrangement in my class.)

Step 1: Review the six reading comprehension strategies by using all during a modeled think-aloud reading. I use an overhead of a short passage found in an old science textbook that is no longer in use.

The six strategies are:

1. Connecting

2. Visualizing

3. Questioning

4. Inferring

5. Determining Importance in Text

6. Synthesizing

Your goal in this mini-lesson is to show students how you integrate all these strategies to gain understanding of a text. Explain what you do when you come to a part of the text where you are "stuck." How do you know you aren't comprehending that part of the text? Which strategies do you try to use to get you "unstuck"? Do they help? Students need to see what expert readers do when they come to difficult portions of a text.

Step 2: Explain that the seventh reading strategy is called Monitoring Comprehension. Share that this is simply being aware of when you understand what you are reading and what to do when comprehension breaks down.These are the guidelines I go over with my classes:

How do you know when it doesn't make sense?

When you can't hear the character or narrator's voice as you read

When you can't see pictures in your head

When your mind wanders away from the text

When you have no memory of what you just read

When you cannot ask or answer clarifying questions about the topic

Whenever something you read does not seem to be related in any way to what you just read

Step 3: Have students read a section or partial chapter from a textbook they are using in another class. They should be using the reading strategies learned in class and taking notes when they use them.

Note: The amount of text read will depend on your students' reading abilities and the time you have to devote to this project. I give class time for this reading, but you could also assign this reading as homework.

Step 4: Ask each student to map the comprehension strategies that they used to better understand the text. I have each student use sticky notes or take a piece of blank paper and jot their strategy use (corresponding to the text by line number) since they cannot write in textbooks.

Optional: Have students meet in subject-area groups to discuss strategies they found most helpful when reading text for that content area.

Optional: Have groups give short presentations to the class about using the strategies for their subject area, using one of their texts as a model. This may include creating study aids. I've had students design bookmarks with strategy reminders as part of their presentation.

Modeling and group discussion are techniques that support all learners in my classroom. As students work on this project, I circulate and confer with each student to check understanding or suggest ideas. Often, my special needs students are relieved to hear me say that their ideas are exactly what I would do as a reader of that particular text. I encourage all and remind them that they already do many of these things automatically, so now they just need to make it visible to me.

Assign students to write a reflective essay on how the comprehension strategies are useful to them as readers. I require at least three specific examples of how the student can use a strategy within a specific text or texts. For example, one student may write that in her science textbook, she finds that adding questions of her own to those found at the end of a chapter help her to stay interested and focused as she reads the chapter on viruses. She would include some specific questions she asked herself and explain how that helped her understand the big ideas.

Student essays become a part of my student's writing portfolios which are shared at conference time.

Students will map out their use of reading strategies with a textbook for another class.

The true assessment of these lessons comes in witnessing your students using these strategies as they read throughout the year. Keep noting your own use of strategies as you read aloud and praise students when you catch them using a strategy during instruction or during reading conferences with you. I also fill in a strategy usage checklist for conferences that notes which strategies each student uses independently, with my guidance, or "not yet."

Develop a rubric or give students a checklist of your expectations. I evaluate their use of the strategies using a simple 3-point rubric:

3 points: Reader shows meaningful evidence of using the reading strategies to aid comprehension

2 points: Reader shows some evidence of using the reading strategies

1 point: Reader is not yet showing evidence of using the reading strategies

For the essay, I evaluate their work for the required three specific examples and perhaps two other writing qualities that we have worked on in class previously.

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Using the Comprehension Strategies | Scholastic

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Preinstructional Planning Students will: Demonstrate how the Reading Comprehension Strategies can aid in reading one of their content textbooks Reading Comprehension Strategies Reference Chart printable Sticky notes, highlighters, colored pencils, or other tools for students to show use of strategies If you didn't before Lesson 1, create a poster, an overhead, or handouts of the Reading Comprehension Strategies Reference Chart printable so that students can easily reference it.

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a | Phonics Lesson | Introduction and Revision

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WonderWorks Fluency Sample Lesson: How to help struggling readers in grades 3-6

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Successful Strategies: Memory, Phonological Awareness and Beginning Phonics

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Strategies for Developing Reading Fluency (1 of 8)

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Vocabulary Strategies That Boost Students' Reading Comprehension, Grades 2-6

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Reading Comprehension Strategies - The Only 9