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Literature Review: Teaching Decoding Strategies to Increase Reading Fluency 

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Literature Review: Teaching Decoding Strategies to Increase Reading Fluency 

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Title: From phonological awareness to fluency in each lesson

Author(s):Melinda Smith , Barbara J. Walker and David Yellin

Source: The Reading Teacher. 58.3 (Nov. 2004): p302.

Document Type: Article

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Many beginning readers struggle with decoding a text. Lack of appropriate instruction; reading text at the frustration level; difficulty with phonological awareness, including the inability to segment phonemes (i.e., unable to divide a word into its individual sounds); and ineffective phonemic synthesis (i.e., unable to connect the sounds to form words) are a few ways that some readers get off to a rough start. Whatever the reason, many of these readers struggle to learn to read in first grade, and they arrive in second grade able to identify only a few sight words and initial sounds. The current trend is to directly teach them decoding skills in repeated but isolated lessons; however, we would like to propose an alternative.

Second-grade struggling readers need more than a specific program designed to directly teach phonics. They need instruction that focuses on their constructing meaning while learning word-identification strategies (Allington, 2001: Knapp, 1995). In addition, it has been suggested that reading instruction move from the meaningful whole to the parts and back to the whole (Mazzoni & Gambrell, 2003). This means that phonic instruction should start with a whole story then move to individual words and the sounds and patterns found within those words, all the while continuing to focus on context and meaning of the whole. Therefore, we propose that struggling second graders would benefit from instruction that both moves them through the development of phonic knowledge and focuses on meaning.

The following procedure was designed to do just that. It begins with a meaningful whole, proceeds to the phonetic elements, and ends with a new, student-written story. The phonetic elements we focused on were onsets and rimes. Onset-rime theory (Walton & Walton, 2001) states that the units of the English syllable are the onset (any consonant that may come before the vowel) and the rime (the vowel and any consonants that may come after it). For example, the onset and rime for the word test would be t-est, the t being the onset and est being the rime. Words with a common rime (e.g., -est) will typically rhyme (e.g., rest, best). Using onset and rime knowledge, readers can create an analogy between the shared rime spellings of words. Several researchers have found that children with reading difficulty profit from instruction in rime analogy, which directs attention to onsets and rimes in words (Greaney, Tunmer, & Chapman, 1997; Qi & O'Connor, 2000).

Further review of how phonic knowledge develops suggested that children analyze spoken words into onsets and rimes naturally, before they learn to read (Goswami, 2000; Moustafa, 1995). Walton and Walton (2001) demonstrated that young readers can be assisted in using their knowledge of onsets and rimes to figure out unfamiliar words. He found that teaching rime analogies increased use of letters to sound out words and use of rime analogies. Other studies have demonstrated that children can use rime analogies more frequently if taught the strategy (I.W. Gaskins, Ehri, Cress, O'Hara, & Donnelly, 1996/1997; Hiebert, 1994). On the basis of this information, we developed an instructional procedure to provide phonics instruction that starts with the whole processes of reading and then focuses on onsets and rimes in words. This knowledge is used to write rimes and rhymes in personal stories, and finally the new story is read several times (Smith & Walker, 2004). We chose books with patterned language and predictable rhyming phrases because they contain rhyming patterns with repeated refrains or events. These rhyming texts (see Sidebar) contain target words as well as other words using the targeted rime patterns to provide practice with the strategy. The first author planned a three-day instructional sequence of 45 minutes per day (Smith, 2002).

Key steps

1. Hold a shared reading

The teacher selects a rhyming and predictable book, like Sheep in a Jeep (Shaw, 1986), that the students would enjoy and that contains the intended rimes for word study like -eep for sheep, jeep, and steep. The first reading of the selected text focuses on constructing meaning and provides a vehicle for learning word-identification strategies in context. Following discussion of the story, the teacher reads the book a second and third time, asking children to chime in when they can. Shared reading, in which teacher and children read in unison, offers an opportunity for children to participate in the reading experience in a highly supportive way. Through shared reading, they read and understand a complete story while learning the words in context.

2. Highlight rhyming words

Following the shared reading of the selected book, the teacher goes back through the story and has the students help to identify the rhyming words. These words are placed on a chart. Attention is drawn to the common spelling patterns in these rhyming words and to the sound similarities. In Sheep in a Jeep, the rime patterns identified include -eep (jeep, steep), -ud (thud, mud), -ug (tug, shrug), -elp (help, yelp), -out (out, shout), and -eer (cheer, steer). This stage increases phonological awareness by focusing on the sounds in words. Phonological awareness has been shown to be an important aspect of beginning reading (Goswami, 2000; Metsala & Ehri, 1998).

3. List rime words

Research suggests that successful use of the analogy strategy depends on knowledge of key or target words with high-frequency spelling patterns (R. Gaskins, Gaskins, Cunningham, Anderson, & Schommer, 1995). There are 37 rimes that account for nearly 500 primary-grade words (Stahl, 1998). Goswami (2000) demonstrated that beginning readers use their knowledge of onsets, rimes, and rhymes to figure out how to say other print words. The following task was developed using this research. For each predictable rhyming book, target rime patterns or word families (i.e., a group of words that end in the same rime and rhyme) are identified. The target words are taught using a whole-word approach. Once a target word is introduced, it is written by students on individual note cards, organized by vowel sounds and rime patterns (with the rime pattern underlined in red), and placed into individual flip card word banks (attached by one or two loose-leaf rings). The students are taught to compare a new word to an already known word that shares the same rime pattern in order to help them decode the new word. Knowledge of the target words represents a basic knowledge of frequent spelling-sound patterns, and it is the basis for successful application of the analogy strategy. This task focuses student attention on the strategy of decoding by analogy.

4. Read the predictable book

After the students add the target rime patterns to their rime flip card word bank, another shared reading of the story is conducted. The students are directed to identify the specific rhyme pattern in their word banks and hold flip cards up when the words are read in the story. This activity provides practice and reinforcement with the rhyme- and rime-pattern recognition strategies in the context of authentic rhyming stories.

5. Write rhyme and rime innovations

Using the rhyming-book pattern to focus on sentence meaning, the students create new rhymes and rimes to fit the repeated predictable patterns. This rhyming innovations approach involves the rewriting of a predictable rhyming book using a structured frame (Walker, 2004), and it provides a "scaffolded" writing experience for beginning readers and writers. The first innovation for each story is conducted as a whole-group activity. The teacher models rewriting the predictable frame by changing key words; the students provide the key rhyming words. The second innovation is done in student pairs assigned by the teacher. Following this step, students compose individual innovations, which are illustrated and placed into a book.

For example, the teacher selects a familiar and predictable book that can be easily rewritten and that has rhyme. Here Are My Hands by Bill Martin Jr and John Archambault (1998, Henry Holt) is one such book. First the teacher prepares a frame for rewriting the predictable book. The following is an example for Here Are My Hands:

   Frame from the book
   Here are my eyes
   For seeing and crying.
   Here are my ears
   For washing and drying.
   Frame for innovation
   Here are my
   For -- and --.
   Here are my --
   For -- and --.

Then the teacher prompts the students for each blank in the innovation frame saying something like, "Let's brainstorm ideas of things that you have." The students suggest feet, and the teacher writes that word in the blank. The students then generate a list of action words describing what feet do. They must select two words to go in the provided blanks. After doing that, students brainstorm and decide on another body part (or like object) to write on the third line. They must then think of two more action words describing that item. The second action word in the last sentence must rhyme with the second action word in the first sentence. For instance, one student wrote,

   Here are my feet
   for jumping and walking.
   Here is my mouth
   For snoring and talking.

6. Reread the newly generated book in small groups

Following the completion of each rewritten book, it is shared with the group in an author's chair format. The teacher reads the generated page, and then each pair and individual reads their own pages. Afterward, the teacher rereads the entire book with the group in a shared-reading format while the students read along. Once the book is placed in the classroom library, students are encouraged to read it individually or with partners during free reading opportunities.

A second-grade study

We used this procedure with second-grade classrooms in low socioeconomic schools in the United States where small groups of children were taught to use rime analogies in the context of predictable stories. Using this method, 72 students enrolled in four second-grade classrooms in two urban elementary schools were randomly assigned to this rime analogy procedure or regular classroom reading instruction (Smith, 2002). The major findings of the study confirm that this rime analogy procedure resulted in significant improvement (p < .01) on standardized reading performance measures (2000, The Group Reading Assessment and Diagnostic Evaluation). The Combined School analysis determined that there was clearly significant improvement for the rime analogy group in Word Reading (p < .001). Potential effects were noted for Sentence Comprehension (p = .027). The Low Socioeconomic Status School analysis showed potentially significant improvement for the rime analogy group on Rhyme Recognition (p = .014), Word Reading (p = .016), and Word Meaning (p = .027). The Middle-Income School analysis revealed clearly significant improvement for Sentence Comprehension (p < .009), and potential effects were noted for Passage Comprehension (p = .05). These results support the importance of providing students with specific word-recognition strategies in the context of authentic reading and writing experiences.

Benefits

As we analyzed the tasks, we realized that the steps of the rime analogy procedure matched the development of phonic knowledge. In the first step, we focused on understanding the meaningful whole and learning words in the context of a whole story. This focused the children's attention on constructing meaning with text while learning words. Because many of these second graders had not developed an understanding of phonological awareness, they needed to see and hear words in the context of a story. Researchers suggest that young children should "learn to think of words as having both meaning and sound" (Stahl, Hester, & Stahl, 1998, p. 340). Therefore, we started with understanding the whole story, and then in the second step we focused on developing phonological awareness by discussing the rhyming words and pointing out the onset and the rime within the context of the predictable story.

In the third step, we developed knowledge of onset and rime by writing word families and discussing how word parts work. In other words, during this step we focused on phonemic segmentation and phonemic synthesis, which are sophisticated aspects of phonological awareness (Stahl et al., 1988). As children wrote and discussed the word patterns, they slowly said the words and emphasized the sounds that matched the patterns.

In the fourth step, the children wrote rime innovations using the trade book pattern, focusing on how the words made sense in the sentence. The new words had to rhyme and make sense, with the children using the patterned language of the rhyming predictable book. Because student pairs (and then individual students) wrote a new page of the group book, they had a purpose for using rime analogies. It also gave them practice in using their emerging knowledge of phonemic segmentation and phonemic synthesis with word patterns and individual letter sounds.

For the final step, when each student had finished writing his or her page, the entire book was assembled and read. Just as they had at the beginning, the children reread this book again to develop fluency. Using these procedures, we took the children from phonological awareness to fluent reading (the stages of word reading) in only three days. This worked on multiple levels of phonics development in the second-grade classrooms. Students all advanced during the lesson from whatever point they were before. Even students who were more advanced in phonic knowledge profited from writing words and sentences in the context of a whole story so that it would make sense.

As Knapp (1995) and Allington (2001) suggested, the second graders focused on constructing meaning while learning the process of decoding. Their literacy process was led from thinking about the whole-passage meaning to the process of decoding by analogy and then back to a new whole story that was read fluently. In each new lesson, the children were taken through this procedure step by step, developing phonics knowledge, comprehension, and fluency in a logical flow.

RHYMING TRADE BOOKS

Alda, A. (1992). Sheep, sheep, sheep, help me fall asleep. New York: Bantam Doubleday Dell.

Cameron, P. (1961). I can't said the ant. New York: Coward-McCann.

Carle, E. (1974). All about Arthur. New York: Franklin-Watts.

Cole, J. (1989). Anna Banana: 101 jump rope rhymes. New York: Morrow.

de Regniers, B., Moore, E., White, M., & Carr, J. (1988). Sing a song of popcorn. New York: Scholastic.

Degen, 8. (1983). Jamberry. New York: Harper & Row.

Fleming, D. (1994). Barnyard banter. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston.

Florian, D. (1994). The beast feast. New York: Scholastic.

Fox, M. (1993). Time for bed. San Diego: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich.

Guarino, D. (1989). Is your mamma a llama? New York: Scholastic.

Hague, K. (1984). Alphabears. New York: Henry Holt.

Hague, M. (1993). Teddy bear, teddy bear: A classic action rhyme. New York: Morrow.

Hawkins, C, & Hawkins, J. (1983). Pat the cat. New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons.

Hawkins, C., & Hawkins, J. (1984), Mig the pig. New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons.

Hawkins, C., & Hawkins, J. (1985). Jen the hen. New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons.

Hawkins, C., & Hawkins, J. (1986). Tog the dog. New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons.

Hoberman, M. (2001). Seven silly eaters. New York: Scholastic.

Hutchins, P. (1976). Don't forget the bacon. New York: Mulberry.

Hymes, L., & Hymes, J. (1964). Oodles of noodles. New York: Young Scott.

Komaiko, L. (1987). Annie Bananie. New York: Harper & Row.

Krauss, R. (1985). I can fly. New York: Golden Press.

Lewison, W. (1992). Buzz said the bee. New York: Scholastic.

Martin, B. (1970). The happy hippopotami. San Diego: Harcourt.

Martin, B., & Archambault, J. (1986). Barn dance! New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston.

Martin, B., & Archambault, J. (1988). Up and down the merry-go-round. New York: Henry Holt.

Martin, B., & Archambault, J. (1989). Chicka chicka boom boom. New York: Simon & Schuster.

Martin, B., & Carle E. (1991). Polar bear, polar bear, what do you hear? New York: Simon & Schuster.

Martin, L. (1993). When dinosaurs go visiting. New York: Scholastic.

Ochs, C.P. (1991). Moose on the loose. Minneapolis, MN: Carolrhoda.

Oppenheimer, J. (1989). Not now! said the cow. New York: Bantam.

Patz, N. (1983). Moses supposes his toeses are roses. San Dieqo: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich.

Pilkey, D. (1990). 'Twas the night before Thanksgiving. New York: Orchard.

Raffi. (1987). Down by the bay. New York: Crown.

Seuss, Dr. (1960). One fish, two fish, red fish, blue fish. New York: Beginner Books.

Seuss, Dr. (1965). Fox in socks. New York: Random House.

Seuss, Dr. (1972). In a people house, New York: Random House.

Seuss, Dr. (1974). There's a wocket in my pocket. New York: Random House.

Shaw, N. (1986). Sheep in a jeep. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.

Shaw, N. (1989). Sheep on a ship. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.

Shumaker, W. (1996). Dance. San Diego: Harcourt Brace.

Silverstein, S. (1964). A giraffe and a half. New York: HarperCollins.

Van Rynbach, I. (1995). Five little pumpkins. Honesdale, PA: Boyds Mill Press.

Walton, R. (2002). Bunny days. New York: Scholastic.

Wells, R. (1973). Noisy Nora. New York: The Dial Press.

Westcott, N.B. (1988). The lady with the alligator purse. Boston: Little, Brown.

Wood, A. (1992). Silly Sally. San Diego: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich.

Yolen, J, (1987). The three bears rhyme book. San Diego: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich.

Yolen, J., & Teague, M. (2000). How do dinosaurs say good night? New York: Scholastic.

References

Allington, R.L. (2001). What really matters for struggling readers. Designing research-based programs. New York: Longman.

Gaskins, I.W., Ehri, L.C., Cress, C., O'Hara, C., & Donnelly, K. (1996/1997). Procedures for word learning: Making discoveries about words. The Reading Teacher, 50, 312-327.

Gaskins, R., Gaskins, I., Cunningham, P., Anderson, R., & Schommer, M. (1995). The reciprocal relationship between research and development: An example involving a decoding strand for poor readers. Journal of Reading Behavior, 27, 337-377.

Goswami, U. (2000). Phonological awareness and lexical processes. In M.L. Kamil, P.B. Mosenthal, P.D. Pearson, & R. Barr (Eds.), Handbook of reading research (Vol. 3, pp. 251-268). New York: Longman.

Greaney, K.T., Tunmer, W.E., & Chapman, J.W. (1997). Effects of rime-based orthographic analogy training to the word recognition skills of children with reading disability. Journal of Educational Psychology, 89, 645-651.

Hiebert, E.H. (1994). A small-group literacy intervention with Chapter 1 students. In E.H. Hiebert & B.M. Taylor (Eds.), Getting reading right from the start (pp. 85-106). Boston: Allyn & Bacon.

Knapp, M.S. (1995). Teaching for meaning in high-poverty classrooms. New York: Teachers College Press.

Mazzoni, S.A., & Gambrell, L.B. (2003). Principles of best practice: Finding the common ground. In L.M. Morrow, L.B. Gambrell, & M. Pressley (Eds.), Best practices in literacy instruction (pp. 9-22). New York: Guilford.

Metsala, J.L., & Ehri, L.C. (1998). Word recognition in beginning literacy. London: Erlbaum.

Moustafa, M. (1995). Children's productive phonological recoding. Reading Research Quarterly, 30, 464-476.

Qi, S., & O'Connor, R. (2000). A comparison of two phonological training procedures in a kindergarten classroom. Journal of Educational Research, 93, 226-233.

Rasinski, T. (2003). The fluent reader: Oral reading strategies for building word recognition, fluency, and comprehension. New York: Scholastic.

Smith, M. (2002). The effects of rhyme-rime connection training on second grade reading performance. (Doctoral dissertation, Oklahoma State University, 2002).

Smith, M., & Walker, B.J. (2004, May). Writing using authentic text and rhymes: The rhyme-rime connection. Paper presented at the annual convention of the International Reading Association, Reno, NV.

Stahl, S. (1998). Saying the "P" word: Nine guidelines for exemplary phonics instruction. In R. Allington (Ed.), Teaching struggling readers (pp. 208-216). Newark: DE: International Reading Association. doi:10.1598/RRQ.33.3.5

Stahl, S., Hester, A., & Stahl, K. (1998). Everything you wanted to know about phonics (but were afraid to ask). Reading Research Quarterly, 33, 338-355. doi: 10.1598/RRQ.33.3.5

Walker, B.J. (2004). Diagnostic teaching of reading: Techniques for instruction and assessment. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Merrill/Prentice Hall.

Walton, P., & Walton, L. (2001). Teaching rime analogy or letter recording reading strategies to prereaders: Effects on prereading skills and word reading. Journal of Educational Psychology, 93(1), 160-180.

Smith teaches at Northeastern State University. She can be contacted at 3100 E. New Orleans St., Broken Arrow, OK 74014, USA. Walker and Yellin teach at Oklahoma State University in Stillwater.

The department editor welcomes reader comments. E-mail bjw@okstate.edu or write to Barbara Walker, Oklahoma State University, 256 Willard Hall, Stillwater, OK 74078, USA.

Smith, Melinda^Walker, Barbara J.^Yellin, David

Source Citation   (MLA 7th Edition)

Smith, Melinda, Barbara J. Walker, and David Yellin. "From phonological awareness to fluency in each lesson." The Reading Teacher 58.3 (2004): 302+. Academic OneFile. Web. 15 Nov. 2013.

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Article #9: Developing Research-Based Resources for the Balanced Reading Teacher 

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Article #9: Developing Research-Based Resources for the Balanced Reading Teacher 

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These are the fundamentals that give rise to good decoding skills. Children who have these skills (concepts about print, letter knowledge, phoneme awareness, and knowledge of the alphabetic principle) in kindergarten usually go on to become healthy readers.

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Fluency: Bridge between decoding and reading comprehension

Pikulski, John J; Chard, David J. The Reading Teacher 58.6 (Mar 2005): 510-519.

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The correlation between fluency and reading comprehension was clearly established by a large-scale data analysis from the National Assessment of Educational Progress in Reading. In that study, 44% of the subjects were not fluent when reading grade-level appropriate materials; the study also showed a significant, positive relationship between oral reading fluency and reading comprehension. However, the relationship between fluency and comprehension is fairly complex. As Pikulski and Chard discuss, as part of the developmental process of building decoding skills, fluencycan form a bridge to reading comprehension.

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As part of a developmental process of building decoding skills, fluency can form a bridge to reading comprehension.

Fluency, which has been referred to as a "neglected" aspect of reading by the National Reading Panel (National Institute of Child Health and Human Development [NICHD], 2000), currently is receiving substantial attention from researchers and practitioners. This may be because NICHD's influential Report of the National Reading Panel identifiedfluency as one of only five critical components of reading.

Fluency has sometimes been viewed as essentially an oral reading phenomenon. The National Reading Panel defined reading fluency as "the ability to read text quickly, accurately, and with proper expression" (NICHD, 2000, p. 3-5). Definitions that emphasize the oral aspect of fluency may, at least in part, account for why fluency has not historically received much attention. The importance of oral reading pales dramatically in comparison to that of silentreading comprehension. Most readers spend a minuscule amount of time doing oral reading as compared to silentreading.

A definition of fluency needs to encompass more than oral reading. The Literacy Dictionary: The Vocabulary ofReading and Writing defined fluency as "freedom from word identification problems that might hinder comprehension" (Harris & Hodges, 1995, p. 85). This definition enlarges our understanding of reading fluency to include comprehension. Samuels (2002), a pioneer in research and theory in reading fluency, cited this expanded definition as a major force in elevating the importance of fluency in the field of reading.

The correlation between fluency and comprehension was clearly established by a large-scale data analysis from the National Assessment of Educational Progress in Reading (Pinnell et al., 1995). In that study, 44% of the subjects were not fluent when reading grade-level appropriate materials; the study also showed a significant, positive relationship between oral reading fluency and reading comprehension. However, the relationship between fluencyand comprehension is fairly complex. This complexity was summed up well by Stecker, Roser, and Martinez (1998) in their review of fluency research: "The issue of whether fluency is an outgrowth [of] or a contributor to comprehension is unresolved. There is empirical evidence to support both positions" (p. 300). However, in the end they concluded, "Fluency has been shown to have a 'reciprocal relationship' with comprehension, with each fostering the other" (p. 306).

A comprehensive definition, then, would relate the centrality of fluency to reading comprehension and its established dimensions. We propose the following synthesis of the definitions in the Report of the National Reading Panel (NICHD, 2000) and The Literacy Dictionary (Harris & Hodges, 1995):

Reading fluency refers to efficient, effective word-recognition skills that permit a reader to construct the meaning of text. Fluency is manifested in accurate, rapid, expressive oral reading and is applied during, and makes possible, silent reading comprehension.

We think that the issue of a definition is not trivial but central to making important decisions about the teaching and assessment of fluency. Directly related to a definition is whether a "surface" or "deep" construct of fluency is adopted. A surface construct of fluency builds on an oral reading definition and views the development of fluency as the direct treatment of accuracy, speed, and prosody of oral reading. A surface view of fluency leads to practices such as simply urging students to read faster. On the other hand, a deep construct views fluency far more broadly as part of a developmental process of building decoding skills that will form a bridge to reading comprehension and that will have a reciprocal, causal relationship with reading comprehension. In a deep view of fluency, it becomes necessary to think about fluency as part of a child's earliest experiences with print and with the phonology that becomes associated with that print. In this view, efficient decoding is consistently related to comprehension.

Historical development of the construct of reading fluency

While an early discussion of the construct of reading fluency is found in the classic publication by Huey (1908/1968), most discussions of fluency trace their modern theoretical foundations to the 1974 seminal article by LaBerge and Samuels. These researchers argued that human beings can attend to only one thing at a time. We are able to do more than one thing at a time if we alternate our attention between two or more activities, or if one of the activities is so well learned that it can be performed automatically. Reading successfully is a complex interaction of language, sensory perception, memory, and motivation. To illustrate the role of fluency, it helps to characterize this multifaceted process as including at least two activities: (1) word identification or decoding and (2) comprehension, or the construction of the meaning of text. In order for reading to proceed effectively, the reader cannot focus attention on both processes. Constructing meaning involves making inferences, responding critically, and so on, and it always requires attention. The nonfluent reader can alternate attention between the two processes; however, this makesreading a laborious, often punishing process. If attention is drained by decoding words, little or no capacity is available for the attentiondemanding process of comprehending. Therefore, automaticity of decoding-a critical component offluency-is essential for high levels of reading achievement.

Stanovich (1986) also contributed significantly to elevating the importance of reading fluency. In his classic article, he demonstrated a clear relationship between fluency and the amount of reading in which a reader engages. Readers who achieve some fluency are likely to read more extensively than readers who lack fluency because the latter find reading difficult. Stanovich pointed out that as a result of reading more extensively, readers grow in all the skills that contribute to fluency and in fluency itself. Nonfluent readers who avoid reading fall further and further behind.

The Report of the National Reading Panel (NICHD, 2000) significantly elevated attention to fluency. The panel's review largely reflected the position that "fluency develops from reading practice" (p. 3-1). Therefore, much of the review was devoted to analyzing the research supporting two major approaches to providing students with readingpractice: "first, procedures that emphasize repeated oral reading practice or guided repeated oral reading practice; and second, all formal efforts to increase the amounts of independent or recreational reading that students engage in" (p. 3-5). The panel concluded that there is substantial evidence to support the use of repeated readingprocedures. However, they raised questions about the evidence to support wide independent reading for promotingfluency:

There seems little reason to reject the idea that lots of silent reading would provide students with valuable practice that would enhance fluency and, ultimately, comprehension.... [I]t could be that if you read more, you will become a better reader; however, it also seems possible that better readers simply choose to read more. (p. 3-21)

In essence, the panel concluded that while there is very strong correlational support for independent readingcontributing to fluency, there is no convincing experimental research to show that increasing independent readingwill increase fluency or reading achievement.

The previous discussion of fluency and of the related research is certainly not a comprehensive review. Many important research findings are omitted. For more comprehensive discussions of fluency, readers are encouraged to consult reviews, such as those by the National Reading Panel (NICHD, 2000), Reutzel (1996), Stecker at al. (1998), and the entire Summer 1991 (volume 30, number 3) issue of the journal Theory Into Practice.

While the National Reading Panel's report (NICHD, 2000) is clearly instructive for its critical review of how practice may affect fluency, the position taken in this article is that a much broader approach is warranted, one that addresses the need for systematic, long-term, explicit fluency instruction along with careful monitoring and assessment for at least some students. Rather than focus solely on how to improve fluency when it is not developing as expected, it would seem instructive to examine the elements of early literacy that contribute to fluency.

Ehri's stages of reading development and fluency

Ehri (1995, 1998) has developed a carefully researched, elegant theory of how readers systematically progress in stages to achieve fluency, which is in line with a "deep," developmental construct of fluency. We review her theory because it brings coherence to much of the research on fluency and because it offers a framework for instruction designed to promote and improve fluency. Ehri distinguished four stages of reading development.

Readers at the Pre-Alphabetic Stage have no appreciation of the alphabetic principle-the idea that, in languages like English, there is a systematic relationship between the limited number of sounds of the language and the graphic forms (letters) of the language. At the Pre-Alphabetic Stage, children attempt to translate the unfamiliar visual forms of print into familiar oral language through visual clues in the print. Children might remember the word monkey by associating the descending shape of the last letter with a monkey's tail. Obviously this is not a productive approach and quickly leads to confusion because my, pony, and many other words would also be read as monkey.

At the Partial Alphabetic Stage, readers have learned that letters and sounds are related, and they begin to use that insight. However, they are not able to deal with the full complexity of the sounds in words, so they aren't able to make complete use of the letter-sound relationships. Therefore, children focus on the most salient parts of a word and consequently use initial and, later, final letters as the clues to a printed word's pronunciation. If readers at this stage learn that the letter sequence g-e-t is get, they may focus just on the g and the sound it represents to identify the word. However, using this strategy of focusing on the first letter, the letter sequences give, go, and gorilla might also be identified as get. While children at this stage of development will make errors in identifying words, they can make progress toward becoming fluent because they have developed the insight that the letters of a word are clues to the sounds of the word.

As children become more familiar with letters and sounds, they move into the Fully Alphabetic Stage. Now, even though they may never have seen it in print before, if they know the sounds commonly associated with the letters b-u-g, they can think about the sounds for each of the letters and blend them together to arrive at the pronunciation of the word. As a result of encountering the printed word bug several times, as few as four times according to a widely cited study (Reitsma, 1983), children come to accurately, instantly identify the word bug without attending to the individual letters, sounds, or letter-sound associations. Ehri (1998) described skilled reading in the following way: "Most of the words are known by sight. Sight reading is a fast-acting process. The term sight indicates that sight of the word activates that word in memory, including information about its spelling, pronunciation, typical role in sentences, and meaning" (pp. 11-12). This instant, accurate, and automatic access to all these dimensions of a printed word is the needed fluency that will allow readers to focus their attention on comprehension rather than on decoding. It is important to note that Ehri's theory and research indicate that it is the careful processing of print in the Fully Alphabetic Stage that leads to this rapid, instant recognition. Partial Alphabetic readers store incomplete representations of words and, therefore, confuse similar words, such as were, where, wire, and wore. However, once the word form is fully processed, with repeated encounters of the word, it is recognized instantly.

Readers who recognize whole words instantly have reached the Consolidated Alphabetic Stage. They also develop another valuable, attention-saving decoding skill. Not only do readers at this stage store words as units, but also repeated encounters with words allow them to store letter patterns across different words. A multiletter unit like -ent will be stored as a unit as a result of reading the words went, sent, and bent. Upon encountering the word dent for the first time, a consolidated alphabetic reader would need to connect only two units: d and -ent, rather than the four units that the Fully Alphabetic reader would need to combine. While this approach to reading a word is faster than blending the individual phonemes, it is not as fast and efficient as sight recognition of the word. Readers who have reached the Consolidated Stage of reading development are in a good position to progress toward increasingly efficient fluency; however, in addition to these advanced word-identification skills, they also need to increase their language vocabulary development in order to reach advanced levels of fluent reading.

An instructional program based on a deep construct of fluency

Our perception is that until recently some, though certainly not all, educators took a rather simplistic approach to developing fluency that is summed up in the admonition "read, read, read." The expectation was that if students read more, they would achieve fluency. However, research and theory suggest that at least some students will need expert instruction and teacher guidance in order to progress efficiently through the stages of reading development. We propose a nine-step developmental program for improving fluency. Some of the steps, such as building the graphophonic foundation for fluency or high-frequency vocabulary, are usually accomplished in a relatively short period of time (often a year or two), while others, such as building oral language skills, are unending. Our goal in this article is to outline the rationale and the breadth of instruction needed for developing a deep construct of fluency. We give some references that offer suggestions for instructional strategies and materials, but space limitations preclude treating each of these areas in depth. The nine-step program should include

1. Building the graphophonic foundations for fluency, including phonological awareness, letter familiarity, and phonics.

2. Building and extending vocabulary and oral language skills.

3. Providing expert instruction and practice in the recognition of high-frequency vocabulary.

4. Teaching common word parts and spelling patterns.

5. Teaching, modeling, and providing practice in the application of a decoding strategy.

6. Using appropriate texts to coach strategic behaviors and to build reading speed.

7. Using repeated reading procedures as an intervention approach for struggling readers.

8. Extending growing fluency through wide independent reading.

9. Monitoring fluency development through appropriate assessment procedures.

Building the graphophonic foundations for fluency

Ehri listed three prerequisite graphophonic capabilities as foundations for fluency: (1) letter familiarity, (2) phonemic awareness, and (3) knowledge of how graphemes typically represent phonemes in words.

A recent publication from the International Reading Association (Strickland & Schickendanz, 2004) offered practical, research-based approaches to developing graphophonic skills, including letter familiarity, in emergent readers. Instruction in the area of phonological awareness has been addressed widely (e.g., Adams, Foorman, Lundberg, & Beeler, 1998; O'Connor, Notari-Syverson, & Vadasy, 1998.)

The importance of the three graphophonic factors is fully documented in numerous research reports (e.g., Adams, 1990; NICHD, 2000). In order to move from the Pre-Alphabetic Stage to the Partial Alphabetic and Fully Alphabetic Stages (Ehri, 1998), students need to grasp the alphabetic principle and to apply efficiently information about the relationship between the letters and sounds (phonics) to recognize words. This clearly requires a high level of familiarity with letter forms as well as the ability to segment and blend the smallest units of spoken language, phonemes.

Oral language foundations for fluency

In addition to the graphophonic skills, Ehri's (1998) theory requires a foundation in language skills so that students are familiar with the syntax or grammatical function of the words and phrases they are reading and with their meanings.

Developing the oral language and vocabulary skills of children, particularly those who are learning English as a second language or those who spent their preschool years in language-restricted environments, is one of the greatest challenges facing educators. Many excellent resources exist for meeting this challenge. Recent examples include texts by Beck, McKeown, and Kucan (2002); Blachowicz and Fisher (2002); and Nagy (1988).

Ehri (1998) showed that progress in reading beyond the beginning stages is dependent on oral language development, pointing out that reading words, particularly reading them fluently, is dependent on familiarity with them in their oral form. If the syntactic and meaning aspects of the word are to be activated, they must be part of what the reader knows through oral language development. For the word-recognition process as proposed in Ehri's theory to be complete, it must connect with meaning that has been developed as another aspect of language development. Consider the following words: zigzags and onychophagia (nail biting). Mature readers have no difficulty very rapidly decoding the first word, even though it is one of the least frequent words in printed English. However, it takes mature readers much longer to arrive at a pronunciation of the second word because it not only infrequently appears in print but is also very infrequently used in speech and, therefore, is not likely to be a word in a mature reader's mental lexicon. Unless a printed word can connect with both the phonological memory for the word and also with the syntactical and meaning aspects of the word, it cannot be fluently decoded or read. It seems unfortunate that many surface discussions of fluency fail to make the point that fluency is dependent on the reader's vocabulary as well as on his or her decoding skills.

Teaching high-frequency vocabulary

High-frequency words are those words that appear over and over again in our language-words such as the, of, and, at, and to. If developing readers cannot instantly identify these words, they are unlikely to become fluent.

One approach to building fluent recognition of high-frequency vocabulary, exceedingly popular with primary-grade teachers, is the use of word walls where high-frequency vocabulary is posted and practiced (P.M. Cunningham, 2000). Cunningham also offered a variety of other approaches to teaching high-frequency words, as did Bear, Invernizzi, Templeton, and Johnston (1996).

Ehri's (1995, 1998) theory and research also offered important, practical teaching suggestions. High-frequency words often have been seen as a serious challenge because many of them don't lend themselves to straightforward application of decoding skills; they are, in the jargon of reading instruction, phonically irregular-words such as the, of, was, and have. Teaching high-frequency words can be difficult. This difficulty may very well contribute to the periodic abandonment of phonics approaches and the rise of whole-word approaches to teaching beginning reading skills, with accompanying emphasis on drill using flashcards to force children to read the words as a whole. Ehri's work suggested that they also contain many letter-sound regularities, and that these regularities are the best mnemonics for developing accurate, instant recognition. For example, while the word have does not follow the generalization about the effect of a final e on a preceding vowel sound, the h, v, and e all behave as they should, and the a does represent a sound that it often represents. Ehri suggested that we should point out the regular elements of irregular words in order to help children gain instant recognition of them. This is a practice rarely mentioned by "experts" or used by teachers, but it might play a very important role in avoiding difficulty with such words and thus promoting the development of fluency.

Recognizing word parts and spelling patterns

Word parts and spelling patterns are combinations of letters such as at, ell, ick, and op, which are found as units in many words that appear in beginning reading texts.

Here again, P.M. Cunningham (2000) and Bear et al. (1996) are among the many resources that offer practical teaching suggestions, including a list of the most common word parts found in beginning reading materials.

Introducing students to multiple-letter units clearly helps to move them from the Fully Alphabetic to the Consolidated Alphabetic Stage. However, Ehri's (1995, 1998) research and theory offered an important instructional generalization-students should first be introduced to and made cognizant of the individual letters and sounds that constitute the rime (a Fully Alphabetic approach) in order to better recall and identify the unit.

Teaching a decoding strategy

There are several major ways in which words can be recognized or identified in print: instantly as units; through recognition and blending of phonic elements; through the context in which they appear, including language/sentence context and picture clues; or by checking the phonetic respellings of a dictionary or glossary. Ehri's (1995) theory is clear: The best way to recognize words is through instant recognition that drains no attention. All other approaches require attention. However, when a word is not instantly recognized, it is useful for readers to be strategic.

Ehri's (1995) theory suggested a strategic approach to dealing with words that are not instantly recognized. In kindergarten and the beginning of first grade, emphasis is on moving young readers from the Partial Alphabetic Stage to the Fully Alphabetic Stage of reading, with an emphasis on careful attention to the graphophonic characteristics of the word. By the middle of first grade, the goal is to move students increasingly into the Consolidated Alphabetic Stage. The italicized portion of the following strategy is recommended as young readers become familiar with word parts.

* Look at the letters from left to right.

* As you look at the letters, think about the sounds for the letters.

* Blend the sounds together and look for word parts you know to read the word.

* Ask yourself, "Is this a word I know? Does it make sense in what I am reading?"

* If it doesn't make sense, try other strategies (e.g., pronouncing the word another way or reading on).

Readers who are at the Partial Alphabetic and Fully Alphabetic Stages will need to look carefully at the word they are trying to identify, think about the sounds the letters are likely to represent, and then use the skill of phoneme blending to try to arrive at the correct decoding or pronunciation of the word. Because some words are not completely phonically regular, students should then be encouraged to ask themselves if their use of phonics results in the identification of a word that makes sense-that it is a word they have heard before and fits the context of what they are reading. As students begin to move from the Fully Alphabetic to the Consolidated Alphabetic Stage of development, in addition to using phonic elements, they should also be encouraged to look for word parts (chunks) and spelling patterns that they know, such as phonograms. The presentation of phonics and word parts, followed by use of context, appears to be, by far, the best order.

Use of context as the primary approach to identifying words has serious limitations. First, if the context is highly predictive of a word, it is likely that students will not pay attention to the graphic information in the word. Careful processing of the printed form is what eventually enables a reader to recognize that word instantly. This is a major limitation of the predictable texts that use very heavy, artificial context to allow word identification. Second, context rarely leads to the correct identification of a specific word. Ehri (1998) reviewed research suggesting that words in a text that carry the most meaning can be correctly identified by context only about 10% of the time. However, context and the other approaches to decoding words do play an important role in decoding-that of confirming the identification of words. As Ehri put it,

As each sight word is fixated, its meaning and pronunciation are triggered in memory quickly and automatically. However, the other word reading processes do not lie dormant; their contribution is not to identify words in text but to confirm the identity already determined. Knowledge of the graphophonic system confirms that the word's pronunciation fits the spelling on the page. Knowledge of syntax confirms that the word fits into the structure of the sentence. World knowledge and text memory confirm that the word's meaning is consistent with the text's meaning up to that point. (p. 11)

Using appropriate texts to promote fluency

In order for progress in fluency to be made, students need to practice and apply their growing word-identification skills to appropriate texts. Appropriate texts are particularly critical for students having difficulty with word-identification skills. Guided reading is once again a useful way to match students and texts. Resources such as the work of Fountas and Pinnell (1996) offer guidance in selecting texts and providing appropriate instruction with those texts.

Hiebert and Fisher (in press) studied fluency development as it relates to the features of the texts used for promotingfluency. Specifically, they were interested in examining the effects of texts in which particular text features were carefully controlled. The treatment texts that Hiebert and Fisher designed had the following key features: a small number of unique words, a high percentage of most frequently used words, and often repeated critical words (those words that influence the meaning of the text most). Students in the comparison group read from texts typically associated with commercial reading programs. Students reading in the treatment texts made significant gains influency over their peers in the comparison condition. There also seemed to be an effect for comprehension for second-language learners. These findings suggested that the features of the texts being used to promote fluencyshould be carefully considered.

Using repeated reading procedures

As noted earlier in this article, the Report of the National Reading Panel (NICHD, 2000) was unequivocal in its support of repeated reading procedures. The references described a range of procedures in sufficient detail to allow teachers to employ them with students who need extra support in developing fluency. These procedures included those described as repeated reading (Samuels, 1979), neurological impress (Heckelman, 1969), radio reading(Greene, 1979), paired reading (Topping, 1987), "and a variety of similar techniques" (p. 3-1). A review of these approaches suggests substantial differences in the procedures used and the amount of teacher guidance offered (Chard, Vaughn, & Tyler, 2002; Kuhn & Stahl, 2000). However, as noted, the panel concluded that all appeared to have merit.

Encouraging wide independent reading

For more able readers, repeated readings of the same texts may not be as necessary as they are for struggling readers. Increasing the amount of reading these able readers do may be as beneficial, and perhaps more so (Mathes & Fuchs, 1993).

The beneficial effects of wide reading appear to have been somewhat called into question by the Report of the National Reading Panel (NICHD, 2000), which reached the following conclusion: "Based on the existing evidence, the NRP can only indicate that while encouraging students to read might be beneficial, research has not yet demonstrated this in a clear and convincing manner" (p. 3). It is important to keep in mind that the National Reading Panel used restrictive criteria for what they included as research and also that it clearly held out the possibility of beneficial effects for wide reading.

Previous highly respected research syntheses have been far less restrained about the salutary effects of wide reading. For example, Becoming a Nation of Readers (Anderson, Hiebert, Scott, & Wilkinson, 1985) concluded,

Research suggests that the amount of independent, silent reading that children do in school is significantly related to gains in reading achievement.... Research also shows that the amount of reading students do out of school is consistently related to gains in reading achievement. (pp. 76-77)

In her critical review of beginning reading research, Adams (1990) concluded, "Children should be given as much opportunity and encouragement as possible to practice their reading. Beyond the basics, children's reading facility, as well as their vocabulary and conceptual growth, depends strongly on the amount of text they read" (p. 127).

Stanovich and his colleagues (A.E. Cunningham & Stanovich, 1998; Nathan & Stanovich, 1991; Stanovich, 1986) have presented impressive research results and theoretical arguments for the value of wide reading. The evidence and rationale that they present, however, is that the positive relationship between reading achievement and widereading may not be affected exclusively through the development of fluency but through the development of language and cognitive abilities as well.

If students are making adequate progress with fluency, wide reading rather than repeated readings may lead to greater improvements in vocabulary and comprehension. However, for less able readers experiencing particular difficulties with fluency, repeated readings remain an important approach to building fluency.

The assessment of fluency

As noted at the beginning of this article, fluency has been referred to as the "neglected aspect" of reading. The assessment of fluency, in particular, appears to have received very limited attention. There are few research studies that have investigated how fluency should be assessed or what criteria should be applied to determine whether or not a reader has achieved it. Perhaps it is this dearth of data that led the National Reading Panel (NICHD, 2000) to conclude,

A number of informal procedures can be used in the classroom to assess fluency: informal reading inventories, miscue analysis, pausing indices, and reading speed calculations. All these assessment procedures require oralreading of text, and all can provide an adequate index of fluency. (p. 3-9)

While few experimental studies have been conducted using these informal procedures, it may very well have been that the National Reading Panel recognized the practical need for classroom assessment, leading them to endorse procedures that may not have the strong research support they more typically require in other parts of the report.

To meet this practical need, there are many published informal inventories, such as the Qualitative ReadingInventory-III, and leveled texts, such as Leveled Reading Passages (Houghton Mifflin, 2001). These are just two examples of instruments that can be used to periodically and practically assess the four dimensions of fluency that are necessary for a full, deep, developmental construct of fluency: oral reading accuracy, oral reading rate, quality of oral reading, and reading comprehension.

Teachers who want to assess selective aspects of fluency can use guidelines that have been suggested for assessing oral reading rate and accuracy (e.g., Hasbrouck & Tindal, 1992; Rasinski, 2003). Likewise, procedures have been established for assessing the quality of oral reading using standardized rubrics that go beyond rate and accuracy, such as those based upon National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) data (Pinnell et al., 1995).

We recommend that teachers at second grade and beyond take measures of fluency, at least at the beginning and end of a school year, to gauge progress in this important area and to check periodically through the year any students who are making doubtful progress. A more comprehensive review of the research related to fluency assessment is beyond the scope of this article.

Fluency is necessary

While the construct of fluency might have been neglected in the past, it is receiving much-deserved attention presently. A very strong research and theoretical base indicates that while fluency in and of itself is not sufficient to ensure high levels of reading achievement, fluency is absolutely necessary for that achievement because it depends upon and typically reflects comprehension. If a reader has not developed fluency, the process of decoding words drains attention, and insufficient attention is available for constructing the meaning of texts.

Fluency builds on a foundation of oral language skills, phonemic awareness, familiarity with letter forms, and efficient decoding skills. Ehri's (1995) description of the stages of word recognition explains how readers come to recognize words by sight through the careful processing of print.

Substantial research has also been conducted on how best to develop fluency for students who do not yet have it. While there is a dearth of experimental research studies on developing fluency through increasing the amount of independent reading in which students engage, there is substantial correlational evidence showing a clear relationship between the amount students read, their reading fluency, and their reading comprehension. However, students who are nonachieving in reading are not in a position to engage in wide reading, and they may need more guidance and support in order to develop fluency. Research shows that a variety of procedures based on repeatedreadings can help readers to improve their fluency.

Little research is available to guide the assessment of fluency. While more research is needed on the issues of adequate rates of fluency at various grade levels and for judging the quality of oral reading, there is good agreement that the comprehensive assessment of fluency must include measures of oral reading accuracy, rate of oral reading, and quality of oral reading. There is also growing agreement that these dimensions of fluency must be assessed within the context of reading comprehension. Fluency without accompanying high levels of reading comprehension is of very limited value.

References

References

Adams, M.J. (1990). Beginning to read: Thinking and learning about print. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Adams, M.J., Foorman, B.R., Lundberg, I., & Beeler, T. (1998). Phonemic awareness in young children. Baltimore: Paul Brookes.

Anderson, R.C., Hiebert, E.H., Scott, J.A., & Wilkinson, I.A.G. (1985). Becoming a nation of readers: The report of the commission on reading. Washington, DC: The National Institute of Education.

Bear, D.R., Invernizzi, M., Templeton, S., & Johnston, F. (1996). Words their way. Columbus, OH: Merrill.

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

Blachowicz, C., & Fisher, P.J. (2002). Teaching vocabulary in all classrooms. Columbus, OH: Merrill.

Chard, D.J., Vaughn, S., & Tyler, B.J. (2002). A synthesis of research on effective interventions for building fluencywith elementary students with learning disabilities. Journal of Learning Disabilities, 35, 386-406.

Cunningham, A.E., & Stanovich, K.E. (1998). What reading does for the mind. American Educator, 22(1), 8-15.

Cunningham, P.M. (2000). Phonics they use. New York: Longman.

Ehri, L.C. (1995). Stages of development in learning to read words by sight. Journal of Research in Reading, 18, 116-125.

Ehri, L.C. (1998). Grapheme-phoneme knowledge is essential for learning to read words in English. In J.L. Metsala & L.C. Ehri (Eds.), Word recognition in beginning literacy (pp. 3-40). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.

Fountas, I.C., & Pinnell, G.S. (1996). Guided reading: Good first teaching for all children. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.

Greene, F.P. (1979). Radio reading. In C. Pennock (Ed.), Reading comprehension at four linguistic levels (pp. 104-107). Newark, DE: International Reading Association.

Harris, T.L., & Hodges, R.E. (1995). The literacy dictionary: The vocabulary of reading and writing. Newark, DE: International Reading Association.

Hasbrouck, J.E., & Tindal, G. (1992). Curriculum-based fluency norms for grades 2 through 5. Teaching Exceptional Children, 24, 41-44.

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

Hiebert, E.H., & Fisher, C.W. (in press). A review of the National Reading Panel's studies on fluency: On the matter of text. Elementary School Journal.

Houghton Mifflin. (2001). Leveled reading passages. Boston: Author.

Huey, E.B. (1968). The psychology and pedagogy of reading; with a review of the history of reading and writing and of methods, texts, and hygiene in reading. Cambridge. MA: MIT Press. (Originally published 1908)

Kuhn, M.R., & Stahl, S.A. (2000). Fluency: A review of developmental and remedial practices. Ann Arbor, MI: Center for the Improvement of Early Reading Achievement.

LaBerge, D., & Samuels, S.J. (1974). Towards a theory of automatic information processing in reading. Cognitive Psychology, 6, 293-323.

Mathes, P.G., & Fuchs, L.S. (1993). Peer-mediated reading instruction in special education resource rooms. Learning Disabilities Research & Practice, 8, 233-243.

Nagy, W.E. (1988). Teaching vocabulary to improve reading comprehension. Newark, DE: International ReadingAssociation.

Nathan, R.G., & Stanovich, K.E. (1991). The causes and consequences of differences in reading fluency. Theory Into Practice, 30, 176-184.

National Institute of Child Health and Human Development. (2000). Report of the National Reading Panel. Teaching children to read: An evidence-based assessment of the scientific research literature on reading and its implications forreading instruction (NIH Publication No. 00-4769). Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office.

O'Connor, R.E., Notari-Syverson, A., & Vadasy, P.F. (1998). Ladders to literacy: A kindergarten activity book. Baltimore: Paul Brookes.

Pinnell, G.S., Pikulski, J.J., Wixson, K.K., Campbell, J.R., Gough, P.B., & Beatty, A.S. (1995). Listening to children read aloud. Washington, DC: Office of Educational Research and Improvement, U.S. Department of Education.

Rasinski, T.V. (2003). The fluent reader. New York: Scholastic.

Reitsma, P. (1983). Printed word learning in beginning readers. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 75, 321-339.

Reutzel, D.R. (1996). Developing at-risk readers' oral reading fluency. In L. Putnam (Ed.), How to become a better reader: Strategies for assessment and intervention (pp. 241-254). Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Merrill.

Samuels, S.J. (1979). The method of repeated readings. The Reading Teacher, 32, 403-408.

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. 166-184). Newark, DE: International ReadingAssociation.

Stanovich, K.E. (1986). Matthew effects in reading: Some consequences in individual differences in the acquisition of literacy. Reading Research Quarterly, 21, 360-407, doi:10.1598/RRQ.21.4.1

Stecker, S.K., Roser, N.L., & Martinez, M.G. (1998). Understanding oral reading fluency. In T. Shanahan & F.V. Rodriguez-Brown (Eds.), 47th yearbook of the National Reading Conference (pp. 295-310). Chicago: NationalReading Conference.

Strickland, D.S., & Schickedanz, J. (2004). Learning about print in preschool: Working with letters, words, and links with phonemic awareness. Newark, DE: International Reading Association.

Topping, K. (1987). Paired reading: A powerful technigue for parent use. The Reading Teacher, 40, 608-614.

AuthorAffiliation

Pikulski is professor emeritus at the University of Delaware. He can be contacted at 12 Dawn Meadow Lane, Newark, DE 19711, USA. Chard teaches at the University of Oregon at Eugene.

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Copyright International Reading Association Mar 2005

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Article #4: What We Know About How to Teach Phonics

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Article #4: What We Know About How to Teach Phonics

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http://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ854546.pdf

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Reading Strategies: What is Decoding? - Reading Horizons

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The definition of decoding is the process of translating print into speech by rapidly matching a letter or combination of letters (graphemes) to their sounds (phonemes) and recognizing the patterns that make syllables and words.

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Article #2: The Role of Decoding in Learning to Read

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Article #2: The Role of Decoding in Learning to Read

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Please view our new page for upcoming and exciting things happening this 2020 school year!

About Dr. Jan Richardson

Jan Richardson, Ph.D., is an author, education consultant, reading specialist, former Reading Recovery® Teacher Leader, and former classroom teacher (K-college). Often called America's leading expert in guided reading, her best-selling collection includes The Next Step Forward in Guided Reading, Guided Reading Teacher's Companion, Next Step Guided Reading in Action, Next Step Guided Reading Assessment (co-authored with Maria Walther), Next Step Forward in Reading Intervention (co-authored with Ellen Lewis), Next Step in Word Study and Phonics (co-authored with Michele Dufresne), and Literacy Footprints: A Complete System for Supporting Guided Reading (also co-authored with Michele Dufresne). Jan's most recent work, the RISE program, co-authored with Ellen Lewis and published by Scholastic, provides a powerful, short-term, small group reading intervention with targeted, intensive instruction to help striving readers meet grade-level benchmarks.

Dr. Richardson and her expert team of literacy consultants provide schools and school districts with customized professional development and demonstration lessons designed to equip teachers with practical and effective techniques for strengthening small-group reading instruction. The goal is for every student to become a better reader who just can't wait to read another book!

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Please view our new page for upcoming and exciting things happening this 2020 school year! About Dr. Jan Richardson Jan Richardson, Ph.D., is an author, education consultant, reading specialist, former Reading Recovery® Teacher Leader, and former classroom teacher (K-college).

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Teaching Decoding Strategies to Increase Reading Fluency:

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Teaching Decoding Strategies to Increase Reading Fluency:

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For my action research project, I decided to take a closer look at how using a guided reading group to teach specific decoding strategies can improve reading fluency. In my classroom, there are several students that are reading below grade level. Based on my baseline assessment data, gathered at the beginning of the year, I have identified 6 students that are reading behind at least one grade level. These students are divided into groups based on reading levels. I meet with these students during our Reading Workshop time and utilize a guided reading format. I have modeled my guided reading format after Dr. Jan Richardson's book, "The Next Step in Guided Reading".

I am eager to begin my research and explore this topic! I believe the data I collect from this research will be beneficial for improving my instruction.

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The Educator's Room: Decoding Skills in Reading

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The Educator's Room: Decoding Skills in Reading

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To teach your students to read you must know where they are. It is important to understand their current instructional reading level (accuracy and comprehension combined) as well as their fluency level. If you are unsure how to test your students and gather this data, check out my recent article, "See Jane Read." Students below grade level might struggle for three reasons: fluency (how quickly they read words correctly), decoding (how they attack unknown words), and/or comprehension. This is the third article in a series about reading instruction. The second article focuses on how to increase fluency with students. Students at grade level need meaningful work to practice their reading skills and push their comprehension. They can, however, struggle with decoding. If you notice students at grade level often skip words, ask for words, or mispronounce words you will want to check their decoding. Students above grade level need extension activities and ideas to stretch their comprehension into the upper levels of knowledge.

Students below grade level might struggle for three reasons: fluency (how quickly they read words correctly), decoding (how they attack unknown words), and/or comprehension. Click To Tweet

There are many programs designed to teach decoding skills. Corrective Reading and Rewards are two examples. There are also strategies teachers can use in the classroom to assist students in decoding. Early elementary students need to have instruction and practice with letters and sounds. They need to hear these sounds and use letters or letter tiles to play with the sounds to see how words are similar and different. This looks different in upper elementary and beyond. This article will discuss three activities than can be done to help with decoding at upper levels.

Students should know the rules for letters and their sounds. A great way to check for this is with nonsense words. Make a list of the vowel sounds, blends, or diphthongs you want to check. Replace the consonants with a "Z." This creates a nonsense list you can have students read. For example, -ain, -ale, -ute,- oot would transfer to a list including: zain, zale, zute, zoot. Scholastic also has a list of nonsense words that can be used to check for phonetic understanding. If students do not know the rules the word will be read incorrectly. You will then know where the focus of lessons and activities should be.

When you know the sounds that need to be taught and practiced you can do simple activities with them. You must teach students the sound and have them make the sound. Ask students to list words that follow the sound and spelling pattern. Use this to anchor new words. Create a list or small dictionary. Have students replace the first letter with another consonant or blend. Is this an actual word? Sort these lists into real vs. nonsense words. As students read, they should add new words they discover to this list or their dictionary to practice and reinforce the sounds. Students should become comfortable copying unknown words from books and passages as they read. After copying the word they should underline the vowels and state the rule associated with the vowel, blend or diphthong.

The next step students' need is to be able to identify and understand prefixes and suffixes. These can be from the traditional list of common prefixes and suffixes that change the meaning of words when added to a root. But they can also involve letter groups that commonly come at the beginning and ending of words that may not change the meaning of the word. Start with the most commonly found and have students find them in books, magazines, newspapers. Here is a list from Scholastic to get you started. Students above grade level can learn about Latin and Greek roots while students with decoding needs do activities with the common list. This allows for all students to be engaged in the same activity, but with meaningful lists. Students should become comfortable copying unknown words from books and passages as they read. After writing the word down students should circle the prefix or suffix. Using a piece of laminate or transparency paper over the book or passage is also helpful. This way a student only needs to use a Visa marker or dry erase marker to circle the word parts. Eventually, this will become an automatic process as they read and will help with decoding in reading.

The last step is for students to be able to decode multi-syllabic words. These are longer words that often combine multiple vowel, blend and diphthong sounds. When students come to these longer words they should copy the word. Underline all vowels. Circle all prefixes and suffixes. Swoop chunks and think about the sounds they know. Read the word slowly. Then read the word fluently thinking about any changes that need to be made to make it a word. English is tough, often following the rules is not enough. Students may have to combine understanding and vocabulary. What makes sense here? Give students a piece of laminate or transparency film as a tool when practicing decoding multi-syllabic words. This will speed up the decoding process and allow them to become automatic in thinking through the steps.

Decoding is important as we read. It allows our brains to quickly process words and make sense of language. Click To Tweet

Decoding is important as we read. It allows our brains to quickly process words and make sense of language. Some students need direct instruction and practice with these skills. There are programs available for purchase. There are also simple things teachers can do to help students with decoding. The Florida Center for Reading Research has more printables and ideas. As students increase in their decoding skills, they will increase their fluency and therefore their comprehension should improve as well. Finding the holes and teaching specific strategies is the key.

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Part 3: What's The Word? Decoding Skills in Reading

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To teach your students to read you must know where they are. It is important to understand their current instructional reading level (accuracy and comprehension combined) as well as their fluency level. If you are unsure how to test your students and gather this data,

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The time between 6 and 7 is when a child learns to "really read." Congratulations! The world of learning is open to your child in new and fantastic ways! You have a tremendous role in supporting your developing reader*.

Trying to find a book that is the right level for your child ?
There are two reading levels you want to know for your child: his or her independent reading level(the level books they can successfully read and comprehend completely on their own), and their instructional reading level (the level books they can read with support and guidance from you or a teacher).

School Reading Levels:
In a school environment, the expectation is that children will read independently at virtually 100% accuracy, 100% comprehension. Instructional level reading would use the 95% rule: for any 100 words, your child should not struggle to read/understand more than 5, with 80% accuracy on independent comprehension questions (also called the 5-finger rule). Any lower accuracy would be described as being at your child's frustration level, where minimal new learning could happen.

At-Home Reading Levels:
However, in a home environment, where you are reading one-on-one with your children, and your support is on them exclusively for the entire reading time (and thus you can support their comprehension throughout), you may find the below demarcations more useful.

To find their at-home independent reading level, use the 95% rule. Early phonic readers often have only a few words per page. Thus, your child should be able to read (even slowly or carefully) most of the book, although they may need reminders from you to use their decoding and comprehension strategies. Again, they must also be able to give you a retell with most of the details of the story and show 80% accuracy on (independent) comprehension questions.

To find their at-home instructional reading level, you still want them to understand most of what they read, and to be successful at getting larger chunks of text. It does not benefit young readers to always struggle to decode words or decipher meaning. Thus, your child will learn more at a supported level of reading, as opposed to a struggling level of reading. Don't forget the confidence-building that comes from reading books with ease! Thus, you can use 90% accuracy in reading and 80% accuracy in comprehension as ballpark figures when supporting instruction in at-home readers. If your child is struggling to read, find a different book, or play some sight word/phonics games to build his decoding skills. Be sure you are drawing on a variety of strategies, as opposed to simply asking your child to sound out a word.

There are many benefits to children choosing their own books, even those above their level, for "reading" or taking picture walks through. If your child is motivated, they deserve to interact with the book however they might like! It is simply important to know what your child's skills are in relation to choosing texts that they can "really read" alone, or with support.

When you find a good book or series, use the Scholastic Book Wizard "book alike" finder. Click on the "Similar Books" tab and you can select a book that is the same level, harder or easier than the one you liked!

It is expected that children this age will struggle at times in applying letter-sound understanding to actual words in a real story.

Instead of simply telling him to "sound it out," try these tricks:

Say nothing. Give him a chance to figure it out.

Say, "Look at the picture."

Say, "Let's get the first sound."

Say, "What would make sense?" Even if he gets the wrong word, you can say "Yes, it's a kind of house, but the author chose a different word. Look at the first letter and see if you can get it now."

Say, "Chunk it." Are there smaller words in the bigger ones (e.g., 'going' has the word 'go' in it)?

Say, "Let's reread." Before you tell your child the word, see if he can re-read the sentence and get it with a "running start."

Say, "Close your eyes. Now look again." Have him close his eyes, open them, and see if his brain can just "get" the word as a sight word, without trying to sound it out.

Say, "Say it like a word." Decoding will only take you so far. If you know how to make the sounds come together like a word you know, it makes reading so much easier. It's not about saying the sounds faster; it's about saying them like a word. Country can be sounded out as "cow-n-try" or "count" "try." But if they "say it like a word," they are more likely to get to country. You can use a slinky to help them literally "see" what it looks like when they say stretched out sounds. Have them collapse the slinky as they "say it like a word."

Skip the word and come back when they have the context of the sentence (be sure they do).

Look at word families. If your child knows 'at', they will more easily be able to identify 'hat.'

Get the main word first, then add on prefixes or suffixes. You can use your finger to cover up parts of the word while your child gets the main word.

Tell them the word. You do not want to hinder the comprehension of a story by belaboring a single word. Instead, give your child the word and have her re-read the sentence so that the word sticks in her mind for the next time she encounters it!

If your child misreads a word:
Ask yourself:

Does it matter? Saying 'house' instead of 'home' or misreading a character's name won't change the meaning of the story. Let it go.

"Check it:" Does it look right, sound right, make sense?

"Make a picture in your head." What word doesn't fit?"

"Flex it." This is the way to tell your child to try the other sound the letter makes (e.g., long vs short a, or 'j' for g, as in giraffe).

Ask him:

"Does it fit the picture/story?"

"Does that sound like a word you know? Say it like a word."

"What is happening here and how does this sentence fit in?"

To facilitate comprehension/thinking strategies, have your child:

Ask a question about what he has already read (to themselves, or to you).

Infer what is going on or might happen, based on what they already know and what they have read.

Make a connection:

Make a text-to-text connection where he relates this book to another he has read.

Make a text-to-world connection where he relates the book to an experience going on in our world (e.g., truffula trees being chopped down and our own struggles with deforestation).

Make a text-to-self connection where he relates the book to himseld or an experience he has had (e.g., remembering a time he was not listened to, even when he knew better than the other person).

Visualize: Encourage your child to create a mental image or play the scene like a movie in her head

Evaluate: Determine the importance of characters, events, or details.

Synthesize information means taking information you learn along the way and combining it with the information you know.

Other tips:

Take the character's perspective or relate to the character's feeling.

Read it like a sentence. If your child reads haltingly, have them re-read the same sentence to get the fluency (and confidence!) aspect of reading. It's hard to comprehend disjointed sentences.

A wonderfully fun way to support some of these skills in children is to use the Akinator online. To play, your child simply thinks of a character and answers a series of questions about them, after which the Akinator will magically reveal the character's name and picture. Your children will be amazed how often it is right!

*If learning to read is hard for your child, he needs support. The newest research on literacy development in children emphasizes the importance of providing reading interventions as soon as possible. For more information on how to recognize if your child is struggling, as well as tips for what to do, see this article on struggling readers.

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Reading Comprehension and Decoding Strategies

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The time between 6 and 7 is when a child learns to "really read." Congratulations! The world of learning is open to your child in new and fantastic ways! You have a tremendous role in supporting your developing reader*. Trying to find a book that is the right level for your child ?

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Reading Strategies: Decoding - Reading Horizons

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Decoding is the process of breaking a written word down to its individual parts and determining the word's pronunciation based on the common sound/letter patterns of English.

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Decoding is the ability to apply your knowledge of letter-sound relationships, including knowledge of letter patterns, to correctly pronounce written words. Understanding these relationships gives children the ability to recognize familiar words quickly and to figure out words they haven't seen before.

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Article #1: Instruction for struggling Readers Contains Multiple Features

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Article #1: Instruction for struggling Readers Contains Multiple Features

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Instruction for struggling readers contains multiple features

Walker, Barbara J. The Reading Teacher 57.2 (Oct 2003): 206-207.

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Social interactions, scaffolding, a focus on meaning, and the use of individual differences support struggling readersas they learn to read. Walker shares her experiences in helping struggling readers.

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Social interactions, scaffolding, a focus on meaning, and the use of individual differences support struggling readers as they learn to read. According to Vygotsky (1978), learning is a social process where individuals construct understandings through their interactions with others. When students talk with one another, they internalize intellectual processes. Thinking is scaffolded by teachers and other students acting as more informed "others" who lead learning forward. As students work together and discuss their ideas, they construct meaning. A focus on meaning making is characteristic of teachers whose students achieve at a high performance level (Knapp, 1995). Another characteristic of effective teachers is their respect for individual differences (Taylor, Pressley, & Pearson, 2002). Thus, struggling readers need opportunities to read text and construct meaning in a social context that accounts for their individual differences.

Promoting social interaction

As I was thinking about these aspects of instruction, I had the opportunity to work with six struggling second graders who were reading at the preprimer level or below according to an informal reading inventory. Each week their teacher would start the week reading a trade book aloud to the students and discussing it. She also conducted writing workshop and held individual conferences. Through these conferences and some whole-class instruction this teacher assisted readers with phonic knowledge and writing. Books were everywhere in her classroom.

To promote social interaction among the struggling readers, I decided to have them work in pairs at a table in the back of the room in the same way the teacher held conferences. I paired the students so that they could demonstrate their individual differences. For instance, Vinnie had a great deal of background knowledge but seldom looked at the words, while Bill had difficulty comprehending and retelling stories but was able to read words. Furthermore, Vinnie was a nonreader in second grade whose writing consisted of strings of letters that represented words. Bill, on the other hand, was a challenge because he seldom thought about the meaning of stories and read word by word, focusing on getting the words right.

To focus on meaning, I engaged the struggling readers in retelling the story the teacher read aloud during the whole-class lesson. As the students retold the story, I wrote the dictation as you would in a language-experience lesson. I scaffolded them with probes like "Who are the characters?" and "What is their problem?" The pair helped each other by clarifying what they meant with Vinnie understanding how to summarize main ideas while Bill was able to put some facts into the story. In this way, each student served as a more informed other scaffolding learning within the social context. Their summary then became the text that we read and reread. At various times during the week, the Title I teacher (Title I is a U.S. federally funded program for at-risk students) and the classroom teacher listened to the students read the summary. We had Vinnie read more often because he needed the reinforcement for word reading. Each week the students came closer to actually reading the story on their own.

To focus on decoding, I chose a predictable book to rewrite or innovate. I used a predictable frame by having the students create their own story. That is, we read the book and thought of other words or ideas that made sense in the sentence pattern. Often, I wrote out the frame. For example, the book I Was Walking Down the Road (Barchas, 1975) begins "I was walking down the road. Then I saw a little toad" (n.p.). I wrote for the two students "I was __________ . Then I saw __________." This task had the students scaffolding each other within their social interactions. Vinnie could easily think of numerous innovations for the book, while Bill could only spell the words. This task focused not only on word decoding but also on spelling and sense making. During the activity, I asked, "Does the word you want to add make sense in the sentence?" Then the students asked each other what made sense. They were using their social interactions to advance their understanding about how words go together to create meaning.

When needed, I supported spelling and decoding by using sound boxes (Elkonin, 1963). I made a box for each letter-sound in the word. Thus, for the word cat I wrote three boxes and said the word slowly, asking for the sounds that fit in each box. After we spelled the word and discussed its sounds, we put the word in the predictable sentence patternto make sense in our story.

At the end of the year, we had the students read a passage of 100 words from a story in a basal reader that was appropriate for students at the end of second grade. Five of the six students read the passage with 95% accuracy and at least 70% comprehension (instructional reading level). Vinnie was able to read the selection but made one miscue every seventh word (86% accuracy). His comprehension was 100%. Vinnie had become a reader. By the end of third grade, Vinnie's reading was above grade level, based on an informal reading inventory.

Meeting the needs of struggling readers

Instruction designed for struggling readers needs to take into account many features simultaneously. Instructional aspects should promote social interaction where each student and teacher can serve as a more informed other, use individual differences, and focus on meaning, even when working on skills. In my example, both the summary experience and the framed innovation techniques (Walker, 2000) focused predominately on meaning yet developedskills. The summary experience story was coherent with the classroom lesson. Collaboration among the classroom teacher, the reading specialist, and a volunteer expanded the opportunities for individual students to read-a characteristic of effective schools (Taylor et al., 2002). To meet the needs of struggling readers, we must create programs that contain multiple features of outstanding instruction that focus on meaning and scaffold learning within a social context while allowing students to demonstrate their individual differences in a coherent and collaborative classroom.

Sidebar

The department editor welcomes reader comments. E-mail bjw@okstate.edu or write to Barbara Walker, Oklahoma State University, 256 Willard Hall, Stillwater, OK 74078, USA.

References

References

Barchas, S. (1975). I was walking down the road. New York: Scholastic.

Elkonin, D.B. (1963). The psychology of mastering the elements of reading. In B. Simon & J. Simon (Eds.), Educational psychology in the U.S.S.R. (pp. 165-179). London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.

Knapp, M.S. (Ed.). (1995). Teaching for meaning in high-poverty classrooms. New York: Teachers College Press.

Taylor, B.M., Pressley, M., & Pearson, P.D. (2002). Research-supported characteristics of teachers and schools that promote reading achievement. In B.M. Taylor & P.D. Pearson (Eds.), Teaching reading: Effective schools, accomplished teachers (pp. 361-373). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.

Vygotsky, L.S. (1978). Mind in society. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Walker, B.J. (2000). Diagnostic teaching of reading: Techniques for instruction and assessment (4th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Merrill/Prentice Hall.

Copyright International Reading Association Oct 2003