These are the results from 15 years of data with 1st graders through 8th graders. Additional from the University of Florida have replicated these results showing significant growth in reading level and reading rate. Daily 5 to 6-minute fluency intervention focuses on phonics and oral reading. What Is Reading Fluency? Reading fluency is the ability to read quickly and accurately. Once you are fluent in reading, you are able to focus on what the text means rather than trying to decode words.
Five Minutes to Better Reading Skills helps you become a fluent reader in 5 minutes a day with short reading drills. There has been an independent 5-year study showing the substantial gains using it. Check out how much fun the kids have and just how simple it is in Celena Marie’s video. More Reviews “My 7-year-old began with a reading speed of 37 words/minute (with one error) and has improved to 46 words/minute (without an error) in just a few days. My 5-year-old son learned to read recently and he has gotten in on the “racing” too. His beginning speed was 10 words/minute (with two errors) and his current speed is 23 words/minute (without an error) in just over a week!” Heather R, KS “I’ve been using the Five Minutes to Better Reading Skills with my 8-year-old son. He’s reading, but he still lacks confidence and speed.
He loves doing the speed drills in the book! It’s because it is instant success. He looks at a list of short words that he can read with over 90% accuracy.” April C., MO Improve Reading Fluency with Quick 5 Minute Drills 5 Minutes to Better Reading Skills was developed by Bonnie Terry, M.Ed., BCET (Board Certified Educational Therapist). This proven method improves reading through visual and auditory learning. Lessons are only 5 minutes in length, making them ideal for students with short attention spans. A proven program that is sure to turn slow, choppy readers into faster, smoother, and more confident readers. Over 40+ years, Bonnie has discovered that every child can improve their skills.
It does not matter whether or not they have identified learning disabilities, dyslexia, or perception problems with the right reading strategies. Five Minutes to Better Reading Skills gives teachers and parents everything they need to help children improve their reading: fast, fun, motivating, success with over 40 phonic reading drills. Says, “I can’t get over the difference. Bridget won’t put a book down.
Now we have to go into her room when we go to bed to be sure her light is offshe reads for hours at night. I can’t believe she read Harry Potter in just a few days!”.
Educators work tirelessly to meet the academic needs of all students. An important part of instruction for struggling students is the use of the right intervention at the right time. With so many packaged intervention programs out there, it is difficult to keep up with them all. Intervention programs for five components of literacy (phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, comprehension, vocabulary) are included in the tables below. Columns within the matrix indicate the appropriate RTI tiers, approximate grade levels, most effective instructional format, instructional technology, embedded assessment, and related article or instructional strategy connections. (Find more information about Response to Intervention and the characteristics of the tiers in this.) Many of the programs listed below have been reviewed by the and research centers such as the and the.
Several also appear on statewide recommended intervention lists. Multiple research studies have demonstrated that the intervention programs listed below are capable of producing positive academic effects. This article is also available as a PDF.
IF: Instructional Format This is the instructional format for the program: 1:1 with a licensed teacher or specialist 1:1 with a teacher, paraprofessional, or volunteer Small group tutorials IT: Instructional Technology This program offers instructional technology. Some of the programs listed use technology as the main source of instruction, while others offer instructional technology as a supplement to the program. EAP: Embedded Assessment Piece This program offers an embedded assessment piece. Related articles and strategies Learn about instructional classroom strategies and resources that support phonemic awareness, phonological awareness, fluency, comprehension, and vocabulary. Phonics RTI Tier GL IF IT EAP Contact and Purchasing Information Related multimedia Related articles and strategies Corrective Reading 2,3 1,2,3 X Touchphonics 2,3 K-5 Headsprout 2,3 K-5 X X Project Read: Phonics 2,3 K-2 X X Read Well 2,3 K-3 X X Saxon Phonics 1,2,3 K-3 X SIPPS 2,3 K-5 X Build Up Kit-Complete 2,3 K-6 X None available Kaleidoscope 1,2,3 K-4 X None available Phonics for Reading 1,2,3 1-5 X None available Reading Mastery- Fast Cycle 2,3 K-3 X Voyager Passport 2,3 K-5 X X None available Waterford 2,3 K-2 X X.
About the author Corrie Kelly has worked as a 3rd grade teacher, a literacy specialist, and a reading intervention specialist. She received a B.A in English Literature, an NK-6 teaching licensure from Mary Washington, and an M.Ed in Reading Education from the University of Virginia. Corrie is an active researcher and she blogs regularly about her teaching experiences and educational issues and events. Currently, Corrie is a literacy intervention specialist in Albemarle County, VA and teaches reading courses as an adjunct instructor through the University of Virginia's TEMPO Outreach program. Would also invite reading teachers to check out Pennington Publishing's Teaching Reading Strategies. Designed for older readers, this Tier 2 and 3 assessment-based program is a half-year intensive or full year intervention with online expository fluency practice, comprehension development, syllabication, sound-spelling blending, and phonemic awareness workshops.
The accompanying reading and spelling game cards and Sam and Friends Phonics Books are just what grades 4-adult readers need to catch up to grade level reading. Submitted by Mark Pennington (not verified) on.
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With an understanding of what fluency is and how to assess it, let's turn to the questions that teachers are always most interested in: What should fluency instruction look like? And, what can I do to help students whose fluency is far behind their peers'? Research over the past two decades has identified repeated reading as the key strategy for improving students' fluency skills (NICHD, 2000). Torrent din standards download.
Repeated reading has two essential elements: 1) Giving students the opportunity to read and then re-read the same text, and 2) having students practice their reading orally with an opportunity to receive corrections and guidance (if necessary). Research has also determined that having students read aloud along with a model of well-paced, expressive reading and receiving specific feedback through systematic progress monitoring also helps improve students' fluency skills. So, what are the best methods to use in the classroom to help students become fluent? The answer depends on whether the student is just beginning to read, has learned to read and is making adequate progress, or is struggling. Let's start with beginning readers, those students in kindergarten and grade one.
Teaching beginning readers to become fluent Because accuracy is a fundamental component of fluency, teachers who work with beginning readers must focus significant amounts of instructional time on basic word recognition and word analysis skills (Pikulski and Chard, 2005). To do this effectively, teachers should provide instruction that systematically presents daily opportunities for students to learn to read words accurately (Snow, Burns, and Griffith, 1998)-the important first step in becoming a skillful, proficient, and motivated reader. Pushing students to 'read faster' too soon could cause some students to begin guessing or otherwise undermine their focus on reading carefully. There is no guidance from empirical research about precisely when teachers should formally begin encouraging beginning readers to increase their speed, but teachers usually wait until about the middle of first grade. Fluency researchers Stahl and Kuhn (2002) recommend that students be given opportunities to re-read sentences and encouraged to make their reading 'sound like talking' as soon as they are making good progress with basic decoding, demonstrating an understanding of the act of reading, and showing some degree of confidence-whether that happens in kindergarten or in first grade. Teachers and parents should also frequently model fluent reading, demonstrating (and sometimes explicitly pointing out) how accurate reading can be done at a reasonable rate and with good phrasing, intonation, and expression. In the classroom, the teacher can read aloud from large-format books so the students can follow along.
Maintaining reading fluency for on-level readers What about students in grades two and higher who are making adequate progress with their reading? Three techniques can be used very frequently with a variety of texts to help maintain and develop students' reading fluency: Choral reading, cloze reading, and partner reading. All of these procedures can be used with readers at any grade level, with small or large groups, and with fiction or content-heavy nonfiction materials. Two additional techniques can also be considered for use: Readers' Theater and poetry readings. Let's review each. For choral reading, the teacher and students read aloud together, following the teacher's pace-so students get the benefit of a model while they practice reading aloud. The teacher can stop at any time to ask questions, comment on the text, discuss a vocabulary term, or remind the class that she expects everyone to be reading.
If choral reading is used with heterogeneously grouped students, it is possible that the lowest performing students may have difficulty keeping up with even a moderate pace. However, they can follow along, participating when they can, and still hear the text being read accurately and with good pacing and phrasing. Choral reading works best if the teacher directs all students-regardless of age or ability level-to use a marker or finger to follow along in the text as they read. Cloze reading is similar to choral reading, except that the teacher does most of the oral reading while the students read along silently. Once or twice every few sentences, the teacher omits an important vocabulary or content word, not a simple sight word, and the students' job is to read it aloud as a class. Notice that with cloze reading, as opposed to choral reading, students spend less time practicing oral reading.
Therefore, cloze reading is best thought of as an alternative to Round Robin Reading. Cloze reading allows teachers to cover text and keep students engaged while avoiding the pitfalls of subjecting the class to examples of poor reading and embarrassing struggling students. As with choral reading, it is likely that the lowest performing readers will be unable to keep up or to correctly read every omitted word, but they will not be singled out-and will be provided with examples of skillful reading.
Another method for improving fluency is to have students read aloud to a partner. This procedure works best when students are taught some techniques for giving feedback and managing their time, and when the partners have been selected by the teacher. One technique for assigning partners is for teachers to first rank the students from the strongest reader in the class to the weakest (making judgments subjectively or from assessment data) and then consider whether there are students whose reading ability is so low that partner reading may be inappropriate. These students could meet with the teacher for more direct instruction or closely supported partner reading while the other students do independent partner reading.
The teacher then divides the remaining students in half, forming pairs such that the strongest reader is paired with a mid-level reader, and so on, ensuring that each pair has a slightly stronger reader, but that the difference in the students' ability is not so large as to cause embarrassment or confusion. At times, the stronger reader may be directed to read first, providing a model of fluent reading. Then the less fluent reader reads the same text aloud.
The stronger student can help with word recognition and give feedback and encouragement to the less fluent partner. Another effective technique pairs students who read at the same level and asks them to re-read a story on which they have already received instruction from the teacher (Osborn and Lehr, 2004).
Readers' Theater and poetry readings-both of which engage students in a reading performance-have become popular over the last few years. Much has been written about Readers' Theater in particular, and about the apparent value of having students participate in dramatic readings (Rasinski, 2006). These kinds of activities provide students with an opportunity to read text that is enjoyable-and provides a clear incentive for students to read, and re-read, their assigned parts or poem. However, while these techniques are motivating, teachers should not assume that either one could possibly provide as much practice for the whole class as choral or partner reading, much less anything close to the amount of instruction and practice necessary for struggling students to improve their fluency. Improving struggling readers' fluency: Suggestions for intervention The research literature provides some clear directions on what to do with struggling readers: Interventions must combine the modeling, repeated reading, and feedback that research has demonstrated effective (Shaywitz, 2003). Several commercial programs have been developed, including Read Naturally (Ihnot, 1991), the Six Minute Solution (Adams and Brown, 2003), Quick Reads (Heibert, 2002), and the Great Leaps Reading program (Campbell, 1996).
Each of these programs includes at least some of the instructional components that have been shown to improve students' reading fluency and has its own approach to student engagement. Unfortunately, research that directly compares the effectiveness of these various programs has yet to be done. In my own review of the available research, I've concluded that the strategy developed by Read Naturally makes the best use of the research base on fluency and has the strongest evidence of effectiveness as a fluency intervention. And, in using the Read Naturally strategy with students in many different grade levels, I've found that it engages them in the repeated reading they so desperately need.
However, I encourage readers to keep in mind that over the next several years, research may provide evidence of effectiveness on these other programs that equals or surpasses that of the Read Naturally strategy. The Read Naturally (RN) strategy was developed by Candyce Ihnot, a Title I reading teacher from Minneapolis. Candyce developed and tested it in 1989 as part of her master's thesis in special education. After finding that her approach was effective with struggling students in her school, Candyce and her husband, Tom Ihnot, developed a set of instructional materials that are commercially available from their company, Read Naturally, Inc. To implement the RN strategy, students' fluency levels (WCPM) are assessed to place students at an appropriate instructional level. The teacher then helps each student set a reasonable, achievable fluency goal (approximately 80-90 WCPM for primary students or older students reading at a primary level; from 90-120 WCPM for upper elementary students). Instruction begins with an unpracticed, 'cold reading' of a student-selected passage from the targeted level.
Passages may range in length from approximately 100 words at the mid-first-grade level to 350 words at the sixth-grade level. As they read, students use a timer and keep track of the words they skip or stumble over (by lightly underlining the problem word). They then calculate their WCPM and graph this first, unpracticed WCPM score on a bar graph. In step two, students practice reading this same passage three to four times along with a model to learn how to accurately pronounce all the words in the text. This step is not timed, and the students read the entire passage.
The modeled reading can come from a recording or a person trained to read the passage at a rate that is comfortable for the student. The key here is that a student does not just listen to the model, but actually reads aloud (softly) with the narrator's voice, giving full attention to the text. Encouraging students to point to the text being read and informing them that they will be responsible for answering a set of comprehension questions after completing all the steps in the strategy helps students stay focused. Once students feel comfortable with the text, they begin step three in which they read the text independently, again aloud, but softly. Students set a timer for one minute and read the text several times until they are comfortably reaching their predetermined goal level-and are ready to be checked by the teacher.
Having some kind of silent signal for the teacher such as a flag or colored card at the students' desk can help manage this step. Students keep practicing the passage until the teacher can meet with them because this maximizes their engaged practice time-a key to improved skills in low-performing students (Brophy, 1988). In the final step, the student reads for the teacher, who then calculates the WCPM score. The student 'passes' if four criteria are met:. the WCPM score meets or exceeds the predetermined goal;.
three or fewer errors are made;. the student reads the passage with correct phrasing and attention to punctuation; and,.
the student can correctly answer a few comprehension questions. When students do not pass, they continue practicing this same text. When they do pass, they graph their new score onto the same bar with their initial, unpracticed score, using a different colored pencil or marker. This graph gives tangible evidence to the students that they are improving-and keeps motivation high by showing them that their own effort makes the difference.
For an external check on progress, the teacher should also periodically assess students' performance on an unpracticed passage by following the progress monitoring procedure described in the article 'Screening, Diagnosing, and Progress Monitoring: The Details.' Students repeat these steps until they complete 10-12 passages of equivalent difficulty. At that point the student and teacher collaboratively examine the data on the student's graph to decide what step to take next.
If the student is making steady progress in the current level, but is not yet approaching his goal level on the first, unpracticed reading, he should stay in that same level for another 10-12 passages. If the student's first unpracticed readings are occasionally meeting or approaching the goal, the teacher and student may decide to move the student up to the next level of difficulty with the same goal, or stay in the current level of difficulty and raise the 'pass' goal a bit higher. Of course, if at any time the student is having difficulty reading at the goal level after the practice readings, the decision can be made to move the student down to an easier level or make a downward adjustment in the WCPM goal. In addition to requiring the students to answer a set of comprehension questions at the end of each passage, some teachers have added other comprehension activities to this process, such as having the students write a five-minute re-tell response after each passage. Using the RN strategy for 20-30 minutes per day, for three or more days per week, can have a significant impact on improving students' reading fluency.
In two studies reported on by Hasbrouck, Ihnot, and Rogers (1999), second- and third-grade Title I students, as well as sixth-grade special education students, showed significant improvement in their fluency. The second- and third-graders received, on average, 32 weeks of RN instruction. From fall to spring, the second-graders' average WCPM increased from 17.9 to 71.6, meaning that they moved from well below the 25th percentile to well above it (see norms table in 'Screening, Diagnosing, and Progress Monitoring: The Details'); they showed an average gain of 1.68 WCPM per week, much greater than the 1.2 WCPM per week gain that second-graders typically make. Third-grade students had similar results. From fall to spring, their average WCPM increased from 42 to 93, meaning that they moved from just below the 25th percentile to well above it; they gained 1.60 WCPM per week, as compared to the typical growth of 1.1 WCPM per week. The study of sixth-grade special education students also found significant improvements. These students were reading at levels ranging from grade 1.5 to 4.0.
They received RN instruction in a special education class for 20 to 32 weeks and improved their fluency by an average of 1.4 WCPM per week, which is double the 0.7 words per week that sixth-graders typically gain. Caveats I would like to add two caveats regarding reading fluency. First, as this skill has recently garnered greater attention, and awareness of the link between fluency and comprehension has grown, there appears to be a tendency for some to believe that raising a student's fluency score is the main goal of reading instruction. As important as fluency is, and as valuable as the information obtained from fluency-based assessments can be for instructional decision-making, I want to caution teachers and administrators to keep fluency and fluency-based assessment scores in perspective. The ability to read text accurately, at a reasonable rate, and with appropriate expression and phrasing is certainly a key factor in being able to understand what has been read and to enjoy the process of reading.
Nonetheless, fluency is only one of the key components of reading. I urge teachers to use the 50th percentile as a reasonable level of proficiency for students, and keep in mind that it is appropriate and expected for students to adjust their rate when reading texts of varying difficulty and for varied purposes. Pushing every student to reach the 90th or even the 75th percentile in fluency is not feasible or necessary and, for students at or above the expected level in fluency, the instructional time could be better spent by enhancing other critical aspects of reading, such as increasing their vocabulary and becoming better at monitoring their comprehension.
The second caveat is that we still have much to learn about fluency. Ongoing debates in the research community include questions regarding the value of reading lists of words versus sentences and paragraphs; repeated reading of the same passage versus reading several different passages that have lots of the same vocabulary; the nature of the text in which students would benefit most for fluency practice (i.e., narrative or expository, randomly selected or highly controlled passages); the exact role of silent reading in a comprehensive reading instructional program; the role of prosody in the impact of fluency on text comprehension, etc. Comodo internet security pro free. For example, we know that the ability to instantaneously recognize high-frequency sight words is an essential element of fluent reading. Researchers continue to explore whether or not having students practice reading word lists or passages is the more efficient way to develop this automaticity. Until research provides a definitive answer, having students orally read passages seems more beneficial because of the added opportunity to work on prosody and comprehension.
Likewise, we know that repeated reading of a single passage is highly effective, but it is not clear whether or not a set of passages on a single topic that has been carefully written with a large number of repeated words could be equally or even more effective. If reading a set of passages turns out to be as effective as re-reading a single passage, the set could conceivably be used to enhance students' fluency, vocabulary, and domain knowledge simultaneously. We will leave researchers to continue their valuable efforts to address these important but yet-to-be-answered questions. However, this article should help practitioners feel confident that there is sufficient guidance from research to support the use of fluency-based assessments in their professional data-collection procedures, and to select instructional practices for both those students who are on-track and those who are struggling to develop the essential skill of reading fluency.
References Click the 'References' link above to hide these references. And Brown, S. The Six-minute solution. Longmont, Colo.:Sopris West. Educating teachers about managing classroom and students. Teacher and Teacher Education 4(1), 1-18. Great Leaps Reading Program.
Hasbrouck, J.E., Ihnot, C., and Rogers, G.H. 'Read Naturally': A strategy to increase oral reading fluency. Reading Research & Instruction, 39(1), 27-38. Heibert, E.H. Parsipanny, N.J.:Pearson Learning. Read naturally.
Read Naturally:Minneapolis, Minn. National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) (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 for reading instruction. NIH Publication No.
Washington, D.C.:U.S. Government Printing Office. A focus on fluency. Honolulu: Pacific Resources for Education and Learning. Pikulski, J.J. And Chard, D.J.
Fluency: Bridge between decoding and comprehension. The Reading Teacher, 58(6), 510-519. (2006, April). Reading Fluency Instruction: Moving Beyond Accuracy, Automaticity, and Prosody. The Reading Teacher, 59(7), 704-706.
Read Naturally (2002). Reading fluency monitor. Minneapolis: Author. Overcoming dyslexia: A new and complete science-based program for reading problems at any level. New York:Alfred A. Snow, C.E., Burns, M.S., and Griffin, P. (Eds.) (1998).
Reading Fluency Program
Preventing reading difficulties in young children. Washington, D.C.:National Academy Press. And Kuhn, M.R.
Making it sound like language: Developing fluency. The Reading Teacher, 55, 582-584. References Adams, G.N. And Brown, S. The Six-minute solution. Longmont, Colo.:Sopris West.
Educating teachers about managing classroom and students. Teacher and Teacher Education 4(1), 1-18.
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Great Leaps Reading Program. Hasbrouck, J.E., Ihnot, C., and Rogers, G.H.
'Read Naturally': A strategy to increase oral reading fluency. Reading Research & Instruction, 39(1), 27-38.
Heibert, E.H. Parsipanny, N.J.:Pearson Learning. Read naturally.
Read Naturally:Minneapolis, Minn. National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) (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 for reading instruction. NIH Publication No.
Washington, D.C.:U.S. Government Printing Office. A focus on fluency. Honolulu: Pacific Resources for Education and Learning. Pikulski, J.J. And Chard, D.J. Fluency: Bridge between decoding and comprehension.
Wacom bamboo tablet pen not working. The Reading Teacher, 58(6), 510-519. (2006, April). Reading Fluency Instruction: Moving Beyond Accuracy, Automaticity, and Prosody.
The Reading Teacher, 59(7), 704-706. Read Naturally (2002). Reading fluency monitor. Minneapolis: Author.
Overcoming dyslexia: A new and complete science-based program for reading problems at any level. New York:Alfred A. Snow, C.E., Burns, M.S., and Griffin, P. (Eds.) (1998). Preventing reading difficulties in young children. Washington, D.C.:National Academy Press. And Kuhn, M.R.
Making it sound like language: Developing fluency. The Reading Teacher, 55, 582-584. This article is very beneficial, especially when attempting to explain to parents why fluency is an important component in evaluating student reading abilities. I noticed that the author does not include any computer programs that assess fluency skills. Marilyn Yaegar Adams' Soliloquy Reading Assistant, now owned by Scientific Learning, is a tool created to assess students wcpm and comprehension skills. It is based on the neurological impress method to increase students' prosody and reading rate through repeated readings.
It is now labeled Reading Assistant under the product line offered by Scientific Learning Corporation. I would appreciate some feedback on the use of computer technology tools for improving reading fluency. Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on.
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