Reading Accuracy Instructional Strategies

Reading fluency is an important part of becoming a skilled reader, but there are many components to fluency.  One of those important pieces of reading fluency is accuracy.  Reading accuracy is the ability to read the text with very few or no mistakes.  Accuracy truly is the most essential skill of reading fluency.  If a child is “reading” a passage quickly, but they are skipping over or changing every other word, they are not getting the full meaning and will not be able to comprehend what they have read, which is the main purpose of reading. 

There are many factors that go into improving accuracy. 

First and foremost, students need to be able to decode and read words smoothly.  Explicit phonics instruction is so important in improving accuracy when reading.  If students cannot quickly decode words, they will continue to struggle while reading.  

• Develop letter-sound fluency.  Students must know letter sounds automatically.

• After students are fluent with letter sounds, they need to know how to blend them together to read words.

• Students need to be able to read high-frequency words on sight.