Fluency

Fluency

According to the National Reading Panel, fluency is defined as the ability to read with “speed, accuracy and proper expression”. Fluency bridges the gap between word recognition and comprehension. Children need to know and recognize words and punctuation with automaticity in order to develop the natural stress and intonation that occurs in conversational language in their reading. As children gain confidence in word recognition and decoding they will become more fluent readers and increase their comprehension. It is difficult for children to comprehend the text when they are working hard to decode and figure out the words they are reading. When a child is fluently reading they are reading words with automaticity and they are not cognitively working at trying to figure out the words they read. This will allow them to attend to comprehension more deeply. You will notice your children increasing their fluency, as they group together words into phrases using intonation and stress where appropriate. As they become more fluent, you will notice their choppy reading decreasing and they will sound more like conversational language. We know from research that permanent word storage follows the encoding (written) retrieval stage. When children are able to apply those phonetic spelling patterns to their reading and writing then we know they have made it into their long term memory. These words then become part of their sight words and will help them increase their fluency and comprehension of texts they read. Orthographic mapping is the process that one stores written words in their brain, so they are able to recall words automatically without having to decode and figure out the words they are reading. Fluency improves comprehension, but does not necessarily mean the child is thinking deeply about the text they are reading. In order for your child to improve and develop fluency they need to read, read, and read again. It is important for children to have access to a variety of rich texts to choose from. Additionally, reading aloud to your child and providing them with examples of what fluent reading sounds like is another important stage in the reading process.