Automaticity & Fluency

5.25.19

Promoting Word Level-Automaticity

1. Teach students the six syllable types (closed/short, open/long, silent e, vowel combinations, r controlled, consonant-l-e).

• “Highlighting, underlining, or enhancing the saliency of the visual pattern in some way is recommended to direct the student’s attention to the critical components of the orthographic image.” (p. 2)

2. Teach students to notice accents

• “Mirrors can be used for visual reinforcement so students can see that their mouths open wider when they produce an accented syllable.” (p. 2)
• Students can place their hand along their jawline to feel the movement
• Use visuals (ex: bold text, accent marks)
• Use manipulatives (ex: tokens, blocks)

3. Train and link the orthographic processor

• Students must be able to recognize four kinds of words: (1) regular for reading/spelling (2) regular for reading but not spelling (3) rule-based (4) irregular
• Emphasize orthography: practice saying only the vowel sound in a word, syllable type card sorts

4. Facilitate single word level word drills using regular then irregular words

5. Incorporate air writing for development of symbol imagery

Promoting Text Level-Fluency

1. Intonation/Punctuation - keep the text static while stressing different parts and/or change punctuation and discuss variation in meaning

2. Phrasing: Chunking, Slash Marks, Scooping (practice phrasing first with alphabet letters then meaningful units)

3. Anticipation: Invite students to predict future text content