So, let's start at what reading fluency is. Reading fluency is retrieval automaticity. To be an efficient reader, you need to be able to retrieve words automatically. Studies show that slow single word reading leads to poor comprehension and frustration. If you can't read rapidly, you can't hold large pieces of language - text in meaning!
When you read with fluency you do so without being conscious of the reading process. This allows you the ability to comprehend what you have read.
Reading fluency encompasses the speed or rate of reading, as well as the ability to read materials with expression. M. S. Meyer and R. H. Felton (1999) defined fluency as "'the ability to read connected text rapidly, smoothly, effortlessly, and automatically with little conscious attention to the mechanics of reading, such as decoding".
So now that we know what reading fluency is, what causes a child to have problems reading fluently? Typically when a child knows how to read but is a slow reader, the real problem is due to visual tracking difficulties. To find out if this is the case, listen to your child as he/she reads aloud. Is he/she skipping, omitting, or repeating words as he/she reads OR is/she mispronouncing them?
It doesn't matter whether a child is dyslexic, has an identified learning disability, or is even gifted. Some children are just slow readers. And, usually when a child is a slow reader it is because he/she is missing bits and pieces when reading, so he/she reads the texts over and over again to make sense out of them. This actually happened with one of my children. He was tested to be gifted, but took 'forever' to read his assignments.
The second problem leading to poor reading fluency could be that the child is a slow processor - if he/she reads accurately aloud but is slow when reading.
The solution to both of these problems - the skipping & repeating words or the slow processing of the words - is the same, reading drills that are short in duration and designed to work specifically on the visual tracking and speed within a short time frame. Studies have shown that using short time frames for oral word reading practice - reading words across a page rather than reading lists of words or flash cards for five or six minutes a day has shown to give substantial gains in reading. The key to the success was doing the repeated oral reading from left to right over a period of time e.g. six months to twenty-three months.
Article Source: EzineArticles
