I have to say, before reading these articles, I thought that comprehension and fluency were two completely unrelated aspects of literacy. I thought that fluency just meant reading quickly, accurately, and with expression. Conversely, I thought that comprehension referred only to the ability to understand what you are reading. However, after reading about both comprehension and fluency, I realize how intertwined the two really are. This concept really made sense to me when I read a passage from the Rasinski article, “The primary aim of many instruction programs is to increase reading rate through the repeated reading of nonfiction material…The result of such a focus is faster reading with little improvement on comprehension, which is the ultimate goal of reading instruction” (Rasinski,705). The author also suggested using performable texts to teach fluency and comprehension (like poetry, songs, rhymes, Readers Theatre, dialogues, and letters. Students exposed to these interactive texts made greater progress in fluency as well as comprehension because of the emphasis was on reading with expression, enthusiasm, and meaning (not speed).
After reading about this, I began analyzing literacy instruction in my own classroom and feel that we teach fluency and comprehension concurrently. Every Monday we read a poem together several times and then students add this poem to their poetry folders where they can reread again. Additionally, I thought of our shared reading. We read one book for the entire week and focus on a different aspect of the book each day of the week. By the end of the week, students are usually able to read fluently along with me and can comprehend meaningful aspects of the story.
To fully understand my student’s reading development I’d like to know exactly how it is assessed in my classroom, building, and district. I know that students are given DRAs multiple times throughout the year, but I’m interested to know how they score them. How important is fluency? Is comprehension the main focus? Are other aspects of literacy, like concepts of print and phonemic awareness assessed? I could fairly easily find out these answers by speaking with my mentor teacher and, if necessary, the principal of our building.
I agree with you. There were times that I was not sure what comprehension and fluency had to do with one another. Along the way, I noticed that the two did go along with each other. For students, it is important that both fluency and comprehension are being development. Development in these areas is so important because as children get older, reading and understanding text is very important. In the beginning we learn to read and later on in life, we learn through reading. It is so important that not only can students read a text without having to stop at every word, students are also understanding what they are reading. As teachers, it is important to emphasize both comprehension strategies and fluency strategies for students. I really want to see fluency strategies taught to children and how to teach it. I feel like in my classroom, we teach comprehension strategies and through shared reading and poetry, we touch on fluency, however it is not emphasized more than this. This however may be occurring more often that I think without me realizing that it is actually teaching fluency to children. It would be interesting to see exactly how it is measured throughout the year, especially towards the end of the year. For example, with my students, they are only beginning to read so fluency is something that does not exist yet to children. Comprehension can be measured quite easily by talking to children and directions that are followed etc. Fluency is something though I would be interested in learning more about later in the year as my students are becoming more developed readers.
ReplyDeleteKatie, it is also so interesting to me that our two classrooms are so much a like. I know that we are of course in the same district, but it’s nice to know that you and I can compare and contrast our each of our first grade classrooms are run! I always thought the same thing about fluency and comprehension – I never thought that they were interrelated. Just tonight, my mom was talking about one of her students and how she reminded my mom of me when I was that age (2nd grade) and how I could read fluently at a level way beyond my age/grade, but yet had no comprehension skills whatsoever. It was interested to read these articles about how we, as teachers, can teach the two concurrently. We also do our shared reading, and poems of the week that are placed in their poetry notebooks. The students are able to become more and more fluent with the texts as the week goes by, and at the same time are practicing reading skills and strategies that help them to comprehend what they are reading. I have a lot of the same questions as you do about the DRAs and what I concluded from the scoring – at least how my teacher and I did it – is that those students who were well above the first grade reading level (scored high on the fluency rating) but did not score well on the comprehension rating, we kept at a level lower than what they are capable of reading so that they can practice these comprehension strategies while still becoming more and more fluent.
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