Sunday, October 17, 2010

Reading Comprehension & Reading Fluency

When thinking about the relationship between reading comprehension and reading fluency, I first had to think about what each term really means. Fluency is the product of accurately reading connected text at a conversational rate with appropriate prosody. Reading comprehension is the ability to understand reading selections through the active construction of meaning from the text. When I was in school, I had a hard time with comprehension and no problem at all with reading with fluency. This subject really hit home for me because of this. Having had a hard time with comprehending what I was reading, it is important for me to learn how to teach comprehension strategies and how they relate to reading fluency. Fluency is the bridge between word recognition and comprehension, fluent reading focus their attention on making connections among the ideas in a text and between these ideas and their background knowledge. The chapters in Mosaic of Thought that explain comprehension and fluency, state how “many students read words well, but had little sense of the meaning of what they read, especially meaning that went beyond the literal” (Keene and Zimmerman page 27). It is important for students to not only read fluently, but also that they read fluently so that they can focus more on comprehending what they are reading rather than if they are reading the words correctly. Teachers teach the comprehension strategies to ensure children do not simply become expert decoders but also so they learn to create meaning naturally and subconsciously as they read (page 32). The relationship between reading comprehension and reading fluency, I feel all begins with the students monitoring their comprehension during reading. They will learn when the text they are reading or listening to makes sense, when it does not, what does not make sense, and whether the unclear portions are critical to overall understanding of the reading piece (page 63). If the students are not fluent readers then they will be more focused on the words rather than the meaning.

Approaches that are used to assess and teach fluency in my classroom are through our shared reading, reader’s workshop, guided reading, and C.A.F.E. literacy activities. We teach the students fluency strategies in all of these aspects of literacy. We focus on teaching the students how to look at the pictures before reading the words, looking at the first letter and cross-checking to make sure it makes sense. This is offering the students stepping stones to begin to read fluency. Meanwhile, we are also teaching comprehension skills simultaneously. We have the students participate in making meaning read-alouds where the students are formally practicing reading comprehension strategies as well as rereading a book a few times a week for fluency. At the start of each day, we read the ABC chart (A-a-apple, B-b-bear, etc) so the students see directly how their reading fluency effects speed and automaticity of reading. We then read a familiar poem (one poem per week) and the students are encouraged to read-along becoming more fluent in reading the poems as the days go on. After reading a familiar poem, we do our shared reading big book where the students are participating in reading along, and learning comprehension strategies each day. As Tim Rasinski states in his article about fluency, rhythmical, rhetorical, or interactive texts such as poetry, song lyrics, chants, rhymes, letters, work well for oral reading with expression and meaning, not just speed. He also explains that repeated reading is a key instructional method for developing reading fluency. Repeated reading, such as the ABC chart, poems, and big books that we make use of every day, should be meaningful and should expose the students to expressive oral interpretation or performance of text, not faster reading.

To fully understand my students’ reading development, I need to know how we balance our literacy. How is shared reading, writers workshop, readers workshop, daily 5, guided reading, and C.A.F.E. all used to make the students better readers and writers. Is there one main goal that is set when incorporating all these literary aspects, or are their multiple goals being accessed. As teachers, how do you know which strategies to focus more heavily on? What should we start with? Fluency? Comprehension? To find out I would consider talking with any and all teachers, across all grade-levels and learn how they incorporate all literacy, as well as research authors who are known for helping teachers teach these strategies and aspects of literacy that the students need to know.

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