Reading Support for Parents

Reading Fluency

A Parents’ Quick Guide to Reading Fluency

What is Reading Fluency?

It isn’t enough for students be able to read words, they also need to be able to understand what they are reading. We call this comprehension. Reading fluency is the bridge between word recognition and comprehension. Once someone is able to read fluently, it leaves them with the space to focus on comprehension.

Reading Fluency is defined in 3 parts:

Accuracy:

‘Accuracy’ means being able to read accurately with the correct pronunciation. Students use the context to support them.

Automaticity:

‘Automaticity’ means rapidly recognising and reading words without effort, avoiding ‘sounding out’, meaning attention can be focused on comprehension.

Prosody:

‘Prosody’ means reading with expression. Pupils demonstrate appropriate intonation, rhythm and emphasis of words and sentences when reading aloud. Prosody can demonstrate the extent to which a student comprehends what they are reading.

ReadingFluency

What can we learn about reading fluency?

Fluent readers read whole words. When we have seen and read a word many times, it is stored in long term memory that can be read instantly and it is this process that allows people to become fluent.

Misconceptions about reading fluency:

Fluent reading is fast reading. Speed is a consequence of automaticity, but not the cause. Pupils do need to increase the amount they read to increase automaticity, but getting them to read quickly will not improve fluency. Avoid stopwatch reading.
Exposure to lots of texts develops fluency. While broadening reading with a range of texts is vital in helping students understand what they enjoy, and to develop a love of reading, it is rarely enough to support reading. Repeated readings, allows pupils to rehears and hone their reading, which ultimately boosts fluency and comprehension. This will in turn improve the reading of new texts pupils explore in future

Reading Questions for Parents

Questions to Support Reading.

Before Reading:

Looking at the title of this text, what do you think it’s about? What will be the key themes of the text? What makes you think that?
What characters do you think will be in the text?
Will there be a problem in this text? If so, what?
Do you think the text will relate to the lives of you and your family? How?

During Reading:

What has happened so far in the text? Can you sequence events?
What are your predictions for what will happen next?
How do you think it will end?
Why did the character behave as he/she did? Would you have acted the same? Why?
When you read, what pictures came into your head?
Describe what you think the character looks like?
What adjectives describe the character?
Considering your predictions, do you think it will continue that way? Why or why not? If you’ve changed your mind, what do you now think will happen? What would you like to happen?

After Reading:

Can you retell the key events of the text in the order in which they happened?
Were there any words you are unfamiliar with?
If there was a problem in the text, how was it resolved?
Did any of the characters change through the text? How? Why?
What was your favourite part of the text?
What are the key things that you can learn from the text? Is there a moral or message?
Is the title for this text appropriate? If you believe it should have a different title, what should it be?
Is there a character in the text that reminds you of someone you know? Why?
If you could change one thing from this text, what would it be and why?
If you could ask the author a question, what would it be?
Does the text remind you of any other that you’ve read? How?
Does anything in the text remind you of anything that you’ve experienced? What?
Is there a key message that you think the author wants readers to take from the text?