Is Fluency Really Necessary for Reading Success?

As I have been working with struggling readers, both my 7th graders and my reading clinic student, I have begun questioning whether fluency is really necessary for reading success and what kinds of strategies and activities are best for improving fluency. According to the National Reading Panel report from 2000, fluency is listed as one of the five critical components of any reading program. Since this report was published, research on the topic of fluency has shot through the roof and fluency has gained prestige as an important research component. However, is fluency really necessary to reading success? Additionally, if fluency is important to helping struggling readers, what strategies and activities show significant gains in fluency, and how are those gains measured?

First of all, what is fluency? According to Hicks (2010), “reading fluency is defined as ‘the ability of readers to read quickly, effortlessly, and efficiently with good, meaningful expression’” (p. 319). Fluency can be broken down into three important components: speed, accuracy and expression. In reality, fluency is a combination of these three components. Despite this observation, many schools, teachers and even some researchers still only use the reading rate as a measure of fluency. What are we teaching students if we only test how quickly they can read a text? We are teaching them that reading fast equates to reading well. However, this is not the case. Good readers read at a decent speed, but they read words correctly and change their speed, intonation and prosody as the text calls for it. Measures for reading fluency need to include all three components in an organized formula to truly test students’ fluency.

If reading fluency is not being tested correctly in schools, why is it even important to reading success? Well, according to Hicks (2010), “when reading is not fluent, students need to devote a significant portion of their cognitive effort to decoding, leaving little cognitive capacity for comprehension” (p. 320). The ultimate goal of reading is comprehension and when students read slowly, have to decode a great deal of words or don’t understand the proper expression to be used, they cannot completely comprehend what they are reading. All of these components lead to good comprehension of text. Good readers know how to use expression, speed and accuracy to their advantage. According to Rasinski, et al. (2005), high school students’ “lack of reading fluency appeared to be the area of greatest impairment in reading,” (p. 22). If we want students to be better readers and comprehenders, we have to teach them to read fluently. To further emphasize why reading fluency is an important component of reading Morris (2011) states that “students need to read text with sufficient speed and rhythm if they are to (a) enjoy reading, (b) concentrate on meaning, and (c) complete reading assignments in a reasonable amount of time,” (p. 331). Obviously, reading fluency is important to reading success, especially for struggling readers.

It has been established that reading fluency is, in fact, a key component to the success of struggling readers, but what can be done to help improve their reading fluency? First of all, teachers can model reading fluently for students every chance they get. Students are not going to learn by osmosis and must have direct instruction on how to read fluently in order to be successful. Teachers can read texts for students while modeling how they change speed and expression as they read. If the teacher models this technique and talks the students through it, they will learn that they should be doing this as well. Then the teacher can give the students time to actually practice what they have learned on what they are currently reading.

Secondly, teachers can use readers’ theatre to help students understand the importance of changing their tone, intonation and prosody while they read. Students get the opportunity to act out the characters in a text and they get to take on the role of what they are reading. As they are acting out what they are reading and using various expressions, their comprehension deepens. Once students place themselves in the text in a meaningful way, they have the opportunity to explore the text in a new way. Finally, teachers can use repeated readings of texts that are on the students’ individual instructional level. The teacher should not use the same texts for every student, but each students’ individual needs and reading levels should be taken into account and accommodated for in regards to reading fluency.

Ultimately, reading fluency is important to reading success, especially for struggling students. In regards to my reading clinic student, repeated readings of texts that are on her instructional level have helped give her the confidence to read more quickly and with better accuracy. Additionally, spelling instruction has improved her decoding skills which also results in higher accuracy rates. For expression, I have used fun fable-like stories that have a great deal of dialogue with them. This forces the student to show a variety of expressions, intonations and tones as she reads, teaching her that not every text can be read in the same way. These activities and strategies can easily transfer to the classroom and large group settings to help all students become successful readers. Reading fluency is critical to building successful readers, so teachers should embrace this skill in the classroom, and with more than just a stopwatch.

Works Cited
Hicks, C.P. (2009). A lesson on reading fluency learned from the tortoise and the hare. The Reading Teacher, 63(4), 319-323.

Morris, D. & Gaffney, M. (2011). Building reading fluency in a learning-disabled middle school reader. Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy, 5(45), 331-341.

Rasinski, T.V., Padak, N.D., McKeon, C.A., Wilfong, L.G., Friedauer, J.A. & Heim, P.
(2005). Is reading fluency a key for successful high school reading? Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy, 49(1), 22-27.