Emily 0:37
Hey there, thanks for joining us today. In today's episode, we're sharing six fluency instruction mistakes that you should avoid and what to do instead to build your students reading fluency.
Heidi 0:49
We start our episodes with a morning message just like we used to do it morning meeting in our classrooms. This week's morning message is which books were better than the movie? So Emily, this is probably an easy one. But which books are better than the movie?
Emily 1:03
Well, lots actually. But the first one that came to mind was Ella Enchanted, which is the most witty and charming book that just loses all of its magic in the movie, the movie is just a travesty, honestly.
Heidi 1:20
If you hadn't read the book, I think you could be like, Oh, that, you know, it was cute. It was fine. Yeah. But if you knew what the book is, yeah, and this wet noodle of a movie.
Emily 1:31
And that book is so good. I highly recommend it. If you haven't read it. How about you, Heidi?
Heidi 1:35
Well, obviously like there are lots of options. But the one that I feel most passionately about, which probably won't come as a surprise is a Jane Austen adaptation, right? No, no shocker. Any? Of course, any Jane Austen book has been better than the movie, although there are some super good adaptations that I totally love.
But the persuasion adaptation that Netflix did in 2022 still enrages me. Very poor is like if you've read the book of frustration, it is this mature, nuanced account of longing and regret and second chance of love. And then the Netflix movie comes along, and it's as nuanced as like a fire hose. And I am still like, what, a year and a half later, still very salty.
Emily 2:25
I blame to Dakota Johnson. Oh, we have some responses from our community. Lots of people's that Harry Potter. Oh, definitely. I mean, honestly, there's so much content in those books that it is pretty much impossible to do them justice on screen. And some of the movies do better than you know how to deal with kid actors. And for sure, I do think it would probably be better as a series because there's just so much content in there. So it'd be interesting if they someday ever come out with a Harry Potter series.
Shannon says that the Percy Jackson books were better than the movie but that the new series is pretty close to the books. So that's good. I've heard good things about the new series. Stephanie said one movie I liked better than the book was Maze Runner, but that is the only one ever .
Heidi 3:07
Oh, interesting.
Emily 3:10
Abby said one where I think both the book and the movie were amazing was Matilda. Shrek the movie was better than the book.
Heidi 3:17
That makes sense. I mean, Shrek the book and the movie are very different things though, but it's a really good movie.
Emily 3:23
Yes. Cheryl said City of Ember the book is way better. Merritt said Bridge to Terabithia, Polar Express and James and the Giant Peach are much better books.
Heidi 3:32
Oh, yes. The Polar Express movie. Oh, I have many feelings about that one as well.
Emily 3:37
And Elizabeth and Lisa both said Holes, which I just read for the first time with my kids last year, and then we watched the movie right after it was like, Oh, wow, I had never seen the movie and I was yeah, I was disappointed.
Heidi 3:50
Well we would love to have you join the conversation over in our Teacher Approved Facebook group. And let us know which books are better than the movies that you like, or vice versa.
Emily 4:00
For the next few episodes, we will be deep diving into one of our favorite literacy topics reading fluency.
Heidi 4:07
If you listen to our episode a couple of weeks ago with Ciera Harris, you heard a share an introduction to the topic of reading fluency.
Emily 4:15
And if you'd like a recap into what reading fluency is, make sure to go back and listen to episode 113.
Heidi 4:21
Now if you're wondering why we are going on so much about fluency is because fluency is the bridge that connects decoding and comprehension.
Emily 4:29
That's right. So if we want students to move from sounding out words to using those words to assemble ideas, that is where fluency comes into play.
Heidi 4:37
But there are some common mistakes that teachers make when they decide to focus on teaching fluency.
Emily 4:44
But don't feel bad if we list something here that you have done before.
Heidi 4:48
Yes, guilt free zone here. I have done some of these things myself guilty.
Emily 4:53
So our goal is just to help you avoid some of these mistakes in the future and give you some ideas for what to do instead to help your students build their oral reading fluency.
Heidi 5:03
Let's kick off our list with fluency teaching mistake number one, that is using only a one minute timed reading to assess fluency. Emily can you tell us more about this one?
Emily 5:12
Well one minute timed readings have their place they are a great data point for comparing students with their peers and for tracking students individual growth.
Heidi 5:23
Time readings are a part of the picture. But they aren't the whole picture of what's going on with your students reading fluency skills.
Emily 5:32
It might help to think of timed reading as a thermometer like a thermometer. A timed reading is reliable and easy to administer.
Heidi 5:38
Plus, it can tell you if there is a problem going on.
Emily 5:41
Right, but the weakness is that it can't tell you what exactly is causing the problem. Wouldn't that be nice with thermometers if they did that?
Heidi 5:49
They would be so handy. So maybe we learned from a one minute time reading that our second grader here reads 24 words a minute. But what we need to know is why they only read 24 words a minute, if we want to help them get better at it.
Emily 6:07
Yeah, you have to be asking yourself, was the text too challenging? Do they struggle with phrasing? Are they struggling with decoding skills? Do they understand how to add expression? We need the why not just the what.
Heidi 6:20
So this is where your other assessments become important. So you need to ask things like has the student acquired enough sight words to read fluently? And how about their decoding skills?
Emily 6:30
Another thing to consider is the student's listening comprehension. If a student struggles to adequately comprehend a text they hear, then that's a sign that their fluency issues might be caused by a larger problem, and you might need more support to get that addressed.
Heidi 6:45
So moving right along, let's get into fluency teaching mistake number two, practicing fluency skills on a text that is too difficult.
Emily 6:55
It's so important because fluency and difficult texts do not make a great team.
Heidi 7:01
It is so hard even for adults to read something very difficult with good fluency.
Emily 7:06
If you students are sounding out each word or stumbling through the text, they can't focus on those fluency skills we're trying to build.
Heidi 7:14
And really, that makes sense if you think about it. If your brain has to stop and figure out a word, your reading accuracy and rate are definitely going to decrease.
Emily 7:24
And yet, even though that makes sense, we still see so many teachers insisting their students practice reading fluency on texts that are too difficult for their students to read fluently.
Heidi 7:36
So if your goal is to teacher is to have your students practice and build their fluency skills, you need to choose the text that you use with your students accordingly. Your texts have to align with your students independent reading levels, even if those levels are below grade level.
Emily 7:54
Because if a text is too difficult for a student their accuracy, speed and expression will all suffer. Forcing students to practice reading a third grade level text when they aren't on a third grade reading level will not help them grow as fluent readers. This isn't a situation where practice makes perfect.
Heidi 8:12
And in fact, insisting kids continued drilling material that is too advanced is more likely to cause their reading skills to regress instead of progress. They'll start to believe that there is no benefit and even trying, because it doesn't get them anywhere.
Emily 8:29
So that means for students still reading decodable texts choose a text for fluency practice that focuses on phonics skills they have already mastered. For students reading more traditional texts choose one that they can read with about 95% or greater accuracy, we'll call that their independent level.
Heidi 8:47
Every student should be practicing fluency with material that they are capable of reading independently. But don't forget that a student's independent reading level includes any previously learned skills or levels of difficulty. So that means if your student's highest independent reading level is something on a third grade difficulty level, they could totally read something on a second grade level to practice fluency.
Emily 9:13
That means you can differentiate for your students fluency practice without needing a unique level for each child, which is such a relief. Let's say you have three students one is on a beginning second grade reading level one is on a mid second grade reading level and one is on end of second grade reading level. They could all practice fluent reading on the same end of first grade level text.
Heidi 9:35
So remember, when practicing fluency skills lean heavily on the sight of choosing texts that are too easy, rather than too hard. Save your harder texts for small groups or even for read alouds.
Emily 9:48
Now on to fluency teaching mistake number three, not frequently and explicitly modeling fluent reading.
Heidi 9:54
The easiest way to teach students fluent reading skills is to give them lots of a examples of good fluency reading.
Emily:Sadly, we know that not all children have much experience being read to before they start school. Many kids honestly have no idea what fluent reading should even sound like.
Heidi:So every time you read a book aloud to your students, which hopefully is happening at least once a day, at least, you are being their model for fluent reading.
Emily:Exactly. Because you read effortlessly you pause at the correct times you use expression and meaningful phrasing. And of course, you never raced through the text. Unless the bells about to ring you're almost at the end of the page, then maybe you will.
Heidi:You can also offer audiobooks as a model for good fluent reading. So you don't always have to be the one to do the reading.
Emily:When you're reading out loud to your class, you can also take advantage of teachable moments. Let me show you an example. As if I were reading out loud to my class. Why would you do that? Max cried. Oh, I just noticed that said cried let me read it again. Why would you do that Max cried.
Heidi:So you don't have to feel like you're putting on a whole show while you're read. But occasionally pointing out what you're doing as a reader will help make the skill of fluency more visible and help your students learn to do the same thing in their reading.
Emily:All right, fluency teaching Mistake number four is focusing too much on rate.
Heidi:This is a biggie. Because we often practice fluency with timed readings, students start to assume that rate is the most important component of fluent reading.
Emily:But in reality rate is the least important aspect of fluency. Any guesses on what the most important aspect of fluency is? If it's not rate ?1000 points, do you if you guessed it correctly, its accuracy.
Heidi:And that makes sense, right? It doesn't matter how fast you read if you aren't reading the correct words.
Emily:Yep. So we increase students accuracy by teaching high frequency words in meaningful ways that help them internalize those tricky spellings. We teach them how to segment and blend and how to work with common word chunks.
Heidi:And then we teach the fluency component of prosody. This is what makes reading sound like speech.
Emily:However, when we explain it to students, instead of prosody, we break it down into expression and phrasing.
Heidi:Yeah, it's much easier to teach kids about expression and phrasing than it is to help them remember what prosody is.
Emily:Yep. Or to help me remember what prosody is. Expression and phrasing is much easier to grasp for everyone.
Heidi:And although we are fans of timed readings, increasing reading rate really comes down to enough experience with accuracy and prosody.
Emily:Right. If students have the foundational phonics and decoding skills they need if they have a robust bank of sight words to draw from an understanding of how to use expression and phrasing, then in most cases, the rate will just increase on its own.
Heidi:That brings us to fluency teaching mistake number five, which is using round robin reading or silent reading to increase fluency.
Emily:Now if you're listening to this, you may have grown up doing a lot of Round Robin and silent reading like we did. But neither one of those practices has research to support it for building fluency.
Heidi:And that's because building fluency requires guided practice. That means having students read aloud and get feedback on the reading from an adult. Obviously, that can't happen in silent reading, and it shouldn't be happening in front of the whole class. So round robin reading is out for guided practice, too.
Emily:Now that's not to say there isn't a place for silent reading. independent reading with texts on an appropriate level is how students become readers. You can't ride a bike without learning to balance and pedal at the same time. An independent reading gives students the chance to practice all the reading and comprehension skills that they're developing.
Heidi:So yay for silent reading, definitely keep that.
Emily:Just not for fluency.
Heidi:But round robin reading is out the door. It really has no place in the classroom under any circumstances.
Emily:And if you're not familiar round robin reading sometimes it's called popcorn reading is going down the row or around the circle and having everyone read the next line or paragraph.
Heidi:Round robin reading is just a time waster for everyone involved. Struggling readers may feel embarrassed about reading in front of the rest of the class, especially if they stumble through the text you might have memories of during that. More advanced readers likely feel impatient listening to the other students labored reading. And let's be honest, most of the kids are completely checked out while the other students are reading.
Emily:Yeah, I vividly remember sitting in my fifth grade class. I mean, I'm closing my eyes. I can picture it this room right now. Doing round robin reading of a chapter in our health textbook. Oh live in the dream and despite being an excellent reader, I was so intimidated about reading a textbook out loud in front of everyone with all those tricky vocabulary words.
I anxiously counted the number of students in front of me and then counted the paragraphs to find the one I would be responsible for reading. And then I read it several times to myself to be sure that I knew all the words and could read it well, and surprised. I didn't hear words that any of the other kids read. And I definitely wasn't picking up fluency skills from those few minutes of reading out loud either.
Heidi:Yeah if you lift your I think we all have stories just like that. So don't use round robin reading ever. Yep. And don't rely on silent reading to build fluency skills in your classroom.
Emily:And that brings us to our last fluency teaching mistake number six, not clearly teaching the skills that go into reading fluency.
Heidi:Our budding readers need lots of opportunities to read high quality text, and apply the fluency skills they are learning. This can happen in small reading groups, one on one with a teacher or with another adult.
Emily:The key is to have students read to an adult, if at all possible, so that they can receive feedback on their reading. This is the perfect opportunity to compliment them on all the things they're doing right in their reading, like pausing for punctuation, reading smoothly, or rereading to add more appropriate expression.
Heidi:Students are likely totally unaware that they are demonstrating these fluency skills until someone pointed out to them, we want to make them aware of what they're doing well, so they can keep doing it.
Emily:In small groups, or a one on one setting, you have the perfect opportunity to set a purpose before your students read. You can give your readers a specific fluency skill to work on before they begin reading, like pay attention to the punctuation so you can make your voice match the expression in the sentence. Or you can give them a comprehension focus, like read to find out why she thought her friend was mad.
Heidi:So this comes from a study in 2004 that found that when students are asked to focus on either speed, or comprehension before they begin reading, both their speed and comprehension increase. However, the greatest improvements were seen when students were asked to focus on comprehension alone, or on both fluency and comprehension together.
Emily:So giving students a goal before reading increases both their rate and understanding of the text. How often do we get a win win like that in education?
Heidi:Not often enough, and that is for sure.
Emily:We also want to make sure we're helping students recognize how accuracy, expression, phrasing and appropriate rate work together to create fluent reading. Students can't hit an invisible target so we actually have to teach them those components of fluent reading, if we want them to apply them.
Heidi:And don't let that sound heavy. There are so many fun ways to include fluency practice in your reading block.
Emily:Yes, some of our favorite ways are repeated reading passages, partner plays, joke books and poetry. But there are so many other ways you can build in these opportunities to your daily schedule.
You don't have to do it all but dedicating a few minutes each day to building your students fluency skills will have a large payoff over time. Just make sure you're not wasting your time practicing fluency in ways that don't actually improve fluency.
Heidi:So remember to avoid these six fluency teaching mistakes: one, only using one minute timed readings to assess fluency; two, practicing fluent reading on a text above your students independent reading level; three, not frequently and explicitly modeling fluent reading; four, focusing too much on reading rate; five, using a round robin reading or silent reading to increase fluency; and six, not clearly teaching the skills that go into reading fluency.
Emily:We would love to hear your thoughts on fluency instruction mistakes, come join the conversation in our teacher approved Facebook group.
Now let's talk about this week's teacher approved tip. Each week, we leave you with a small actionable tip that you can apply in your classroom today. This week's teacher approved tip is make fluency mini lessons part of your daily routine.
Heidi:As we mentioned, it's important to teach students the components of fluency besides just rate. And the good news is that there are lots of simple ways to practice accuracy, expression and phrasing.
But because the practice is simple, it can be tricky to add it to your schedule. You probably don't have a dedicated fluency lesson every day from that be nice to have the time for that. But what you can do is tack on a quick mini lesson to something you are already doing.
You can use a fluency mini lesson as the warmup to your language arts block. You can schedule it after specialty classes to help your kids kind of settle back into the classroom. You can add it to a transition like moving to the carpet and have a quick practice as your kids are getting settled.
The key to being consistent is finding a few minutes that you can dedicate to fluency every day. If you have to make the choice of where to put fluency every day, it's not going to be too long before it totally disappears from your schedule.
Emily:Now if you don't want to plan a fluency mini lesson every day you are in luck because we already did it for you. Our fluency to flash is a digital resource designed to help students practice reading fluency skills every day with no prep needed. All you do is open up the PowerPoint or the video click on the day and do the activity which takes about five to 10 minutes.
Heidi:So this is hands down the most fun product that we have made. And maybe it is the most fun product that anyone has ever made. We have a daily fluency practice for grades one through four. And each grade has its own content, so you don't have to worry about any kind of overlap.
Emily:Each day of the week has a special activity to boost fluency skills like using expression, adjusting tone of voice, adding intonation and segmenting and blending.
Heidi:My favorite of the weekly activities is the poem each week, I had so much fun picking those out. And you can listen to the poem as a class, we have it recorded, and then you can practice reading it a couple times as a class. And then what you get to do is to click the style spinner and you get a funny new way to practice the poem. Like read it like a mouse or read it like a robot.
Emily:The poems are so fun, and I really liked the funny Friday activities. I bet you didn't realize the jokes are good for practicing fluency. But humor depends on expression and phrasing. So practicing jokes is practicing fluency.
Heidi:And the kids love that I'm sure you can guess. We also have a whole separate set of seasonal activities. And I didn't think was possible, but these are even cuter than the regular sets. I mean, the spring set has a pig driving and tractor while your students practice blending multisyllabic words and what could be better than that.
Emily:And we didn't do the design of this so we feel like we can really shout it from the rooftops of how amazing it is. And we're not patting ourselves on the back too hard. And honestly, doesn't every class need a tractor driving pig?
Heidi:This is one of the most engaging and effective resources that we've ever created. And we constantly hear from teachers how much their students love during these lessons. In fact, the students even remind the teachers when the teachers happen to forget to do it. Yes,
Emily:Yes, we have heard that multiple times. Fluency in a flash is available as PowerPoints or as videos and you can find a link to the different grade levels in our show notes or you can get it as part of the teacher approved club.
Heidi:To wrap up the show we are sharing what we're giving extra credit to this week. Emily, what gets your extra credit?
Emily:I'm giving extra credit to the Merriam Webster account on Instagram. Yes, the dictionary. They share a fun word of the day every day but the real magic in their account is their delightfully witty captions and wordy pop culture memes.
If you are a fellow word nerd, I think you will get a kick out of their account. It's @MerriamWebster on Instagram.
Heidi:I don't follow them.
Emily:You have to I laugh every day. And I'm learning new words. I have learned so many fun new words like Did you know that gruntled is a word? Michael Scott says it. It is actually a word. It's not just disgruntled grunt alone zone is technically a word.
Heidi:Okay, I guess he got one for Michael Scott.
Emily:What are you giving us credit do Heidi?
Heidi:Well this is much less exciting, but maybe as helpful. My extra credit goes to the book Reading Fluency by Jan Hasbrouck and Deborah Glazer. If you want to know more about reading fluency, this is a great little resource. It's really straightforward. And it is zeroed in on exactly what teachers need to understand about fluency. But why I really like it is that it is super short.
Emily:Oh, awesome.
Heidi:Like it's barely 50 pages, and it has a ton of graphics. So you could easily read through this in an evening. And how often do you find like professional development books that are like, Oh, this is a quick and easy take away and not suddenly has to dedicate the next three months to. Exactly what you want the theory, the research and how to put it in practice. So gold stars all around for that one.
That's it for today's episode. Make sure to avoid these six fluency pitfalls. And don't forget to schedule a daily fluency mini lesson. Check out our fluency in a flash resources if you'd like to have the planning and prep already done for you. The tractor driving pig is included for no extra charge.