The Fluency Development Lesson

A Repeated Reading Approach

Ruth Nathan, Ph.D, Mary Ann Frishman, Marcia Russell, Ed.D.

Description

The Fluency Development Lesson (FDL) was created by Timothy Rasinski and colleagues in 1994 as a fluency intervention — one that can be applied to large groups of normally developing elementary-grade students or more intensively to smaller groups of students who have yet to achieve proficiency in fluency and who also struggle in overall reading achievement. It is “an authentic [real reading of real materials for real purposes], intentional, intensive, consistent, and synergistic approach to word identification and reading fluency in kindergarten through grade 2 for all students” (Rasinski, 2017, p. 521), while useful in the 3rd, 4th, and even 5th grades for students who need further word identification and fluency practice. The work is, indeed, rigorous, but the enjoyable text, predictable moves, constant collaboration, and thoughtful discussion easily mitigate the hard work.

Each lesson uses a short text (often a poem, very short story, or short article), involves various forms of repeated readings, from listening and following along to choral readings, individual readings, and performance (hence the term “synergistic”). Following the repeated readings, word work is completed and copies of the text also go home to be read to family members.

Purpose and Evidence Base

Purpose. On-going comprehension gets a huge boost when word recognition accuracy and speed characterize the readers’ efforts. Enough attention is available for students to do their meaning-making work. They can use their available attention to connect to real life experiences, summarize as they read, predict upcoming text, monitor their comprehension, and even think critically about what they are reading. This goes for both fiction and nonfiction.

Evidence base. When researchers looked at 4th graders who were “below proficiency” (e.g., Valencia and Buly, 2004), they found that only about 18% exhibited reasonably good levels of automatic word identification. The remaining 82% of “below proficiency” students manifested difficulty in word identification and/or reading fluency. It’s interesting to note that between 2005 and 2016, research on reading programs with focused, synergistic fluency instruction have experienced consistent, positive findings in overall reading achievement! (Rasinski & Stevenson, 2005; Stahl & Heubach, 2005; Young, Rasinski, & Mohr, 2016; Zimmerman, Rasinski, & Melewski, 2013). Research specific to the FDL lesson (Rasinski, 1994; 2011) showed significant demonstrated gains in oral reading rate for second graders, while all FDL mean comparisons were greater (though not significantly so) for FDL over control groups and yielded effect sizes from .133 to .962. In other words, there was a consistent trend favoring the FDL over control groups. In addition, teachers in the study were interviewed and consistently reported positive responses for using the FDL in their regular reading lessons.

Grade Levels

(2–5)

When to Use

At least twice a week

Time and Materials

Time: About 20 minutes (Steps 1–5); 5–10 minutes (Step 7)

Materials: 2 copies of the excerpt for each child; 1 take-home folder for each child (to be used on a continual basis)

Implementation

According to Rasinski (2017, p. 522–523), there are nine steps involved in FDL, which are paraphrased below, followed by an example that we have used with 3rd and 4th graders.

The FDL 9 Steps

1) Select a short text (e.g., poem, story or informational excerpt, song) that is just slightly above the students’ instructional reading level. Make two copies for each student and one large one for display (perhaps an overhead transparency or projected computer text).

2) Read the display copy a few times — with and without expression.

3) Discuss the text in any way you choose, also discuss the way it was read.

4) Read the display copy as a whole class (or small group) two or three times. Be creative.

5) Divide students into groups of two or three and give students their own copy. Allow five minutes for the groups to practice, each student taking a turn. If word recognition problems surface, the students can help each other.

6) Students are invited to perform their text for an audience (other groups, a volunteer or teacher aide, etc.).

7) With your students, select five or six words to study — finding other words with a selected rime or word family, sorting the words in various ways.

8) The FDL continues at home. Students take their second copy home and are encouraged to read it to family, friends or neighbors.

9) A new FDL lesson is implemented during the next FDL lesson, but first read a few of the mastered texts together.

Example

1. The Text:

Moose At Dusk

by David Harrison (from Wild Country, Wordsong/Boyds Mills Press)

At shadowy dusk,

when trees take faces

and stones move,

I hurry for home

thinking only

of leaving the forest

before full dark —

I’ve stayed too long.

When from the deepening gloom

you materialize

like a phantom beast —

high shouldered, massive,

mute.

Caught by surprise

(uncomfortable)

I stare,

thinking how easily

you knew I was here.

Before my eyes you blend

with shadows, disappear.

I cannot blink you back,

but still you’re there.

Knowing I’m not alone,

I double my steps

and jog for home.

2. The poem was read first with expression and then (just the beginning ) without expression, in order to discuss the differences phrasing and emphasis make (prosody).

3. Next, we began our conversation by talking about why the voice in the poem jogs for home. All the students seemed to understand why — they’d all experienced wanting to “get home fast!” Then we talked about each stanza, for just a moment or two. We discussed trees “making faces” and stones moving and I introduced the word “personification.” We also thought it was interesting for the poet to think about the moose knowing he was there and wanting to “blink” him back. They students, too, noticed the great verbs: materialize, caught (by surprise),blend (with shadows), blink (you away), double (my steps), and jog.

4. When we read the poem aloud, we read it chorally, at first. We read it again, dividing it into stanzas, and lastly, we read as if the text, a poem in this case, was written for two voices.

Voice One: At shadow dusk,

Voice Two: when trees take faces/and stones move

Voice One: I hurry from home/thinking only/of leaving the forest/before dark

Voice Two: I’ve stayed too long.

___________________________________________________________________

Variations: Yet another option is the ask pairs of students to act the poem out as another student reads it aloud.

5 and 6. Pairs practiced and performed for each other. (See Steps, above.)

7a: Words for Study: We brainstormed words in the same end-rime (e.g., “ink,” “ome,” etc.) family and took turns sorting them quickly.

blink: brink, pink, wink, shrink, mink, cuff link

home: home sweet home, palindrome

blend: bend, suspend, trend, depend, defend

alone: bone, drone, phone, backbone, cyclone

gloom: broom, boom, zoom, heirloom, rest room

7b. Words for Study: We looked for words with derivational or inflected endings, for example: shadowy, deepening, leaving, thinking, shouldered, easily, materialize, and so on.

8. Students took the poem home and shared it with their family or current guardian. Some reported that a parent, guardian or sibling read one of the voices while they read the other. Some read both voices aloud to others, but chose to change the tone of each voice.

9. The next time we met we read a few of our past lessons aloud together and then moved onto the next text we would be studying.

Formative Assessment Options

Our focus isn’t really ever on speed for speed’s sake (we never ask students to read faster, then faster), but we have found that students love to track how they’re doing with regard to automaticity. Toward this end, we let students periodically pick a text and time themselves reading it, with prosody, a few times, and then graph their times. Sometimes we give them a totally new text and let them time themselves after each subsequent reading. That’s an eye-opener for them! We also, on occasion, ask children to read a text with and without expression. This is great fun. They like to do this in pairs! It certainly awakens their awareness of how expression affects making meaning, while also giving us a way to assess them in a formative way.

Technology Innovations (Written by Marcia Russell, Ph.D.)

The Fluency Development Lesson just begs that you allow students to record themselves reading their text. A wide variety of voice recording apps are available for all technology devices to do this. Here are three innovations.

1) Use a child-friendly recorder app such as Kids Recorder to have students record and rerecord their reading of the text. Provide an anchor chart or checklist for students of key fluency tips to listen for in their recordings. This anchor chart might include the following questions: “Is my voice at the right volume? Am I reading at the right speed? Does my reading sound smooth? Do I pay attention to punctuation? Does my voice change for important words and dialogue?” Have students repeatedly record themselves (5–7 times) and respond to these questions to themselves or on paper. Then have students listen to their first and their last recording and identify what they did to improve their fluency. Spot check students’ first and last recordings to hear the improvement. This activity can also be enhanced by having students work in pairs and take turns providing feedback to each other using the anchor chart.

2) Dr. Raskinski worked with Dr. Ed Fry to also promote fluency development through high frequency word phrases, which can be helpful for struggling readers. The words for study described in this lesson or high frequency word phrases such as “a long time” can be identified by students from the passages they are practicing. First introduce students to high frequency word phrases. Then provide each student with an electronic copy of their text in a word processing app such as Word or Google Docs. Ask the student to insert spaces or use the bold or highlight tool to separate the text into word phrases. For example, “Knowing I’m not alone, I double my steps and jog for home.” would become, “Knowing I’m not alone, I double my steps and jog for home.” The benefit of doing this with technology is students can check their work with the teacher and easily make any changes needed. As they become more fluent with the passage, they can also easily remove the spaces or highlighting to read the text without the phrases highlighted.

3) A variety of apps can be used to creatively engage students in repeated readings of the same text. Numerous free voice changer apps are available for iPads, Chromebooks, and Android devices that allow students to listen to their recordings with a fun voice filter applied such as baby, alien, or bee. In this way technology can serve as a motivator, especially as students become more familiar with their passages. Additionally, some sight word apps such as “Sight Word” allow students to record their reading, listen to it played back, and allow them to create custom word phrase lists. These can also be useful motivators for reluctant readers.

Children’s Literature Cited

Harrison, David. (1999). “Moose at Dusk” in Wild Country: Outdoor Poems for Young People. Honesdale, Pennsylvania: WordSong/BoydsMills Press.

Teacher Resources

Websites

Building Reading Fluency: https://achievethecore.org/aligned/building-reading-fluency/

This is a free collection of texts which you may access by grade level. Fluency targets, at least in terms of words-per-minute, are also available.

Books

Rasinski, T. (1974). The fluent reader: Oral reading strategies for building word recognition, fluency, and comprehension. New York: Scholastic.

Young. Sue. (2006). The Scholastic Rhyming Dictionary. New York: Scholastic

References

Rasinski, T.V., Padak, N., Linek, W., & Sturtevant, E. (1994). Effects of fluency development on urban second-grade readers. The Journal of Educational Research, 87(3), 158–165. doi:10.1080/00220671.1994.9941237

Rasinski, T.V., & Stevenson, B. (2005). The effects of Fast Start Reading: A fluency-based home involvement reading program, on the reading achievement of beginning readers. Reading Psychology, 26(2), 109–125. doi:10.1080/02702710590930483

Rasinski, T. (2017). Readers who struggle: Why many struggle and a modest proposal for improving their reading. The Reading Teacher, 70(5), 519–524.

Stahl, S.A., & Heubach, K.M. (2005). Fluency-oriented reading instruction. Journal of Literacy Research, 37(1), 25–60. doi:10.1207/s15548430jlr3701_2

Valencia, S.W., & Buly, M.R. (2004). Behind test scores: What struggling readers really need. The Reading Teacher, 57(6), 520–531

Young, C., Mohr, K.A.J., & Rasinski, T. (2015). Reading Together: A successful fluency intervention. Literacy Research and Instruction, 54(1), 67–81. doi:10.1080/19388071.2014.976678

Zimmerman, B., Rasinski, T., & Melewski, M. (2013). When kids can’t read, what a focus on fluency can do: The reading clinic experience at Kent State University. In E. Ortlieb & E.H. Cheek (Eds.), Advanced literacy practices: From clinic to the classroom (pp. 137–160). Bingley, UK: Emerald Group.