What is fluency?
Reading fluency is the ability to read text accurately, quickly, and with proper expression (prosody), acting as a bridge between word recognition and comprehension. Fluent readers do not need to consciously decode each word, allowing them to focus on understanding meaning, rather than focusing on the act of reading itself.
Key components of reading fluency include:
- Accuracy: Correctly recognising and decoding words.
- Automaticity: Fast, effortless word recognition that doesn't rely on conscious attention.
- Prosody: Reading with appropriate phrasing, intonation, and expression that reflects the text's meaning.
Why does this matter?
Fluency is vital because it shifts cognitive energy away from decoding and towards comprehension. Of course, learning to decode accurately remains the principle skill when learning to read, but as children build their competency with decoding, fluency begins to develop alongside this. Once decoding is secure, improving fluency then becomes even more of a focus as it allows children to focus on the overall message of a text. It is not merely about reading fast; it is about reading at an appropriate pace to support understanding.
How do we ‘teach’ this in school?
- Repeated Reading: Reading the same short passage or book multiple times until it flows smoothly.
- Modelling: Listening to a fluent reader (the teacher or LSA) to hear what proper expression and pacing sound like.
- Choral or Echo Reading: Reading aloud at the same time as the adult, or repeating back phrases immediately after they are read.
- Wide Reading: Reading a large variety of different texts during our whole class reading sessions, to increase exposure to new vocabulary and sentence structures.
What can you do at home to support this?
- Continue to read as much as possible with your child outside of school. Even 5 minutes a day makes a big difference!
- Finger Tracking: Encourage children to follow the text with their finger to improve focus and word tracking.
- Encourage Expression: Remind children to make their voice sound like the characters and to pause at punctuation marks.
- Encourage your child to reread a sentence or a section, if they have found it tricky on their first attempt. This will allow them to rehearse this section and make meaning from it.
- Choral Reading: Read aloud in unison with your child. This helps them match their speed to yours and provides support for tricky words.
- Echo Reading: Read a sentence aloud with expression, then have the child "echo" it back immediately, mimicking your intonation.
- Re-reading the same book, especially in EYFS and KS1 as these re-reads allow children to build their fluency and enjoy success, increasing their motivation and confidence as readers.