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Peoria School District #150 • Illinois State University • Department of Special Education • Department of School Psychology
Mail: Campus Box 5910 Normal, IL 61790-6380 • Phone: (309) 438-2165 • Fax: (309) 438-8699 • TDD: (309) 438-3467

READING FLUENCY INTERVENTIONS

Repeated Readings

The student reads through a passage repeatedly, silently, or aloud, and receives help with reading errors.

Materials:

Preparation:

Steps in Implementing This Intervention:

Step 1: Sit with the student in a quiet location without too many distractions. Position the book selected for the reading session so that both you and the student can easily follow the text.

Step 2: Select a passage in the book of about 100 to 200 words in length.

Step 3: Have the student read the passage through. (Unless you have a preference, the student should be offered the choice of reading the passage aloud or silently.)

Step 4: If the student is reading aloud and misreads a word or hesitates for longer than 5 seconds, read the word aloud and have the student repeat the word correctly before continuing through the passage. If the student asks for help with any word, read the word aloud. If the student requests a word definition, give the definition.

Step 5: When the student has completed the passage, have him or her read the passage again. You can choose to have the student read the passage repeatedly until either the student has read the passage a total of 4 times (Rashotte & Torgesen, 1985) or the student reads the passage at the rate of at least 85 to 100 words per minute (Dowhower, 1987; Herman, 1985).

References:

Dowhower, S.L. (1987). Effects of repeated reading on second-grade transitional readers' fluency and comprehension. Reading Research Quarterly, 22, 389-406.

Herman, P.A. (1985). The effects of repeated readings on reading rate, speech pauses, and word recognition accuracy. Reading Research Quarterly, 20, 553-565.

Rashotte, C.A. & Torgesen, J.K. (1985). Repeated reading and reading fluency in learning disabled children. Reading Research Quarterly, 20, 180-188.

Rasinski, T.V. (1990). Effects of repeated reading and listening-while-reading on reading fluency. Journal of Educational Research, 83(3), 147-150.

Website: http://www.interventioncentral.org

Paired Reading

The student reads aloud in tandem with an accomplished reader. At a student signal, the helping reader stops reading, while the student

Materials:

Reading book

Preparation:

The teacher, parent, adult tutor, or peer tutor working with the student should be trained in advance to use the paired-reading approach.

Steps in Implementing This Intervention:

Step 1: Sit with the student in a quiet location without too many distractions. Position the book selected for the reading session so that both you and the student can easily follow the text.

Step 2: Say to the student, "Now we are going to read aloud together for a little while. Whenever you want to read alone, just tap the back of my hand like this [demonstrate] and I will stop reading. If you come to a word you don't know, I will tell you the word and begin reading with you again."

Step 3: Begin reading aloud with the student. If the student misreads a word, point to the word and pronounce it. Then have the student repeat the word.  When the student reads the word correctly, resume reading through the passage.

Step 4: When the child delivers the appropriate signal (a hand tap), stop reading aloud and instead follow along silently as the student continues with oral reading.   Be sure occasionally to praise the student in specific terms for good reading (e.g., "That was a hard word. You did a nice job sounding it out!").

Step 5: If, while reading alone, the child either commits a reading error or hesitates for longer than 5 seconds, point to the error-word and pronounce it. Then tell the student to say the word. When the student pronounces the error-word correctly, begin reading aloud again in unison with the student.

Step 6: Continue reading aloud with the student until he or she again signals to read alone.

Hints for Using Paired Reading

Consider using paired reading for peer tutoring or as a parent strategy. Paired reading is a highly structured but simple strategy that can easily be taught to others-including to school-age children and youth. If you have a pool of responsible older students available you may want to create a cross-age peer-tutoring program that uses paired reading as its central intervention. Or train parents to use this simple reading strategy when they read with their children at home.

References:

Topping, K. (1987). Paired reading: A powerful technique for parent use. Reading Teacher, 40, 608-614.

Website: http://www.interventioncentral.org

Echo Reading

  Teacher/Parent/ strong reader reads a passage and students then echo read the same passage

Materials

Steps in implementing the strategy

1. Teacher reads a short section of a selected passage with proper phrasing and intonation.

2. Student immediately reads the same line of the passage

3. The echo reading continues until the selected passage is complete.

Reference:  

Hall, Susan L. 2006. I’ve DIBEL’ed now what? Designing interventions with DIBELS data. Longmont, CO. Sopris West.

Sentence Repeat

At the start of the reading session, say to the student, "If you come to a word that you do not know, I will help you with it. I will tell you the correct word while you listen and point to the word in the book. After that, I want you to repeat the word and then read the rest of the sentence. Than I want you to read the sentence again. Try your best not to make mistakes."

When the student commits a reading error (e.g., substitution, omission, 5-second hesitation), immediately pronounce the correct word for the student and have the student repeat the word correctly. Then direct the student to reread the entire sentence in which the error occurred. The student then continues reading the passage. (If the student repeats the original reading error when rereading the sentence, you should again pronounce the word correctly and have the student repeat the word. Then continue on.) NOTE: To avoid too many reading interruptions, do not correct minor student errors (e.g., misreading or omitting the or a, dropping suffixes such as -s, -ed, or –ing).

Reference:

Singh , N.N. (1990). Effects of two error-correction procedures on oral reading errors: Word supply versus sentence repeat. Behavior Modification, 14, 188-199.

The Carbo Method

Carbo (1989) developed procedures for recording books to achieve maximum gains in fluency. A brief description of how to record books using this method is described:

  1. Decide which pages you will record on each cassette side.
  2. Because every tape cassette has about 5-8 seconds of lead time, let the tape run for that amount of time before starting to record.
  3. Speak into the microphone from a distance of approximately 6-8 inches.
  4. Convey your interest in the book through your voice.
  5. Begin by reading the story title, providing a brief introduction, pausing, and then telling the student which page to turn to. Pause long enough so that the reader has enough time to turn pages and look at pictures.
  6. Tell the student when to turn the page. In order not to distract from the content, soften your voice slightly when stating a. page number.
  7. Read the story in logical phrases, slowly enough so that most students can follow along but not so slowly that they become bored.
  8. End each tape with, "Please rewind the tape for the next listener. That ends this recording." This prevents students from continuing to listen to the blank tape.

As general guidelines, record 5-15 minutes at a typical pace for instructional level material and have the student listen to the tape once. For difficult material, record no more than 2 minutes at a slow pace with good expression and have the student listen to the passage two or three times. After listening, have the student read the passage aloud.

References:

Carbo, M. (1989). How to Record Books for Maximum Reading Gains. Roslyn Heights NY: National           Reading Styles Institute.

Website: http://www.ldonline.org/ld_indepth/reading/reading_fluency.html

'Word Attack' Hierarchy

In this approach, the instructor prompts the student to apply a hierarchy of word-attack skills whenever the student misreads a word. The instructor gives these cues in descending order. If the student correctly identifies the word after any cue, the instructor stops delivering cues at that point and directs the student to continue reading. NOTE: To avoid too many reading interruptions, do not correct minor student errors (e.g., misreading or omitting the or a, dropping suffixes such as -s, -ed, or -ing).

Here are the 'Word Attack' Hierarchy instructor cues:

  1. "Try another way." This cue is given directly after a reading error and alerts the student to the fact that she or she has misread the word.
  2. "Finish the sentence and guess the word." The student is encouraged to make use of the sentence context to discover the correct word pronunciation.
  3. "Break the word into parts and pronounce each one." The student is directed to sound out the segments of a word independently.
  4. Using an index card, the tutor covers over parts of the word and each the student to sound out only the part of the word that is visible. This approach teachers the student a method for reducing the amount of visual information in each word.
  5. "What sound does '___' make?" As the tutor covers selected parts of the word with an index card, the student is directed to use phonics information to sound out the word.
  6. "The word is ___." If the student cannot decode the word despite instructor support, the instructor supplies the word. The student is directed to repeat the word and to continue reading.

    References:

    Haring, N.G., Lovitt, T.C., Eaton, M.D., & Hansen, C.L. (1978). The fourth R: Research in the classroom. Columbus, OH: Charles E. Merrill Publishing.

Other Reading Fluency Activities and Tips

Using Voice Mail to Promote Reading Fluency at Home

(teacher suggested using this activity during the summer months).

  1. Send home appropriate books, which the students have read with you and or peers.
  2. Ask students to read the book out loud multiple times. When they are comfortable they should read the book to their parents/guardians several times.
  3. Ask the student to call school voicemail number on the weekend and read for 3 minutes or
  4. Ask parents to leave message about how the process is going.

    Reference:

    Vaughn, S., Bos, C., & Schumm, J. S. (2003). Teaching exceptional, diverse, and at-risk students in the general education classroom (3 rd ed.). Boston: Allyn & Bacon.

Tips

Teach student to “rerun” text.

This refers to rereading a sentence or part of it in order to re-establish flow. This can be easily taught with modeling and, and then prompting (“let’s return to the stat of this paragraph to get the flow back.”)

Language Experience Stories

These student-generated stories can build fluency (when based on their own experiences). Cutting up sentence and having students re-assemble them helps with fluency, especially when phrases are grouped together and punctuation is pointed out.

Use Top Down Marker

Use of top down marker (for example, an index card covering the previous sentences) so that the student can see the text that’s coming.

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