Techno Tutor Qu’est-ce que c’est? Reading Fluency.
This week I incorporated some technology into my one-on-one tutoring to develop reading fluency.
To quote N. Mather and Sam Goldstein (2001)
Reading fluency encompasses the speed or rate of reading, as well as the ability to read materials with expression. Meyer and Felton defined fluency as “‘the ability to read connected text rapidly, smoothly, effortlessly, and automatically with little conscious attention to the mechanics of reading, such as decoding” (1999, p. 284). The seven year-old’s mum reported that her daughter needed to work on reading with more expression. She has little difficulty reading the words of her reading book, but reads word for word with a nasal, monotone, sing-songy expression. I modeled each sentence, or part of each sentence, and had her repeat. We then recorded that sentence using Garage Band. Eventually we worked up to entire paragraphs. I played back each bit at first going back to the beginning of the passage. Near the end, we had to push to get it all recorded. She was pretty motivated to read and began to adopt some expression on her own. Later I mixed down the track into an MP3 and emailed it to her mum. I also told mum that I had modeled the reading and had the girl model me. Mum was thrilled with the results but I had to remind her the process was done in segments. Hopefully this leads to improved reading fluency.
