Fluency- How to Encourage Advanced Readers to the Next Step

I have a love/hate relationship with fluency.  I think many of our kids do as well.  We know that WPM is an indicator of a fluency, but so often the race to meet the 'goal' has left kids without a clue about what they've just read.  Truly, fluency should be an indicator of someone who has a command of what is read to the point of the words flowing from the voice with easy...fluency.

A number of years ago Rebecca and I were able to attend a regional literacy conference.  We sat in a keynote by Gay Su Pinnell (This is to whom I give credit, but Rebecca might correct me.) who spoke on fluency in reading.  Fluency was new educationese at the time.  What has always stuck with me is that the researcher played two tapes for the audience.  The tapes consisted of two different people speaking French.  One was of someone beginning to learn the language.  The other was a fluent speaker.  She didn't tell us which tape was which to begin with, but it was obvious which speaker/reader had a command of the language.  That moment has stuck with me.  It wasn't speed or the word barking of fluency that I remember.  It was the tone, rhythm, and inflection.  My ear knew when the speaker was talking about something joyful and when the speaker got serious for a moment.  There was no doubt that they speaker/reader understood what they were telling me, even though I wasn't sure what had been said.  :-)  Pinnell's points:  We know strong and fluent speakers/readers when we hear them and kids need practice to become fluent and competent.  I love this idea!

What I don't like is when a 7 year old comes to me with a gospeedracer mentality, 130 wpm, and a struggle to visualize anything they've just read.  I completely understand the pressure to get kids to the IRI goal, but the original goal of the IRI was strong readers and thinkers.  Thank you to all the teachers that I have the privilege to work with who continue to keep this in mind in spite of the pressure!!  WPM is not bad.  It's necessary.  Comprehension and inflection are the joy in fluency.

So here's a resource to support us in the work. Steve Peha is the author of the website Teaching That Makes Sense.  He's got a ton of great ideas, activities, and information about reading and writing with students.  One of the 'ebooks' he has on his site is What Can You Say About a Book?  I particularly liked his straight forward approach to 'advanced fluency'.  He had some really good ideas that I think you could implement with our readers..  I've included an excerpt below, but make sure to check out his website.

How Do Expressive Readers Read?

When I was in school, most of us read like little robots, droning on one word after another. I don’t know which was worse: reading out loud myself or having to listen to everyone else. I knew that expressive reading was what my teachers did when they read to us. But I didn’t know how to do it myself because I didn’t know the four things good readers do to express a text:

They change pitch. Expressive readers make their voices go up and down. They go up at the beginning of a sentence and down at the end (up slightly if it ends with a question mark). They also go up and down to differentiate the words of a speaker (often high in pitch) from those of the narrator (usually lower). Changes in pitch often help readers understand where different ideas begin and end.

They change rhythm. Expressive readers speed up and slow down when they read. They also take appropriate pauses—big ones at the end of a sentence, smaller ones in between, after commas, and also at logical points like phrase and clause boundaries. Changes in rhythm help readers understand how small parts of sentences combine to create a complete thought.

They change volume. Expressive readers say some words louder than others. In general, little words are said softer than more important words. Changes in volume are often used to create emphasis.

They change tone. Sometimes readers use a soft, warm voice; sometimes their voice is cold and hard. They do this to communicate different feelings—soft and warm usually means nice, calm, or even sad; hard and cold can mean scary, angry, or excited.

Of course, some of the most interesting things happen when reader’s break these rules in ways that add meaning to the text. By doing something different than what others may expect, in the context of doing other things conventionally, a reader can give unusual emphasis to important parts when reading aloud.