fluency

[LaughingCat]

Fluency report (on the FCRR site)

Bold added by me.

 

In an earlier analysis (Torgesen, Rashotte, & Alexander, 2001) we provided substantial evidence that the single most important factor in accounting for individual differences in reading fluency among students with reading disabilities was the speed with which individual words are recognized. In other words, when students with reading disabilities are compared to one another on a measure of text reading fluency, the most important predictor of variability in reading fluency was a measure that assessed both speed of recognition for individual words and the range of words that could be recognized by sight.

 

For example, a recent longitudinal study by Schatschneider, Fletcher, Francis, Carlson, and Foorman (2004) examined the relative importance of phonemic awareness, rapid naming of letters, rapid naming of objects, letter naming, letter sound knowledge, vocabulary, and visual discrimination measured in kindergarten in predicting reading accuracy, fluency, and comprehension at the end of 1st and 2nd grades. The combination of phonemic awareness, rapid

naming of letters, letter naming and letter sound naming was a strong and significant predictor of all three outcomes at both grades. However, in this study, as in others (eg., reviewed in Allor, 2002), rapid naming of letters was a stronger predictor of fluency than was phonemic awareness when the variables were considered separately.

 

What should be clear from the analysis presented here, however, is that effective interventions for students struggling with reading fluency must substantially increase the number of opportunities these students have to accurately practice reading previously unknown words. Both techniques that provide reading practice in connected text (Hudson, Lane, & Pullen, in press; Myer & Felton, 1999) and those that provide practice reading words in isolation (Levy, 2001; Levy, Abello, & Lysynchuk, 1997; Tan & Nicholson, 1997) have been shown to improve reading fluency in struggling readers.

[Lecka]

My son is one who did not do letter naming fast enough on the Dibels screening. The Torgeson name is someone heavily involved with teh Dibels screening I think.

 

The thing about it, is that my son was having trouble associating the names of the letters with their sounds, b/c he was having trouble distinguishing sounds in the first place, and having a "stable neural model" of them. So for him that was a reflection of a problem with sounds and not a problem with rapid naming.

 

I have seen that brought up wrt the letter naming specifically (as a category of the Dibels), that it can mean rapid naming is not good, or it can actually point to a phonemic awareness weakness in sounds. Maybe it can mean more things than that, too, those are two I have seen.

 

Thanks for posting this, it is very interesting. Just adding my $.02. I did read a lot about Dibels when we were being told my son was not passing it and when we were just trying to figure out what to do.

[FairProspects]

Ds shows the exact opposite of these conclusions. His DIBELS scores were off the charts. He is awesome at single word decoding, several grade levels above his age. He still stinks at fluency and I doubt that doing more of these strategies would improve that. As Lecka pointed out, there may be a conflict of interest in these studies.

[LaughingCat]

FP- if I read it right, they are saying that for a struggling reader being good at decoding doesn't correlate with fluency - which really seems the opposite of the general advice ( everything seems to be phonemes & phonics) - that's one of the reasons I thought this paper was interesting.

 

As far as the "previously unknown words" - I actually didn't come to that same conclusion reading the paper lol! I included it because it seemed their only actual suggestion - but I will have to look at it to see if I can pick out where they went that direction and where I went a different one. I think overall they are saying automaticity is what is needed and what is harder for struggling readers.to achieve.

 

I think where I read it differently than their conclusion was - it seems to me that the automaticity should be focused on those specific words that are used most often - rather than a generic of "unknown words". I think this fits in with my personal struggle with the idea of "repeated readings" for fluency - DD does improve over repeated readings - but those improvements don't seem to generalize - but maybe part of the issue is that the words she may have added to her "repertoire" are not ones that she actually "hits" in her reading often enough for improvement to show. I will have to sleep on that idea and see if it holds up in the light of day -_-

[MistyMountain]

FP- if I read it right, they are saying that for a struggling reader being good at decoding doesn't correlate with fluency - which really seems the opposite of the general advice ( everything seems to be phonemes & phonics) - that's one of the reasons I thought this paper was interesting.

 

As far as the "previously unknown words" - I actually didn't come to that same conclusion reading the paper lol! I included it because it seemed their only actual suggestion - but I will have to look at it to see if I can pick out where they went that direction and where I went a different one. I think overall they are saying automaticity is what is needed and what is harder for struggling readers.to achieve.

 

I think where I read it differently than their conclusion was - it seems to me that the automaticity should be focused on those specific words that are used most often - rather than a generic of "unknown words". I think this fits in with my personal struggle with the idea of "repeated readings" for fluency - DD does improve over repeated readings - but those improvements don't seem to generalize - but maybe part of the issue is that the words she may have added to her "repertoire" are not ones that she actually "hits" in her reading often enough for improvement to show. I will have to sleep on that idea and see if it holds up in the light of day

 

I wonder about that. I know solid phonics instruction is touted as the best way to avoid reading issues like dyslexia. I wonder though if you have a child that is good with phonics but struggles with fluency if phonics the best way to address it. Fluency may be more of a visual memory thing where phonics is a audio thing.

 

I feel as though being able to recognize the most frequently used words rapidly would really help if they have the phonics part down but not fluency. I heard that doing shared reading or reading first then doing it together then having the child read also can help with fluency but all that is like teaching sight words.

[KathyBC]

I've read that a dyslexic child needs to see the same word many more times than the average child, in order to remember it. For my average dd, I can remember her going to bed surrounded by picture books. She would read and re-read them, have me read and re-read them. I realized that because reading was so difficult for my dyslexic ds, he was actually reading *less* than she was, when he needed to be reading *more*. This is where repeated reading, well below instructional level, can be so helpful. When ds was in grade 5, and reading below level Pathways readers every day, I knew he was gaining some automaticity with words like 'the'.

[Lecka]

I think Dibels is somewhat spot-on for my son. Given his scores when he was age 5.

 

I agree decoding is a necessary precondition for fluency (in general -- I am fine with some kids takin a different path -- but I accept this theory).

 

So I think the model of phomic awareness, decoding, fluency is good.

 

But it doesn't do anything for kids who are not part of this model.

 

I think my son would be a lot worse without Dibels and that model.

 

I am not sure it is the whole answer for him, either.

 

What I don't like is anything that comes across like -- "there is only one answer, if your child doesn't fit the model, that is not okay."

 

But overall I like Dibels and my son has benefited. I shudder to think when I would have started working with him without this screening.

 

I know the writers acknowledge that there are kids who are missed by the screening, and kids incorrectly identified as at risk.

 

Fair Prospects -- my son failed Dibels in k but has passed since fall of 1st grade. He is passing the oral reading fluency part. To pass that, you can still read below grade level.

 

So I think their standards are low in a way?

 

I don't quite get it, but I am overall positive on Dibels. It is definitely better than no screening and I am in favor of early intervention, so those two things will make me overlook a lot of details.

 

My son's school identified him in K but does do intervention until 1st grade. But his teacher wanted him to repeat K with no intervention. (to be fair he did work with an aide)

 

So I think it is one thing to look at it from a perspective of really low-level kids, vs kids who are performing fairly well but not really well.

 

Iow I think my son's average reading, would be something they counted as a succes, bc they would be comparing him to kids who were very far behind.

 

Knowing how much time I have worked with my son, I don't know how he could have ever gotten that much time in school.

 

Dibels is a school thing, so the constraints of school are a given. They can't plan on kids having a tutor after school or a parent who will spend time and buy an appropriate curriculum after school.

 

It is much better to have a flawed screening, I think, than nothing. Bc at least kids aren't just being passed on or called stupid.

 

 

 

[Lecka]

Misty Mountain,

 

There are interviews with a lot of researchers at childrenofthecode.org. There are definitely people there who agree with you and are looking for better ways to target instruction.

 

One is Maryanne Wolf, she talks about it in her interview.

 

 

[Lecka]

Reading her interview she definitely thinks that there are kids who are not well-served by the phonics approach.

[Tokyomarie]

Misty Mountain,

 

There are interviews with a lot of researchers at childrenofthecode.org. There are definitely people there who agree with you and are looking for better ways to target instruction.

 

One is Maryanne Wolf, she talks about it in her interview.

 

I haven't reviewed this interview for awhile, but my son's reading specialist used an adaptation of the RAVE-O program for developing my son's reading fluency. This program is targeted for younger students, but she has taken RAVE-O's principles for developing fluency and adapted them for older students. His reading fluency is still much lower than his extrememely high comprehension, but there was improvement in his pre- and post-therapy test scores.

 

Reading her interview she definitely thinks that there are kids who are not well-served by the phonics approach.

 

It isn't a matter of either/or/which one when it comes to components of reading instruction. It's both/and/all. Orton-Gillingham style phonemic awareness/phonics instruction is essential for the vast majority of dyslexic students to succeed in breaking the code for reading. But that's not the only thing that's necessary for strong reading skills. Fluency instruction is another component, as is targeted reading comprehension strategy instruction.

 

The IDA recently posted many of the handouts from the most recent Annual Conference. Check out the handouts from sessions F3 and F11- particularly F11 which has an emphasis on the role of prosody in developing fluency.

[FairProspects]

Wow, those handouts are fascinating! Ds actually has great prosody and comprehension, but no speed. He also needs more work on chunking syllables on longer words. So maybe the echo reading actually is the best suggestion for him because he can hear the phrasing and repeat it. I may think about the Latin layer too, and moving into more root work or word families.

[Tokyomarie]

Wow, those handouts are fascinating! Ds actually has great prosody and comprehension, but no speed. He also needs more work on chunking syllables on longer words. So maybe the echo reading actually is the best suggestion for him because he can hear the phrasing and repeat it. I may think about the Latin layer too, and moving into more root work or word families.

 

Megawords is what I used (and later what my son's reading specialist used) for working on multisyllable words. A student needs to be at least at a comfortable 4th grade level in decoding and spelling to get good benefit from it.

 

I used Vocabulary From Classical Roots- which has Latin and Greek roots- for vocabulary study at the upper middle school/high school level. I found this more helpful as a vocabulary study for my son than Wordly Wise because the lessons had a theme, rather than being a random selection of words. My middle daughter used both Wordly Wise and Vocabulary From Classical Roots.

[Lecka]

Thanks, tokyomarie!

 

This is very timely for me making decisions.

 

I have been doing fluency instead if moving on to the next level of decoding multi syllable words, and my son does have prosody issues. He is getting better at reading with expression but he does have trouble chunking phrases in a way that makes sense.

 

Very happy to see these slides!

 

I am not a big DIY person by principle, just living in a rural area. Just in case anyone was wondering, lol. I am just doing my best!

[KathyBC]

I haven't reviewed this interview for awhile, but my son's reading specialist used an adaptation of the RAVE-O program for developing my son's reading fluency. This program is targeted for younger students, but she

 

 

It isn't a matter of either/or/which one when it comes to components of reading instruction. It's both/and/all. Orton-Gillingham style phonemic awareness/phonics instruction is essential for the vast majority of dyslexic students to succeed in breaking the code for reading. But that's not the only thing that's necessary for strong reading skills. Fluency instruction is another component, as is targeted reading comprehension strategy instruction.

 

The IDA recently posted many of the handouts from the most recent Annual Conference. Check out the handouts from sessions F3 and F11- particularly F11 which has an emphasis on the role of prosody in developing fluency.

 

I enjoyed reading F11, thanks for sharing that. I thought it was sad that there was a need for the first three slides on page 7 - seems like common sense.

 

I haven't used Barton, but I believe that program does explicitly teach looking for phrases that answer who/what/when/where/why/how.

[LaughingCat]

F11 seems to me mostly about the mistake of focusing on speed, and using prosody and comprehension techniques to make sure you don't do that. DD certainly flubs her prosody, but it is generally due to focus on other factors, such as a hard word coming up or a misread word, not on a "need for speed".

 

However, the idea of practicing hard phrases before starting a passage (instead of just hard words as I've seen elsewhere) is a good one. Plus it's started me slowly working that long list of articles at that site :)

[Lecka]

I have done a couple of "word webs" with my son for vocabulary words, just having the word and writing associations with the word.

 

He really likes it! I have not "done vocabulary" with him before this, and I don't know of it is going to have a short-term effect on his fluency. But, I have got a great feeling about it for the long term.

 

I have known he does well with context, and it seems to be something very well-suited to him. Better than just giving a substitute word or quick definition for him, I think.

 

I am having second thought now about this summer. I think it may be better to wait to move on in decoding (to more multi-syllable words) and focus more on fluency and vocabulary a little longer.