I’m always
optimistic that I will see student improvement at the beginning of a new school
year. If you work with young elementary
students, then you probably know the feeling of anticipation and trepidation
that the first round of DIBELS (Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy
Skills) benchmark testing brings each September. As scores come in, I see some of the
improvement in reading fluency that I was hoping for, but I’m also reminded
that fluency improvement is a year-long process for my students and the
challenge begins now.
As a
special education teacher with an interest in reading disabilities, my blog
will explore reading fluency research and instruction. There are many approaches to teaching
fluency, and therefore, I was excited when I came across an article comparing
three different approaches to launch my study of this topic. In Increasing
Elementary-aged Students’ Reading Fluency with Small-Group Interventions: A
Comparison of Repeated Reading, Listening Passage Preview, and Listening Only
Strategies, the authors looked at three small-group fluency interventions (Begeny,
Krouse, Ross & Mitchell, 2009). Using struggling fourth grade reading
students from one small-town school, the study design had the students
undergoing a rotation of three different interventions in a contained classroom
away from interruptions. (Begeny et al., 2009, p. 216-17).
The results
of the study showed effective interventions with the repeated readings method
having the most gains in fluency:
·
Repeated Readings used one student to lead the
reading of the passage as the other students read out loud along with him or
her. The instructor told any unknown
words to the group. After the first reading, a new leader took over and the
text reading repeated. Assessment took
place after two readings. (Begeny, et
al., 2009, p. 218-19). The students
showed more retained gains in fluency from the Repeated Reading method.
(Begeny, et al., 2009, p. 221).
·
Listening Passage Preview had the instructor
model reading a passage while students followed silently along with their own
copy of the text. The instructor had students show with a finger that they knew
the words being read to them. Right
after hearing the text, each student was taken to another room where he or she
individually read the text out loud (Begeny et al., 2009, p. 218). The
Listening Passage Preview method was second to the Repeated Reading method in
words correct per minute (WCPM) increases and was more effective in retained
gains for some students. (Begeny et al., 2009, p. 223).
·
Listening Only which had students listen as an
instructor read a passage twice (Begeny et al., 2009, p. 219) had the least
immediate and retained fluency gains of the three interventions. (Begeny et
al., 2009, p. 223).
This study
supports the practice of using small-group instruction to help increase reading
fluency by having students either listen or read passages several times. (Begeny et al., 2009, p. 224). As the most successful of the three, Repeated
Readings and Listen Passage Preview may work for Tier 1 and Tier 2 RtI for
students struggling with fluency.
(Begeny et al., 2009, p. 224). Additionally,
using Repeated Readings is an attractive option because it needs few resources
to impact the fluency needs of more students.
(Begeny et al., 2009, p. 224).
Here is the APA citation for the article:
Begeny, J. C., Krouse, H. E., Ross, S. G., & Mitchell, R. C. (2009). Increasing elementary-aged students' reading fluency with small group interventions: a comparison of repeated reading, listening passage preview, and listening only strategies. Journal of Behavioral Education, 18(3), 211-228. doi:10.1007/s10864-009-9090-9
Here's the link to the article:
https://ezproxy.western.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=eric&AN=EJ852478&site=eds-live
