All Together Now!

            Fluency instruction requires multiple opportunities to practice text.  Choral reading is one efficient intervention that allows multiple students and even the whole class to practice together. 

            Paige (2011) describes one teacher’s use of whole-class choral reading (WCCR) as a strategy to support her struggling readers.  WCCR is a technique whereby a group or all students read aloud together from the same passage along with the teacher who models how to say words, the reasonable speed, and proper expression.  There are studies that show it works to increase oral reading fluency. (Raskinski, 2003; Samuels, 2006, as cited in Paige, 2011, p. 435).

            Paige described the flexibility of WCCR.  Many types of text can be used including short stories, poems, historical speeches, and content books. (Paige, 2011, p. 435).  Teachers can support comprehension and vocabulary as well by introducing the text and going over challenging words beforehand.  All students should have a copy of the text or be able to see it on an overhead or smart board.  The teacher sets the pace and instructs the students to follow her lead. Corrective feedback is directed to the whole group so that no student is singled out.  This encourages even reluctant readers to participate in reading. (Paige, 2011, p. 436-37).

            Teachers can maintain interest with variations like echo reading of sentences and volley reading back and forth between split groups.  Choral reading can even be used to practice fluency with assignment instructions or other short readings that would usually be read aloud by a single student. (Paige, 2011, p. 437). With its versatility, WCCR is a simple strategy that subtly incorporates needed fluency practice into the daily classroom routine.

APA Citation to the article:

Paige, D. D. (2011). "That Sounded good!": using whole-class choral reading to            improve fluency. The Reading Teacher, 64(6), 435-438.

Link to the article:

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To group or not to group – that is the question for reading fluency interventions.  One-on-one reading interventions tend to be the most effective, but working with one student at a time is time-intensive.  Is there a better way to do it?

Begeny and Silber (2006) looked at smaller and less time-consuming group interventions and compared them separately and in combination to determine how best to efficiently meet struggling readers’ fluency needs.  Their study grouped together third grade students with below grade level fluency skills and limited instructional sessions to approximately 7 to 12 minutes. (Begeny and Silber, 2006, p. 185-86).  The following interventions were used in combinations of 2-3 components: word list training (WLT), listening passage preview (LPP), repeated readings (RR). The word list training used words from the daily training passage that was also used for the other components. Reading retention also was tested immediately after reading a passage and again two days later.  (Begeny and Silber, 2006, p.188).

The study data confirmed the following:

• The intervention with all components, WLT, LLP and RR was the most effective for increasing immediate and retained fluency gains.

• Each student read substantially more words correct per minute (WCPM) after receiving any of the intervention groupings versus receiving no interventions.

• Group-based reading fluency interventions using all or a combination of the components appear to be a workable choice to one-on-one fluency intervention model. (Begeny and Silber, 2006, 190-192).

The implications for instruction from the study are encouraging:

• Effective interventions can serve more students in less time, on average approximately 9 to 12 minutes.

• Using an effective multi-component package may eliminate the time needed to determine which intervention works best with which students. (Begeny and Silber, 2006, p. 193).

There were several limitations to the study, namely, all of the students were in the same grade and from the same school. Even so, Begeny and Silber give initial credence to the idea that teachers can do more with less – and that grouping for fluency interventions may be the answer.

Here is the link to the article:

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APA citation:

Begeny, J., & Silber, J. (2006). An examination of group-based treatment packages for increasing elementary-aged students' reading fluency. Psychology in the Schools, 43(2), 183-195.

Three Fluency Interventions Compared

            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:

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