Common Core Standards and Best Practices Introduction: The ...

Reading 4-5: Road to the Common Core

Fluency ¨C Grades 4-5

Common Core Standards and Best Practices

Introduction: The Common Core

The Common Core State Standards (CCSS) represent a coherent progression of learning

expectations in English language arts and mathematics. They are designed to prepare K-12

students for college and career success.

The English Language Arts (ELA) K-5 standards focus on six strands:

? Three Reading strands ¨C Literature, Informational Text, Foundational Skills

? Writing

? Speaking and Listening, and

? Language.

Because the Reading (Literature and Informational Text strands) standards place equal

emphasis on the sophistication of what students read and the skill with which they read, they

speak to the importance of all students having ownership of the Reading: Foundational Skills

strand.

Fluency is a foundational reading skill. It is the ability to read accurately, effortlessly, and with

expression. Fluency provides an important bridge between automatic word recognition and

comprehension. Accordingly, the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) for fluency focus on

reading accurately with ¡°purpose and understanding¡± and at an appropriate rate, in order to

¡°support comprehension¡± of a variety of texts. Highly skilled teachers are able to develop

engaging lessons that support the development of fluency for all students.

Fluent reading, in and of itself, does not guarantee comprehension; however, comprehension is

far more difficult without fluency. If students/readers have to stop frequently to figure out

unknown words, the reader is far more likely to have difficulty in understanding what is read.

Fluent readers recognize words and comprehend at the same time. As fluency improves, the

reader is able to spend most of their attention on comprehension and little to no attention to

the decoding of words. When readers achieve appropriate grade level fluency, decoding and

word recognition skills are automatic and do not hinder the reader¡¯s understanding of what is

being read.

1

Fluency ¨C Grades 4-5

Common Core Standards and Best Practices

Reading 4-5: Road to the Common Core

Fluency ¨C Grades 4-5

Following are the Fluency standards for Grades 4 and 5.

Grade 4

Fluency

4. Read with sufficient accuracy and fluency to support comprehension.

a. Read on-level text with purpose and understanding.

b. Read on-level prose and poetry orally with accuracy, appropriate rate, and expression on

successive readings.

c. Use context to confirm or self-correct word recognition and understanding, rereading as

necessary.

Grade 5

Fluency

4. Read with sufficient accuracy and fluency to support comprehension.

a. Read on-level text with purpose and understanding.

b. Read on-level prose and poetry orally with accuracy, appropriate rate, and expression on

successive readings.

c. Use context to confirm or self-correct word recognition and understanding, rereading as

necessary.

2

Fluency ¨C Grades 4-5

Common Core Standards and Best Practices

Reading 4-5: Road to the Common Core

Fluency ¨C Grades 4-5

What is Fluency and How is it Taught

Fluency has three major components:

? Accuracy ¨C reading words correctly

? Rate ¨C reading words with sufficient speed to support comprehension, and

? Expression ¨C using appropriate volume, stress, pitch, and intonation, according to the

meaning of what is being read.

Accuracy

Fluency

Rate

Expression

Basic Components of Reading Fluency

Students in Grades 4 and 5 need to know specifically the area of fluency they need to focus on

and practice in order to become a fluent reader with full prosody. For example, suppose a

student has difficulty reading words that contain suffixes. If this student works to increase

his/her rate, the focus is in the wrong place. If this student worked instead on improving his/her

ability to quickly and accurately decode multisyllabic words with suffixes, his/her rate would

naturally increase due to fewer errors while reading.

Although teachers will check every student for fluency, only those having challenges with rate,

accuracy, and or comprehension need to practice reading for the purpose of improving fluency.

Students who are already reading fluently should be provided time to read alone, share books

of interest with other students and pursue topics of personal interest. The teacher continues to

work individually or in small group with students not yet fluent.

3

Fluency ¨C Grades 4-5

Common Core Standards and Best Practices

Reading 4-5: Road to the Common Core

Fluency ¨C Grades 4-5

Sequence of Fluency Instruction

The research concerning fluency clearly states a hierarchy in becoming a fluent reader. Current

evidence has identified 5-7 steps (depending on how they are grouped) in the development of

oral reading fluency. In order to move students to being a fluent reader¡ªnot simply an

automatic word caller¡ªthe skills presented in the hierarchy (see graphic below) must be part of

a student¡¯s instruction.

Fluency does not begin at the sentence or paragraph level. It begins with automatic letter

sound and letter name recognition, along with automatic recall of beginning sight words and a

growing number of decodable words¡ªmoving to the reading of phrases, sentences, and full

blown text with understanding.

Comprehension

Text Reading

Sentences

Phrases

Words

Letters

Sounds

4

Fluency ¨C Grades 4-5

Common Core Standards and Best Practices

Reading 4-5: Road to the Common Core

Fluency ¨C Grades 4-5

Four Types of Readers (when it comes to fluency)

Fluency

Slow

and

Accurate

Have the student

read aloud with the

teacher. Reread the

same text several

times.

Increase the rate of

reading ever-soslightly with each

reread, until the rate

is closer to grade

level norms.

Slow

and

Inaccurate

(too many errors)

Carefully examine the

types of errors the

student makes. Then

choose a text and

highlight the types of

words causing this

student difficulty.

Example:

If a student tends to

misread words that

contain suffixes, the

teacher would

highlight words

containing suffixes for

several days.

Fast

and

Accurate

If the student¡¯s

comprehension is on

target¡ªi.e., if it

meets grade-level

expectations¡ªthere

is no need to provide

any intervention at

this time.

Fast

and

Inaccurate

(too many errors)

Choose a text and have

the student read aloud

with the teacher.

Reread the same text

several times,

decreasing the reading

rate a bit with each

reread, until the rate is

at the high end of the

grade level norm.

Next, the student

reads the material

aloud himself/herself,

along with some new

sentences. This will

show whether the

errors were due to

reading too fast.

To correct errors, use

the same approach

that was used to

correct errors by

slower readers.

5

Fluency ¨C Grades 4-5

Common Core Standards and Best Practices

 ................
................

In order to avoid copyright disputes, this page is only a partial summary.

Google Online Preview   Download