Does your child read like a robot? Don’t despair. Reading fluently takes time and practice to develop. In this post, we’ll help you sort out what fluency is and how it will help your child become a strong, confident reader. We’ll also share some practical tips to help them become more fluent. Your child will learn to read easily and fluently if you begin early to build a strong foundation for literacy. We love using bite sized teachable moments with our children to make learning playful and fun. 

What is Reading Fluency?

A fluent reader can read smoothly and accurately with appropriate expression. You might have heard the word prosody used by educators or speech coaches. That’s just a fancy word for expression which happens when we use the rhythm and sounds of speech to read out loud. Phrases, sentences, and punctuation help a reader use rhythm and sound to translate written text to speech.

When your child learns to read fluently, they will find reading easier and more enjoyable. Confident readers are motivated to read more and take on the challenge of reading harder books. When a child reads more, they become a stronger reader, which leads to motivation to read more. It’s the circle of learning that happens in so many areas of life. Practice increases skill which increases enjoyment in the activity, and leads to more practice. 

Why is Reading Fluency Important?

Fluency reduces cognitive load. It frees the brain so your child can group words together to understand what they are reading. After all, that is the goal of reading. There is no point to just saying words if you don’t grasp their meaning. 

Reading requires a lot of decoding of words and thinking about what groups of words mean. Once your child builds a dictionary in their head of instantly recognized words, they will be able to put more effort into comprehending what they read. Children build this dictionary through alphabetic knowledge by learning letter sounds and shapes.  

Did you know that memorizing a massive list of sight words will not help your child become a strong reader. You can learn more about what sight words actually are and how children learn them in this post: What is a Sight Word? 

How Can I Help my Child Read More Fluently?

And now for the practical side of helping your child become a more fluent reader. You can help your child learn to read fluently by modeling during shared reading:

1. Add expression to your voice
2. Emphasize important ideas 
3. Change the loudness and softness of your voice
4. Read faster and slower
5. Use punctuation to help you with pauses and tone. 

Shared reading also helps build background knowledge. When your child begins reading on their own, having a large vocabulary and background knowledge makes it easier for them to decode unfamiliar words. When decoding is easier, more brain power is freed up to think about the meaning of the text. 

Helping your child develop phonemic awareness is the first step towards fluent reading. Sounds in speech flow together, so you have to help your child tune their ear to the individual sounds in words. These sounds are called phonemes and there are ~44 of them in the English language. 

Our Alphabites game pack contains phoneme cards and 26 active games to help your child learn these sounds. It also includes 32 hilarious Tongue Twisters and over 400 words for practicing phonemic awareness. Learning the sounds will help them quickly move to reading CVC words and decodable books.

When you read with your child, point out punctuation and show them how you use it to help you read.

1. Periods and commas tell us where to pause.
2. Notice how my voice goes higher at the end of the sentence when it has a question mark.
3. Exclamation marks tell us to emphasize the words by saying them a little louder.

Using sentence structure and punctuation to increase fluency helps a reader build stamina for reading longer and more complex texts. 

Children also love it when you use different voices for characters in the story. Some voices are big and fill the room and others are small. Using different voices to convey feelings will help your child connect to the character’s emotions. When a reader uses expression to read, it creates excitement and enjoyment for the listener.

We know you are probably tired of reading your child’s favorite books over and over, but doing so is a way to help your child build fluency. When a child is familiar with a story, they can focus on using punctuation and adding expression to their voice to make their reading sound interesting and engaging. 

You can also help them develop fluency by reading a line in a book, and then have them re-read that line. Just pick a line every once in a while so you keep the story moving while providing modeling and practice.

It also helps build fluency if you have your child read along with you. Your reading should be slightly ahead of theirs, so they hear and mimic your expression, as they try to keep up to you. 

Having your child read out loud is another way to help them build fluency. They can read to you, another family member, a younger sibling, or even a favorite doll or stuffed animal. This helps them to read in a way that more closely resembles spoken language. 

Summary

Fluent reading flows smoothly, uses expression, and generally sounds like spoken language. It happens when a reader instantly recognizes words and uses punctuation to make appropriate pauses and sound variations. Fluent reading is an important skill for improving comprehension. It takes time and practice to read fluently. You can help your child become a more fluent reader by:

1. Modeling fluent reading
2. Teaching the Alphabetic Code - letters/sounds
3. Talking about punctuation marks

We are happy to support you in helping your child learn to read. Contact us today with your fluency or other learning to read questions. 

Sources

Álvarez-Cañizo, M., Suárez-Coalla, P., & Cuetos, F. (2015). The role of reading fluency in children’s text comprehension. Frontiers in psychology, 6, 1810. https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/psychology/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2015.01810/full

Hudson, R. F., Pullen, P. C., Lane, H. B., & Torgesen, J. K. (2008). The complex nature of reading fluency: A multidimensional view. Reading & Writing Quarterly, 25(1), 4-32. https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Paige-Pullen/publication/233130327_The_Complex_Nature_of_Reading_Fluency_A_Multidimensional_View/links/00b49521ba8d43b45e000000/The-Complex-Nature-of-Reading-Fluency-A-Multidimensional-View.pdf 

Kim, Y. S. G. (2015). Developmental, component‐based model of reading fluency: An investigation of predictors of word‐reading fluency, text‐reading fluency, and reading comprehension. Reading research quarterly, 50(4), 459-481. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4590774/pdf/nihms670106.pdf 

Young, C., Mohr, K. A., & Rasinski, T. (2015). Reading together: A successful reading fluency intervention. Literacy Research and Instruction, 54(1), 67-81. https://www.shsu.edu/academics/education/graduate-programs/documents/journal-articles/19388071.2014.976678.pdf