Read Naturally: The
Fluency Solution
For over fourteen years, the Read Naturally strategy has been a highly
successful solution to the fluency problems of students nationwide. Read Naturally provides a method to motivate
students and accelerate their reading achievement and fluency.
The Read Naturally strategy combines three
powerful tools for improving reading fluency: teacher modeling,
repeated reading, and progress monitoring.
Picture in your mind one of your struggling readers.
You would probably describe that student's reading as word-by-word,
halting, slow, and laborious. Students with these characteristics
associated with their reading have a fluency problem. Educators
often describe reading problems in terms of fluency, and research
demonstrates a strong correlation between reading fluency and
comprehension. Consequently, teachers need to develop the fluency
of their students.
Struggling
readers do not read enough, which significantly impedes their
fluency development. Students become fluent readers by reading.
Yet in our elementary schools, students read an average of
only five to ten minutes per day. Struggling readers read
even less—hardly enough time to become proficient
at something as difficult as learning to read. Struggling readers
cannot or will not read independently. When asked to read quietly,
they sometimes pretend. Often these students cannot read the
basals and anthologies used in their classrooms. Also, poor
fluency is a self-perpetuating problem. Struggling readers
read so few words during their instructional and independent
reading time that the gap between them and their peers continually
widens.
Thus, it is clear that struggling readers need
to become fluent. To do so, they need a safe, structured, and
highly motivating opportunity to engage in reading on a daily
basis. Research supports each of Read
Naturally's three components of teacher modeling, repeated
reading, and progress monitoring as powerful ways to involve
struggling readers in the act of reading, to improve their
fluency, and to accelerate their reading achievement.
Teacher modeling, which consists of a proficient
reader modeling good, correct reading for a less able reader,
improves the reading fluency of students. Repeated reading
improves fluency as well. Repeated reading is a strategy in
which the student reads a story of 100 to 200 words many times
until able to read it fluently. Finally, daily monitoring of
student progress improves student achievement. The student
becomes more involved in the learning process, and the teacher
remains aware of each student's progress.
Combining teacher modeling, repeated reading, and
progress monitoring thereby creates a powerful tool to improve
the reading fluency of struggling readers. Read Naturally effectively combines these three strategies
into a powerful and successful program that has accelerated
the reading achievement and fluency of struggling readers nationwide
for over fourteen years.#
For
more information, please visit our website, www.readnaturally.com, or call 800.788.4085.
