Using Fluency Components to Help Struggling Readers Achieve in School 1 Using Fluency Components to Help Struggling Readers Achieve in School Kelsey Heisler EDUC 340 Professor Heather Schilling May 7, 2010Using Fluency Components to Help Struggling Readers Achieve in School 2 Abstract It is said that “teachers are the world’s miracles”, this is true because they improve the most struggling of students even those students who dislike reading. This research paper discusses factors that contribute to student’s success in reading. These factors include; fluency, phonics, strategies, literacy studies, interventions, and many more. Students, cooperating teachers, and children’s parents depend on teachers because they have a way of making others feel attainable, and they can solve problems and fix issues. Teachers in schools are imperative, because they support the learning needs of children. In order for a teacher to live up to this standard of helping struggling readers, they must start with fluency. Fluency is often contributed to the fear of reading for children, which can be obtained through support, strategies, and goals.Using Fluency Components to Help Struggling Readers Achieve in School 3 It is said that “teachers are the world’s miracles” this is true because they improve the most struggling of students even those students who dislike reading. School does not always come easy to children, and teachers are constantly present to be their support system. A young girl in second grade struggles with reading, and she knows that according to the clock it is that time of the morning; reading time. The teacher tells the class to turn to page 61, and they take turns reading paragraphs. She starts in the back of the room, and slowly makes her way to the young girl. Anxiously, the girl counts how many people must read before it is her time to read. She quickly glances at the corresponding number of paragraphs, and spends the filling minute reading her paragraph over and over, to make sure that she does not mess up when her time comes to read. Her turn finally comes, and she reads perfectly. Whew, she lets out a big breath of air, and she continues with her day, not understanding she missed the context her peers just read before her. Each time she gets extremely nervous with butterflies fluttering in her stomach; when her teacher makes her read out-loud in front of the class. The educator uses different techniques to help the struggling reader to strive to improve fluency and in turn become a stronger reader. Students, cooperating teachers, and children’s parents depend on teachers because they have a way of making others feel attainable, and they can solve problems and fix issues. Teachers in schools are imperative, because they support the learning needs of children. In order for a teacher to live up to this standard of helping struggling readers, they must start with fluency. Fluency is often contributed to the fear of reading for children. The components of reading include; fluency, phonics, strategies, literacy studies, interventions, and more are essential to keep in mind when working with struggling readers, so they can achieve to their highest potential. All children need to read fluently in order to succeed in school which means they canUsing Fluency Components to Help Struggling Readers Achieve in School 4 read efficiently, a crucial component for children to assess comprehension (Tompkins, 2010, p.206). “Fluent readers better comprehend what they read because they automatically recognize most words and can apply word-identification strategies when they come across unfamiliar words (Tompkins, 2010, p.206). Fluency involves three components: accuracy, speed, and prosody (Tompkins, 2010, p.209). Accuracy is the ability to recognize familiar words automatically, without any conscious thought, and to identify unfamiliar words almost as quickly. Stopping every couple of words or sentences to decode text is not fluency, an indication that the selection is too difficult. “Reading speed is just as important; it refers to the rate at which students read; to read fluently, students need to orally read at least 100 words per minute“ Tompkins says proudly. Most students reach this point by third grade. Prosody, the third component consists of the ability to orally read sentences expressively, with appropriate phrasing and intonation. Prosody is imperative to teach from the beginning so children can practice right away, with inflection in their voice. From Tompkins (2010), techniques to show fluent reading include “model reading-have students repeat after teacher, discuss how to read fluently, reading aloud in groups, echo reading, books on tape, reader’s theater, paired repeated reading, daily practice, and reading to animals“(p.208). “These are just a few, the more practice children get with reading aloud fluently, the better their comprehension skills will be” declares Compton-Lilly. Teachers need to give student every chance that they can to pick up and open a book. This in turn will help them read fluently, and they can hold their head high with confidence. To help with fluency techniques mentioned earlier many teachers use minilessons, and word walls. Minilessons contain short lessons that are taught for concepts that children do not grasp. Often students need further help reiterating a point. Word walls in the classroom are popular, and commonly used. Children can look at the wall, know the word, and soon they writeUsing Fluency Components to Help Struggling Readers Achieve in School 5 these words without looking, because we use them every day in vocabulary. Other commonly used words comprise of low and high frequency words. Knowing common words help with building fluency. “Low frequency words are word wall words that children know like the back of their hand. High frequency words are words that they do not recognize or can phonetically sound out, but they will know in their later vocabulary“(Tompkins, 2010, p.209). Words encompass great meaning behind them and important to recognize them for reading purposes to assist with fluency. Many aspects of why children do not read fluently by grade level include; “reading disabilities,