Learning to read fluently is like learning to play a piece of music. The foundational skills in reading are best developed through instruction followed by practice with support and feedback. As educators, we need to find ways to provide formative feedback to help our developing readers transition successfully from decoding words to fully understanding the text. In this article, you will learn about the importance of repeated reading in developing reading fluency and how to integrate it into the reading instruction in your classroom.
In my previous blog, I wrote about supporting reading fluency through assisted reading strategies which involve reading a text while listening to a fluent reading of the same text by another reader. I compared assisted reading with learning to ride a bike. Much like a child learning to ride a bike needs someone to hold them up, a developing reader often needs the support of someone reading alongside them.
In this blog, I describe another reading fluency strategy called repeated reading. My analogy for repeated reading is learning to play a musical instrument. If you ever took music lessons as a young person, you probably remember being assigned a musical piece and being asked to practice it multiple times over the next several days until your next lesson. When your next lesson came, you were likely asked to perform the assigned piece for your teacher. If you did well, your teacher very likely assigned you a new, more challenging piece to practice repeatedly until the next lesson. This process of repeated practice can be found in many of life's learning activities—learning to drive a car, play a sport, or cook a favorite dish. Repeated practice leads to automaticity in performing a task, allowing the learner to master the task and move on to more challenging ones. When a musical piece is learned to automaticity, the learner can attend to other aspects of playing the instrument, such as rhythm, tempo, and emphasis. Similarly, with repeated practice of driving a car to automaticity, the driver can then multi-task—listen to the radio or audiobook or engage in a conversation with a passenger. This notion of repeated practice is also true for learning to read. This process is called repeated reading; I prefer to use a more artful name—rehearsal.
Repeated reading refers to reading a text multiple times to achieve fluency. Research shows that repeated reading enhances fluency, which serves as a bridge to comprehension, improving understanding not only of the repeated text but also of new, unfamiliar ones. In other words, repeated reading strengthens overall reading proficiency.
Reading fluency is a critical element for success in learning to read. It has also been referred to as the often neglected or misunderstood reading competency. One reason for this is that fluency consists of two sub-competencies. The first is word recognition automaticity—the ability to read the word in texts so effortlessly that readers can devote their attention to comprehension, which is the ultimate goal of reading. The second sub-competency is called prosody or reading with appropriate expression and phrasing that reflects and even amplifies the meaning of the text.
How do we develop BOTH competencies at the same time? Some fluency programs focus on improving reading speed, which is a measure of automaticity. However, when speed is emphasized, expression and phrasing are often neglected.
The bigger question is how do we make repeated reading an integral part of the reading curriculum? As I mentioned earlier, when the goal of repeated reading is to improve reading speed, prosody is lost. It’s difficult to read with good expression and phrasing when trying to read as fast as possible.
Perhaps we can find an answer to the music analogy I began this blog with. When practicing a musical piece, the goal was not to get through it as fast as possible but to develop a performance that would be satisfying to an audience. Similarly, when actors practice or rehearse a script, they work on enhancing their expressiveness to ensure that the audience comprehends the words more effectively. Interestingly, as musicians and actors rehearse to deliver a meaningful performance, their ability to perform with automaticity also improves.
So, let’s move this notion into the classroom. If the performance of a text is the ultimate goal, then rehearsal (repeated reading) is the vehicle for developing a fluent performance. Are there texts, then, that are meant to be performed orally in a classroom for an audience? The answer is a definite YES! Reader's theater scripts, poetry and rhymes, song lyrics, famous speeches, and more are ideal texts for developing both components of fluency—automaticity and prosody.
Here's a five-day instructional sequence, 20–30 minutes per day, that my colleague Dr. Chase Young and I have developed for this rehearsal (repeated reading) and performance approach to fluency development:
Choose a type of text for performance at the end of the week—let’s say five poems by Shel Silverstein or some other notable children’s poet.
Monday: You, the teacher, read all the poems to the class with good expression. You may wish to display the poems to students using a document camera or other device. At the end of each reading discuss the content of the poem AND how you used your voice and pacing to add to the meaning of each poem.
Tuesday: Read all the poems chorally with students once or twice. Again, talk about how they can use their voice to enhance the delivery of the poem. Encourage students to choose one particular poem to rehearse and perform on Friday. Students can work solo, in pairs, or in small groups.
Wednesday: Students rehearse their assigned texts while you cruise the room giving feedback and encouragement. Additionally, encourage students to continue rehearsing at home.
Thursday: Have a dress rehearsal for Friday’s performance. Assign a master of ceremonies and provide additional feedback as necessary. Encourage students to continue rehearsing at home. Send out invitations to parents, your school’s principal, and others to attend Friday’s grand performance.
Friday: Students perform their assigned poems to an audience of classmates and others. Audience members are encouraged to applaud student performances to help students feel like the stars that they are.
Continue this routine in the following weeks using poetry by other poets, scripts, song lyrics, and other performance texts. Of course, this routine is not set in stone and can easily be adapted to any classroom environment.
Scientific research has shown that when done regularly, this instructional fluency routine involving rehearsal and performance not only leads to improvements in reading fluency but also to reading comprehension and to more positive attitudes toward reading.
The grand performance gives students an authentic reason for engaging in rehearsal—rehearsal that is aimed at the delivery of a meaningful and satisfying performance. In the same way that the school band or orchestra rehearses particular pieces for an eventual performance for an audience, we can encourage our classroom readers to move toward that elusive goal of reading fluency through regular routines of repeated reading and performance.
