Assessing students' fluency capabilities through the one minute fluency test provides us with a limited view of fluency that only measures students that can't read accurately or quickly. While this information is useful, we need a deeper understanding of why students are dysfluent and the effects of time on students' reading. This requires us to take deeper approaches to fluency assessment which includes: getting the most from one minute measures, including fluency with other assessments, tying assessment to instruction, and assessing endurance. Endurance is an important part of the fluency equation. The reading provides several techniques for instructing fluency and endurance. One of the techniques that stuck out to me was increasing expectations. I found this interesting because it dealt with how many struggling readers avoid reading altogether because the effort and attention needed for reading simply exhausts them. This can be fixed by first lowering the text level and then gradually increasing your expectations of the reader through a set number of pages to be read or another "must do" assignment and gradually extending it over time. I think it is important to do this because many students get lost due to reading avoidance and thus have a hard time catching up to the rest of the class. Creating a deeper understanding to reading fluency is vital because it helps us, as teachers, see that readers struggle and why they struggle.
Can you think of any other ways that teachers can create a deeper approach to fluency?
As a teacher, how would you motivate a student who struggles with reading avoidance?
In dealing with a struggling child's exhausting view on reading, I really liked an example given in the reading that used reading a very easy level book to younger students. This allows the struggling reader to feel as though they are not reading "baby books" as well as helping their fluency and endurance by practicing the easy text. As a teacher, it is important to provide easier text that interest the child so they feel not as bored and exhausted by what they are reading. It is also important to comprehend why the child is having problems and to work from there.
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