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Fluency-Oriented Reading Instruction
Journal of Literacy Research, Spring 2005 by Stahl, Steven A, Heubach, Kathleen M
Can a Fluency-Oriented Reading Program be Sustained Over a Full Year?
As noted above, four teachers developed and implemented the program during the first year of this study. Three of the four teachers were highly experienced, each with more than 10 years of teaching experience, mostly at second grade. The fourth teacher, in her fourth year of teaching, had spent the previous year teaching in a supplemental program aimed at low-income children. All of these teachers would consider themselves traditional. They all had experience using basal reading programs and preferred to use such programs.
The second year we expanded our group to 10 teachers. Our intention was to determine whether the success of the program could be replicated with teachers who did not participate in its creation. All of the teachers participating during the first year also continued during the second year.
At the end of the first year, the four teachers reported that they were very happy with the procedures involved and would enthusiastically continue them into the second year. Of the 10 teachers who participated the second year, all have reported that they used the procedures in the following year, even though we were no longer providing direct support. These results suggest that the program was sustainable over the course of the school year and that teachers maintained their enthusiasm about the instruction.
Does the Program Lead to Gains in Oral Reading with Comprehension?
The results of our two-year study of fluency-oriented reading instruction suggest that reorganizing instruction so as to stress fluency had positive effects on second-grade children's growth as readers. These effects were most pronounced on children entering the second-grade year reading at a primer level or higher. Over the two years of the program, all such children but two were reading at grade level or higher by the end of the year. As might be expected, this program had its largest effects on measures of rate and accuracy in reading. Its effects on comprehension were significant because we used a measure of oral reading and comprehension as a pretest and posttest. We do not report results from standardized comprehension measures because of the difficulty of accessing such results without a treatment control group. However, according to the teachers, the effects on standardized reading comprehension tests were less pronounced and did not seem to differ from those of previous years.
What Happens During Partner Reading?
Partner reading was the only aspect of the program students mentioned when asked what they liked about the reading program. We found that having children choose their partners rather than having them assigned on the basis of reading ability was the most efficacious approach. In our study, such an arrangement did not lead to significantly higher achievement. Instead, the oral reading levels after repeated readings were very high for all arrangements. However, the management aspects of partner reading seemed most efficient when there was a friendship between partners. There were fewer disturbances, and off-task behaviors were more easily handled.
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