Fluency is due for a rebranding campaign. One of the most commonly misunderstood concepts about fluency is that it has to do with speed, but fluency isn’t about reading fast. At the heart of fluency is the skill of automaticity. We need children to be able to lift words off the page automatically and with ease so they can devote their cognitive energy to the task of comprehension. This doesn’t mean fluent readers are recognizing words as whole units; they are still processing each letter of the word, but the process by which this happens for skilled readers is incredibly fast; it’s automatic! Fluent readers also read with expression and proper phrasing, understanding the role of grammar and syntax in what they read.

A recent study in 21 elementary schools compared two instructional practices to address fluency: repeated readings and varied reading. In repeated readings, students read the same passage 3 times. In varied readings, students read three different passages, each using similar words. The outcome: students improved their fluency more with varied readings. Why? Researchers believe that varied readings force students to pay more attention to the internal spelling structure of each word, thus increasing their accuracy and automaticity. Repeated reading can lead to students memorizing, rather than building their decoding muscles.

You may have noticed that some students can read accurately, but very slowly, and others read slowly and struggle with accuracy. Interestingly, the same approach has been found to be effective with both types of challenges. Decoding interventions, including a focus on teaching spelling patterns to the point of automaticity, improved reading accuracy, fluency, and reading comprehension for both groups of students. Spelling patterns include various short and long vowel and/or vowel digraphs. For example, for the pattern of long a spelled with a silent e, students would practice recognizing flashcards with la_e and _ane and then cape. Decoding instruction combined with practice of automatic recognition of spelling patterns for the win! This all makes sense when we remember that when we are working on fluency we are building our students’ ability to recognize words effortlessly and instantly.