When reading aloud in my college German class, I stumbled over vowel rules my dyslexia couldn't get a handle on. I can’t begin to describe how embarrassing it is to pronounce Deutsch (Doitsch) as Dootsh, especially when it’s an uttered accident and not a stale attempt at class clown. Had I been in high school, I may have played it cool by letting it pass over as an intended joke rather than a sincere problem. What the experience did, even at the young adult level, was make me dread being called on to read aloud; the long term effect? I never quite felt that I was as good at reading German as the other students and was delayed in my oral proficiency in the language –thus initially deterring me from continuing with that language study.
Although not all reading problems stem from learning disabilities and unfamiliarity with the language, lack of practice and appropriate training can make reading aloud a challenge for many students –even as late as high school. When students pause after two words or stumble over punctuation, letting them continue to read without correction will not be enough to help them become fluent readers. The oral reading challenge of the student must be broken down and addressed to bring struggling readers to oral fluency. Without oral fluency, there is no guarantee that there is an activated voice that can both decode and interact with text when reading silently.
On the simplest level, fluency is the ability to read words in the proper order correctly. Oral fluency incorporates prosodic and paralinguistic features such as speed, accuracy, stress, and tonality. So what can we do to mediate and improve on oral reading fluency? Some tricks I’ve used through mini-lessons focus on speed, pausing, accenting, intonation, and visualizing. Although there is much more to be offered in the study of fluency, these mini-lessons immediately address the most common mistakes associated with oral fluency.
Speed:
When a reader reads too slow, s/he may need to slow down. Sound strange? When a reader both previews and reads at the same time, not much information is processed. Although decoding work is being done, reading comprehension tends to lack. It is important when looking to improve a student’s speed to allow her to preview the reading and monitor herself for decoding issues before she reads aloud. This gives the student the ability to assess the reading before “performing.” Oral reading is more fluent when the student previews the reading before reading aloud.
A five-finger assessment is perhaps the easiest way to assess whether the problem is with the “performance” of reading aloud or if it is a textual problem. The general rule of thumb for readability is that if a student does not recognize (either by decoding or vocabulary) five or more words in five fingers, she is most likely reading below the level presented by the text. This assessment can be done quickly and is effective when deciding on what texts to use or how to break them down.
Another speed-enhancer is tracking the number of words a student reads per minute. There are several resources available to track and practice oral fluency through reading records, usually designed around paired or small group readings. Once the reader is appropriately paired with text, a partner times one minute, subtracts any miscues (added, deleted, mis-read words) and measures the student’s total correct words per minute. The readers switch positions, re-read a previous endeavor, and exchange suggestions related to the reading. If you want to avoid the purchase of fluency drills, you can check the student’s reading level by the state-wide assessments, and check the readability of your text using the Flesch/Kincaid readability scale. To do this, type in a few sentences and using the tools/grammar and spelling/ options/ readability. For example, this article is written at a 9.9 grade reading level.
When a student is staccato and/or reads straight through punctuation, she may have issues understanding where to pause appropriately.
To teach pausing, practice having students read simple, short sentences and clap once for a comma, twice for a period, and three times for a paragraph. Though students would never be expected to read with such dramatic pauses, clapping forces them to become aware that punctuation is there for a reason. It also allows students to be silly, which tends to make them more willing to cooperate as a group. The kinesthetic action of reproducing sound through beats and rests sets the tone.
To further this mini-lesson into written practice, one could provide exercises in sentence-combining and dissection. This will reify the student’s strength as a writer by helping perform the conventions associated with sentence structure.
Accenting:
Intonation takes the prosatic feature of accenting to a different level. A great resource can be found on page 322 of The Reading Teacher’s Book of Lists. By writing a short, simple sentence with basic punctuation and stressing a different word, you can show students how placing accent on a word in a sentence can change the meaning entirely; for example: “I asked you to turn on the computer,” when stressed in different ways, can mean:
I asked you to turn on the computer. Indicating who you asked
Vs.
I asked you to turn on the computer. Indicating s/he turned on the wrong machine
Vs.
I asked you to turn on the computer. Indicating s/he turned off the computer
I asked you to turn on the computer. Indicating s/he turned on the wrong machine
Vs.
I asked you to turn on the computer. Indicating s/he turned off the computer
When applied to a writing exercise, students learn to own tonality. By placing accent on different words using conventions such as italics, students become aware of how writers write with power and purpose. They learn that the entire meaning of the sentence has changed based on the shift in convention through one word.
Intonation:
Often, students have a monotonous voice when reading highly effective pieces. They pass by the excitement of an exclamation mark, drone out a question without lifting their voice, and pay no attention to the facial expressions that almost naturally occur when a good reader reads out loud. Although some students will never speak with intonation, some strategies can be taught.
In addition to pausing for a comma, period, hyphen, etc. students do not necessarily understand that an exclamation point makes them read faster; sometimes even louder. They need to know that a question mark might mean more than “I want to know the answer to something.” A question mark might be insecurity in a voice, or disbelief depending on the oral expression of the reader.
These are tools that need to be taught. For a proficient reader, intonation happens naturally. For one learning to use voice as text activation, the skill of intonation is a must. Perhaps the most effective way to teach punctuation is to go to the source of the greatest readers that students recognize and respect: Actors.
The cone-heads[1] might be a starting point for a demonstration of monotonous speaking. From there, a question mark could be taught as inquiry, but also as insecurity or character development. There is hardly a Meg Ryan movie where the female character speaks in anything other than question-marks. Her characters, for example, often become empowered by the end of the film and tend to change the tonality of voice as the plot is driven forward. The question becomes a statement, and the character has changed.
Saturday Night Live episodes provide a wealth of exclamation points. Although scant in libraries and movie rental locations, these skits come in handy given the short length of a skit and the flow incorporated through humor. You Tube, although sometimes limited by firewalls, provides snippets of television shows that might make for an excellent project to demonstrate speaking patterns and the affect of punctuation. Students should be encouraged to recognize intonation –specifically how it relates to punctuation, and learn not only what it sounds like, but also how to imitate that sentence.
To conduct this activity, mark each participant with a different color pen/marker and mark where s/he stumbles. Allow the next student to begin at the beginning attempting the same. Each student continues at her own (previous) stumbling block. The first student to read all the way through the paragraph wins. This makes for an excellent small group activity, and allows the winner of each group to compete using the teacher as referee.
By teaching and practicing intonation, students not only take risks with something that may be uncomfortable, but they begin to stick voices in their heads beyond their own. Students should be encouraged as well, to vary punctuation in their writing, and be aware of the purpose behind their punctuation usage. By hearing, speaking, and writing intonation using punctuation, the sense of ownership gives voice to the monotony and accelerates written and reading proficiency.
Visualizing:
Many students have difficulty discerning when dialogue between multiple characters takes place, and are therefore unable to vary the voice when reading aloud. The visual component that I’ve found works best to aide students who are challenged by multiple characters is to begin by providing a short selection with a large amount of dialogue. Highlight several copies in various colors so that each color represents a different student. This reader’s theatre allows students to see where dialogue picks up and drops off. This exercise works best when repeated and students are allowed to reflect on what they could do better after the dry-read is completed.
To follow up, it is important that students understand how quotations are used appropriately. It is surprising how many students overlook and misinterpret because of this misunderstanding.
Conclusion:
Although there are several ways that students can learn to read aloud more effectively, we must recognize that some students don’t have the natural flow of voice in their head. If they can’t re-create their voice in their head fluently, their reading will stumble and comprehension will lack. Fluency, in its most simple flow, must be addressed. Without. It we can. Hardly expect our. Students to read any. Differently than when. They readaloud.
These activities can be incorporated into any classroom. My suggestion would be to always provide a student the opportunity to pre-read what will be read aloud in class so that the reading speed assists in comprehension rather than just decoding. I would introduce pausing immediately, so that students become metacognitive about their voice at the moment of conception, so to speak.
These lessons could also blend with a simple side-line lesson (my term for those unintended lessons that act as a ten second review) about punctuation. This triadic literacy model of reading, writing, and speaking can provide an enriched grammar lesson that works in tandem with the current model of learning grammar through writing. Some of my favorite punctuation-based grammar lessons stem from Mary Ehrenworth and Vicki Vinton’s book, The Power of Grammar. In this book, students learn to punctuate with power and intention. By teaching students to incorporate what they read into their writing and speaking, students truly become empowered literary individuals.
The time for accenting becomes key when students perform a dramatic read. Because of the need for students to become actors when reading Shakespeare, Miller, etc. the most natural place to teach intonation and character intent is when introducing a play. These would provide advanced fluency lessons that a student could practice for competitive reading, or over dramatic comedy. Performance shows mastery of a text.
We need to provide students with the tools that come naturally to good readers. By providing them with lessons in fluency, we give them the confidence to read aloud and to read well. We reiterate this by ensuring that speaking and reading are tied to writing. Unless the student is able to express his/her understanding of the practice, there is no proof of ownership. Students must express what they take in, and this must happen both verbally and through written media so that the triadic literacy model meets completion.
Resources:
Ehrenworth, Mary and Vicki Vinton. The Power of Grammar: Unconventional Approaches to the Conventions of Language. NH: Heineman, 2005.
Fry, Edward B and Jacqueline E. Kress Eds. The Reading Teacher’s Book of Lists. Ed. 5. CA: Jossey-Bass, 2006.
Johns, Jerry L. and Roberta L. Berglund Eds. Fluency: Strategies & Assessments. Ed 3. DE: Kendall/Hunt PC, 2002.
Amanda Klimowicz Cabeza is a Reading Specialist at Londonderry High School in Londonderry, NH. She writes regularly for NHCTE and is a state representative for ALAN (Assembly of Literature for Adolescents), an NCTE affiliate. The article was originally submitted to CEL (Conference on Educational Leadership) in March of 2009.
[1] Saturday Night Live Skit in the 1970s
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