Reading Fluency

Is she still reading aloud to you?  I like my kids reading aloud to me on a daily basis until they are reading fluently.  After that, I try to have them read aloud at least once a week.

My oldest two didn’t enjoy reading on their own until they were a bit older… around age 9 or 10.  They would read books I assigned or read for a few minutes at bedtime, but they didn’t really seem to enjoy it until that age.  My 8yo is still working on fluency and doesn’t care to read on her own.

I have a daughter who has really struggled every step of the way on reading, so it was recommended I read the passage to her before she reads it to me.  I was horrified at first because I thought this would teach her not to pay attention, and what about practicing decoding, etc.    However, the mom pointed out to me, I was going to help her see how to read a sentence fluently, how to naturally pause, etc. Plus I might give her some positive input on some tough words.   My daughter had heard me read all of my life, but I think because reading was so difficult and she had to work so hard at the words, she couldn’t possibly think about fluency. She loved me reading first, and we still use it.  Her fluency has increased and she still has to read the words.  The passages are too long for her to memorize.  She was already comprehending and her narrations from other passages I read to her only once throughout the day, ie history etc, are still good.

some great suggestions here… taking notes myself!

My daughter is 9 and has been struggling with learning to read, we had her evaluated for dyslexia (not tested) and they said she had markers but I’m not 100% sure… anyhow we’ve been using Barton and while she gets the lessons she still very much struggles with fluency, so I’ve been working a ton with her on that. Having her read aloud to me daily, and doing fluency drills.  I think the fluency drills are really helping, I turned my nose to them at first because they seemed so “drill and kill” but man she loves them, and like I said I’ve seen an improvement with her fluency.  So at the start of our reading lesson I give her a sheet of 48 words and her read as many as she can in 2 minutes, I mark the ones she gets wrong and we keep score… at the end of the reading lesson we do it again (only this time she’s “warmed up” so to speak.)  I will do the same word list until she can read all of it without mistakes in 2 minutes, then move on to another list. Just a suggestion, may be something to try… we use the words tied to the lesson she is working on, but really you cold use anything.

For readers my DD loves the AAR readers and the elison readers.

You’ve got some great suggestions so far! Has she completed a phonics program? Does she have any trouble areas with multi-syllable words, etc? I’d do an evaluation (there are lots of free ones online) to make sure she hasn’t got any gaps that need to be addressed. Then I’d continue as suggested and keep reading to her and having her read aloud. Keep in mind also, that reading aloud is a separate skill and takes more work than reading silently. One thing we’ve used that has really helped fluency is books on cd. Our library lists them as a kit and you get the cd and the book so the child can listen to the story and follow along and then read a section, or more, aloud to you. If my DD makes a lot of mistakes, I’ll have her listen to the CD again and then read to me. She’s never needed to hear it more than twice. When we started we used the Usborne early chapter books. They were below reading level and easy for her, which gave her confidence, than we moved into harder selections. Now she enjoys having some of her books on CD so she is able to learn unfamiliar names and places (Narnia, for example).