Archive for Fluency

Reading specialists have often pitted phonics against holistic word recognition and whole language approaches in the war over how to teach children to read. However, a new study by researchers at New York University shows that the three reading processes do not conflict, but, rather, work together to determine speed. Read more about this research in this article from ScienceDaily.

California has ratcheted up the standards for students to be considered fluent in English, causing fewer of them than last year to meet the bar. Twenty-nine percent of the 1.3 million students who are labeled “English learners” scored proficient on the test that measures their acquisition of the language, according to results released recently by the state Department of Education. Last year, 44 percent were considered proficient. Read more of this article from The Sacramento Bee.

In many classrooms around the country, teachers are emphasizing, and periodically testing, students’ reading fluency, the current buzzword in reading instruction. But fluency consists of more than reading speed, the experts say. In too many cases better reading rates are being gained at the expense of other components of reading. Learn more in The Washington Post.