Fluency and Word Recognition

Literacy is an extremely important part of any child's education, especially since it is the building block for other subject areas. Some key aspects of literacy include word recognition and fluency. With word recognition, students should be able to successfully decode and notice words automatically. As students start to learn and notice high frequency words or words that occur often in text, they become fluent. It is through exposure and practice reading these words that enable students to become fluent. Since students are having many encounters with the same words repeatedly they become familiar and comfortable with many words and the letters and sounds that compose them. As a result students continue to build their literacy skills, helping to them succeed both in and outside of school.

In my current placement, the best way I have seen word recognition and fluency improve has been through simply reading the same few books for a week or two, then gradually incorporating higher reading level books into each student's coursework. This method involves students reading the same words over and over again, helping to make them not only see and read the words, but also helps them hear what the word is. Although this may seem repetitive, it truly helps students familiarize themselves with words and increasing their fluency in using and noticing these words. As students become comfortable reading a particular level of books, then they move up a step, exposing them to knew words. Over time, students become familiar with high frequency words as well as become fluent readers. This activity really improves more than one specific area in literacy for students and from my observations of my 2nd graders, it truly helps them become more fluent students.