June 9th Reflection

Fluency was the main topic for our readings and it really took an indepth look of defining what reading fluency is while also determining which components are assessed in multiple ways. The readings state that a fluent reader is, "any person who reads smoothly without hesitation, and with comprehension." Fluency consists of four main components that is dicussed in the article, "One-Minute Fluency Measures: Mixed Messages in Assessment and Instruction." The four components are accuracy, rate, prosody, and comprehension. The artcile focuses on explaining each individual compenent and then later discussed how students could be assessed along with the misconceptions of instruction. In the article, "Creating Fluent Readers," they talk about how there can be certain students with accurate reading but that sometimes hesitate on words due to vocabulary when reaching higher grade levels. As teachers how do we counteract this in our classrooms....that's the answer that we must figure out in these readings. It's surprising to me to read these atricles and the book on fluency and to see how important it has come, "taking front seat in discussions." However, I have heard more about the teachers and reading coaches losing their jobs because there is not enough money in the budget to afford the programs they offer. Fluency is what leads students to read successfully, so why are schools not approaching this concern more intently. As teachers, we aren't instructing students how to read fluently. The articles discuss ways of assessing and teaching fluency. One of the best ways to encourage and teach fluency is model those behviors. We as teachers need to understand and read fluently ourselves before we can expect students to gain the knowledge and become fluent readers. I agree that we should pursue this and allow children to have the opportunities to understand what it means to be a fluent reader. Being able to read fast doesn't mean your fluent, you have to have processed the text and comprehended the text. As a future teacher, I have gained information that I need to understand the important topics in education and model those in the classroom. The word fluency can be very misleading when you don't understand all the components within it's meaning. We not only need to educate our students on these issue but also make sure that teachers know and understand issues like fluency, in order to be better prepaired in the classroom.