Fluency in the High School Classroom: One Teacher's Method

by Marcia W. Punsalan, Clay High School, Oregon City, Ohio

Here's a great urban legend: Asking students to read aloud will make them love to read.

No, no, no―here's a better one: Students will learn to read with fluency by reading orally in class. First Susie, then Heather, then Darren, then Jason―right up and down the rows! Not!

How about one more try: Required sustained silent reading will make students better readers. I don't think so.

OK, I admit it. I'm old. I'm from the generation when TV began―in fact, my family owned one of the first sets in Toledo. So what's my point? No MTV, no videos, no VH1, no MP3 players. Reading was prime entertainment. Children just plain read more. As one of six children, I remember my mother reading to us daily, in her words, "to keep us from killing each other."

That's precisely why I became a teacher, which, incidentally, didn't happen until after I turned 50. With a degree in microbiology, I never once thought I'd be a language arts teacher. But I always read for enjoyment. And I read daily to my own five children, who have become readers themselves. I remember as pleasurable the hours sitting beside my mother, listening. I now realize they were highly formative. It kind of grows on you, you know?

Now, into my classroom! Today's teens, sadly, are not natural readers. At least not many of them. Too much competition from other activities. During the process of becoming a teacher and for professional development since achieving certification, I've read theories and styles proffered by today's experts, including Jim Burke, Janet Allen, Cris Tovani, and others. Yes, I encourage sustained silent reading (SSR), but SSR is successful only after students achieve a certain level of fluency. It's hard to make sense of what you must read (especially if you don't particularly want to read it!) if you can't sort out the words, figurative language, setting, characterization, conflicts, point of view, tone, purpose, and punctuation. Reading is a skill that improves with practice, but it's difficult to practice that which we believe we are not good at or see no point in doing.

Frustrated and insouciant students give up and fake it. If they have not yet developed fluency, they wander in a jungle of words. Or sleep―with eyes open! They cannot proceed alone.

Now entering my thirteenth year as a language arts teacher in a suburban/rural high school, I'm well acquainted with Generation X, or whatever this decade's buzz word is. So how can I foster reading in a nonreading generation?

Modeling all aspects of reading and reading comprehension, even in high school, can get recalcitrant readers on their feet. Will they ever love to read? Maybe not, although some will. Those who struggle will be able to make sense of the written word when they can read fluently, because fluency is the key―and the perfect place to begin to improve reading skills.

Fluency is critical to students' success as readers, thinkers, and employees in whatever field they choose. I'm talking about two kinds of fluency: silent and oral. Reading is a developmental process. Readers need to hear language flow before they can read silently. Then they need to read silently before they can read aloud. That's the developmental order.

How awkward and scary it is to be asked to read aloud when one is unsure of one's own ability to read. You know, this is the kid who looks anywhere but at the teacher for fear of being the next one called on. How painful it is to listen to someone read aloud who cannot read well. We've all heard that!

Fluency is important to both comprehension and reading efficiency. When students hear frequent read-alouds, especially if they can follow the reading with a copy of the text, they learn context, pacing, inflection, pronunciation, the sheer beauty of language. They learn to visualize the story, to "play the movie in their minds." They begin to sense the power behind language, used and expressed purposefully, cogently, and correctly.

Yes, decoding needs to happen. Yes, vocabulary must develop. Yes, awareness of comprehension strategies helps. Yet without the opportunity to hear oral reading, students do not learn the tone, the tenor, the lilt, the nuances of language. Without listening to fluent oral reading, students do not become successful silent readers.

So ... that is my bent:

• To help students realize there is literature they will love to read; books they won't want to put down
• To help them learn that reading is necessary, useful, and entertaining
• To assist them on the road to comprehension by teaching them to read and heed punctuation, just as new drivers learn to read and heed road signs
• To make students aware that after they listen well enough and long enough, they will learn to read fluently themselves with comprehension

Yes, it should happen before learners are in their teens, but if it doesn't, it's not too late.

How do I begin? Simply by reading aloud. Again, and again, and again. If you are lucky enough to have readers, they too are likely to love hearing you read. If they prefer to read alone, select a corner where they can do their own thing. I've never had a reader in class who objected to additional free-reading time. And the more we read aloud to our classes, the better we teachers get at it, too.

Does it work? Absolutely! Students often come back to say how enjoyable the reading moments were. Many say that they had never heard stories read aloud before or that they had never understood what they read to themselves until they heard someone reading. A few claim they've learned reading is fun. Maybe one day they'll even read to their own children! Oh, dear―just what is going on here?

How do I assess whether I've been successful at achieving fluency? I watch faces and posture. Body language. The attitude thing! They tune out less. I see students begin to focus on language and listening. Sometimes we think aloud. Sometimes we write responses, using both collaborative and differentiated learning styles. Sometimes we predict what will happen next. Sometimes we just keep reading.

Eventually in the assessment process, there will be no question, as listeners and readers engage by choice in various and new styles of reading, and as what they read begins to appear in their thoughts, their writing, and their discussions. Reading and comprehending are rudimentary to lifelong learning, and without fluency, they never get off the ground.

Do I have students who fall asleep? Occasionally, but I wake them. Often I have students who ask to read aloud. What a lovely way to spend classroom moments, being transported to another time and place. But be careful, because once students get really involved, they begin wanting to bring in stories to read―and to write their own material to share orally. I mean, what's going on here! A culture of learners!

I teach tenth grade, so it's a no-brainer that I carefully align and teach according to Ohio Academic Content Standards. I'm not much into textbooks, but that's OK, because students aren't either. Fluency is not a standard on which students are tested for the tenth grade Ohio Graduation Test. While I routinely evaluate students' progress on standards, I consider fluency and oral reading classroom dessert. Students know it, and they eat it up.

So I read daily. I read from newspapers, novels, short stories, poetry (see the Suggestions for Great Read-Alouds list at the end of this article). It doesn't matter. Sometimes students make requests, maybe suggesting hot topics in the news or favorite books from childhood. Even Ashton Kutcher and Paris Hilton are fair game! By reading fluently to my students, I model over and over and over how successful readers make sense of the written word.

Do I get tired of reading? Yes. Did I get tired when I read to my own children? Yes. Did my mother get tired when she read to us? Probably! We all learned to read, though. We all learned to love reading. It was Mom's gift to us, and I hope it can always be my gift to my students.

I tell classes every year that to be enduringly important, wealthy, and successful, the first step is to command one's language well. Few people run before they walk, and even fewer communicate effectively before they read fluently.

Fluency expands vocabulary development, context awareness, and recognition of audience-tone-purpose. It promotes understanding of literary elements (exposition, plot, suspense, resolution) and engenders appreciation of figurative language (personification, similes and metaphors, repetition, hyperbole, irony). Fluency enhances the reader's ability to comprehend and to use informational, technical, and persuasive text, and it makes fictional literature come alive to the reader.

No matter the job or career, every student will achieve a higher measure of life success by being a stronger reader.

Stronger reading begins with fluency.
 

Suggestions for Great Read-Alouds

(The more variety, the better!)

• Newspaper articles that concern students
  • Consider news determinants including timeliness, proximity, prominence, consequence, conflict, human interest.
• Novels (segments)
  • YA/adolescent literature goes over well and often generates discussion and writing topics.
• Short stories
  • Usually three to four pages
• Poetry
  • With or without rhyme or rhythm
  • Sonnets, haiku
• Essays with teen appeal
  • Expository, descriptive, narrative, persuasive
• Diary-style writings
  • The Freedom Writers Diary with Erin Gruwell
  • Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl
  • Night, Elie Wiesel
  • Hiroshima, John Hersey
• Top ten lists
• Reviews and articles.
  • About entertainers or movies that appeal to students
• Plays
  • Best using a team of readers
• Folktales, myths, fairy tales, legends, lore
• Driver's education manual (tenth graders!)
• Instructions, riddles, puzzles

Marcia Punsalan is entering her thirteenth year of teaching at Clay High School, Oregon City Schools, and her fifth year as chair of the Language Arts Department. Marcia earned a BS in microbiology at Ohio State University and certification as a medical assistant from the American Association of Medical Assistants. She received certification in English education (7—12) from the University of Toledo. She is a member of the Reading Rangefinding Committee for the Ohio Graduation Test. A member of OCTELA, Marcia is the recipient of the 2006 Academic Freedom Award. You can contact her at orhs_mwp@nwoca.org.

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