"No Child Left Behind" and Reading Fluency—
A
Natural Fit!
The passage of the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 presents
a challenge for reading teachers across the country. This government policy
statement calls for increased accountability, more choices for parents
and students, and greater flexibility for states, school districts, and
schools.
A source of information to help reading teachers meet the challenge is
The National Reading Panel Report (published by the National Institute
of Child Health and Human Development, April 2000, www.nationalreadingpanel.org).
This research document provides a consensus based on the best judgments
of a diverse group of experts in reading research and reading instruction.
The National Reading Panel Report includes a full chapter summarizing
the evidence to support reading fluency as one critical component of a
balanced literacy curriculum.
Put Reading First (published by the National Institute for Literacy, September
2001, www.nifl.gov)
is an outgrowth of the National Reading Panel Report. It is an implementation
document that provides analysis and discussion in five areas of reading
instruction: phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary and text
comprehension. The Put Reading First guide has compiled the findings from
scientifically based research in reading instruction. This guide provides
research-based, practical methods to improve reading instruction.
Since 1991, Read Naturally
has been providing many of the tools to address the domain of reading
fluency as recommended in Put Reading First. In terms of specific suggestions
for building reading fluency, Put Reading First states, "repeated and
monitored oral reading improves reading fluency and overall reading achievement"
(p. 24). This combination is precisely the one Candyce Ihnot made when
she developed the Read Naturally
strategy as part of her Master's degree in 1989 and 1990. She combined
the research-proven strategies of teacher modeling, repeated reading,
and progress monitoring to create the highly successful strategy we know
as Read Naturally today.
The strong correlation of fluency to comprehension is another critical
point that Read Naturally
presenters have been making in our training seminars since 1991. The importance
of the correlation is clearly noted in Put Reading First: "Fluency is
important because it provides a bridge between word recognition and comprehension.
Because fluent readers do not have to concentrate on decoding the words,
they can focus their attention on what the text means" (p. 22).
The value of our latest product, GATE (Group and Tutoring Edition), is
reinforced with the following statement in Put Reading First: "Systematic
and explicit phonics instruction is particularly beneficial for children
who are having difficulty learning to read and who are at risk for developing
future reading problems" (p. 15). The .8 and 1.3 GATE products combine
the systematic and explicit phonics instruction with fluency work.
Put Reading First includes many more insightful comments for teaching
reading, and the importance of teaching fluency directly, as in the Read Naturally strategy. We recommend that you review Put Reading First
and share it with colleagues and friends as we all strive to create schools
that truly "leave no child behind."