According to Jan Hasbrouck, “fluency is not a skill” but rather the “outcome […] of skillful reading” (Loftus & Sappington, 2023). Even though we sometimes work on fluency in and of itself, students will not be able to read fluently if they cannot read accurately; thus, it is important to complete diagnostic assessments to determine if there are underlying word recognition deficits that are impacting fluency and to provide instruction in any deficient areas (Loftus & Sappington, 2023). However, building foundational word recognition skills alone is often not enough for striving readers to achieve fluent reading, and this is where fluency-targeted interventions are warranted.

To help students improve their reading fluency, Jan Hasbrouck suggests working on fluency at all levels of complexity: word-level, phrase-level, and passage-level (Loftus & Sappington, 2023). Research shows that an integrated approach to fluency instruction is most effective. The word and sentence-level strategies listed below are not intended to be used in isolation as the sole means of fluency remediation: students also need to have ample opportunities to practice applying these skills at the passage and text-levels.

Additional information about using an integrated approach to fluency instruction can be found at:

• Melissa & Lori Love Literacy podcast: “Building Fluency with POSSUM” 
• “The More You Know: How Teaching Multiple Aspects of Word Knowledge Builds Fluency Skills”. 

Word-Level Interventions 

Dr. Melissa Orkin, Dr. Maryanne Wolf, and colleagues (2022) provide this key guiding concept for working at the word-level to build fluency: “[t]he more students know about a word […] the greater their automaticity when retrieving its meanings and roles in text” (p. 5). Put another way, we can support students in reading words more automatically and effortlessly by helping them to strengthen their knowledge of words and their understanding of how different components of word knowledge are connected. Orkin et al. (2022) describe the components of word knowledge using the acronym POSSuM: phonology (sounds), orthography (letters), semantics (meaning), syntax (sentence structure), and morphology (word parts) (p. 4). Additionally, Maryanne Wolf explains that the u of POSSuM refers to “understanding the alphabetic principle” (Loftus & Sappington, 2024).

Use Rapid Word Recognition Charts

 A “rapid word recognition chart” or “rapid word chart,” also sometimes called a rapid automatized naming (RAN) chart, is a “matrix” in which a small set of words is listed in rows and each word repeats a few times throughout the page (Mather & Wendling, 2024, pp. 162-163). To practice rapidly recognizing words, students are asked to read the words in the RAN chart aloud while being timed, generally for 1 minute. Students can also practice reading the words in the chart multiple times to increase their speed. 

Page 10 of this Fluency Word Recognition Chart from Crafting Minds provides an example chart for four target words. Mather and Wendling (2024) also reference a free Rapid Automatized Naming (RAN) chart generator from the Neuhaus Education Center that allows the entry of six words and then generates several associated RAN charts. 

Teach Rime Patterns 

A rime pattern is the vowel and subsequent consonants in a word. For example, the rime in the word “stop” is /ŏp/. The consonants preceding the rime are called the onset. Words that contain the same rime pattern will rhyme (e.g., ‘stop,’ ‘top,’ and ‘shop’), and these rhyming words together are sometimes designated as part of a word family. According to Orkin et al. (2022), providing instruction in recognizing onsets and rimes functions as a “visual chunking” strategy that helps students read words more automatically (p. 7). 

Teach Morphology

Teaching morphology means providing instruction focused on the meaningful parts of words (e.g., prefixes, suffixes, roots, base words). For example, the word restarting has three morphemes: a prefix (re-), a base word (start), and a suffix (-ing). Morphology work may involve discussing the meanings of prefixes and suffixes (e.g., re- means “to do again” and -ing indicates the present progressive tense), identifying how they change the meanings of words (restart means “to start again”), adding them to base words to create new words, etc. Similar to rime patterns, teaching students about word parts like prefixes and suffixes supports word-level automaticity because it “helps [readers] chunk common orthographic patterns” (Orkin et al., 2022, p. 8). 

Identify and Teach Words With Multiple Meanings

Multiple-meaning words are words with two or more possible meanings. For example, depending on the context, the word table can mean a piece of furniture (e.g., The family gathered around the kitchen table), a visual for organizing information (e.g., Please send me the census data organized into a table), or the action of setting something aside for later (e.g., The committee will table the budget discussions until further notice). Identifying words with multiple meanings and teaching students how to use them will support reading fluency because it increases students’ knowledge of words and enables students to more automatically retrieve the meanings of these words when reading them (Orkin et al., 2022, p. 5).

Phrase and Sentence-Level Interventions

Chunk Phrases

One way to support fluency at the phrase or sentence level is to teach students about the ways words are grouped together into meaningful phrases. This may involve explicitly teaching students about different types of phrases (e.g., prepositional phrases like in the water; subject phrases like the productive team members, or predicate phrases ran quickly and quietly) and other grammatical constructions, and then showing students how to apply this knowledge to break down sentences into syntactic “chunks.” Students can practice reading isolated phrases individually, as in Dr. Timothy Rasinski’s Fry Instant Phrases. Students can also use “Sail reading” as a way to break down sentences part by part for practice. Identifying punctuation can go hand in hand with this phrase chunking work and can also support students in using accurate prosody (e.g., rising intonation for questions when a “?” is identified).

Teach Parts of Speech 

Teaching parts of speech (e.g., nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, etc.) includes explicit instruction in and practice with identifying the roles that words play in sentences. Orkin et al. (2022) recommend teaching students about parts of speech because this “both supports the automatic retrieval of words as students read sentences and correlates strongly with their reading fluency and comprehension (Mokhtari & Thompson, 2006)” (p. 8). As with word-level work, working on parts of speech is not meant to be used as an isolated fluency drill; rather, it is intended to be implemented in conjunction with work on other components of word knowledge and integrated with connected-text practice. To learn more about ways to include parts of speech instruction in your fluency work, see “The More You Know: How Teaching Multiple Aspects of Word Knowledge Builds Fluency Skills”.

For more information about phrase and sentence-level fluency practice, check out this blog post: Building Contextual Reading Fluency Through Phrase-Level Practice.

An example of an integrated fluency instructional approach–one that includes developing reading accuracy and automaticity at multiple levels of complexity (word, phrase, sentence, and text levels)–may involve the following: 

*Note: this particular example assumes students are working on the sound /oy/ as represented by the oi and oy letter patterns, but the same activities are applicable to other phonics patterns as well.

• Provide instruction in all aspects of word knowledge (Orkin et al, 2022). This may include asking students to do some or all of the following:
  • Break apart the sounds in words with /oy/ (phonology)
  • Determine how the sounds map onto the letter patterns in /oy/ words; if possible, identify common rime patterns (e.g., -oil) and have students read and spell words containing these rimes (orthography)
  • Discuss the meanings and potential multiple meanings of words with this pattern; for instance, coil can mean “to coil rope” or “a coil of wire” (semantics)
  • Identify the parts of speech when words such as toy or coil are used in sentences (syntax)
  • Add prefixes and suffixes to the words, such as toys, toyed, coiling, or uncoil, and discuss the resulting meanings (morphology)
• Provide multiple practice opportunities for students to read and spell words with the /oy/ sound in isolation, as well as in phrases, sentences, and text
• Include timed activities involving /oy/ words, such as rapid word recognition charts (see above) and/or multiple rereadings of word lists for increased automaticity
• Have students chunk the phrases in written sentences containing words with the /oy/ sound
• Ask students to read aloud from texts that include /oy/ words. This may include repeated readings of a text while students are timed. For more information about repeated reading and other strategies for supporting fluency at the text level, see Fluency Interventions at the Text and Passage Levels

References

Loftus, M. & Sappington, L. (Hosts). (2023, July 7). Science of Reading beyond phonics: Fluency instruction and assessment with Jan Hasbrouck (No. 153) [Audio podcast episode]. In Melissa & Lori Love Literacy. Great Minds. https://literacypodcast.com/podcast?podcast=Buzzsprout-15157927

Loftus, M. & Sappington, L. (Hosts). (2024, December 5). Building Fluency with POSSUM with Melissa Orkin and Maryanne Wolf  (No. 211) [Audio podcast episode]. In Melissa & Lori Love Literacy. Great Minds. https://literacypodcast.com/podcast?podcast=Buzzsprout-15743362

Mather, M. & Wendling, B.J. (2024). Essentials of dyslexia assessment and intervention (2nd ed.). John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Orkin, M., Vanacore, K., Rhinehart, L., Gotlieb, R., & Wolf, M. (2022 May). The more you know: How teaching multiple aspects of word knowledge builds fluency skills. The Reading League Journal, 3(2), 4-13. https://nj.dyslexiaida.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/18/2024/10/Gillis-NJ-IDA-Fluency-Handouts.pdf