Authors The Reading Ape
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An appallingly tardy response to such an important element of reading - apologies. The growing recognition of fluency as the crucial developmental area for primary education is certainly encouraging helping us move away from the obsession with reading comprehension tests.
It is, as you suggest, a nuanced pedagogy with the tripartite algorithm of rate, accuracy and prosody at times conflating the landscape and often leading to an educational shrug of the shoulders, a convenient abdication of responsibility and a return to comprehension 'skills'.
Taking each element separately (but not hierarchically) may be helpful but always remembering that for fluency they occur simultaneously (not dissimilar to sentence structure, text structure and rhetoric in fluent writing).
Rate, or words-read-per-minute, is the easiest. Faster reading speeds are EVIDENCE of fluency development but attempting to 'teach' children(or anyone) to read faster is fallacious (Carver, 1985) and will result in processing deficit which in young readers will be catastrophic.
Reading rate is dependent upon eye-movements and cognitive processing development along with orthographic development (more on this later).
Sorry - a bit of a brain dump post - but I'd appreciate any responses and/or directions towards any applicable research.@Suchmo83 @Mr_AlmondED @TimRasinski1 @ReadingShanahan @mrspennyslater @TheReadingApe @PieCorbett @ReadingRockets @teach_well
— Mr Leyshon (@RyonWLeyshon) February 4, 2021
It is, as you suggest, a nuanced pedagogy with the tripartite algorithm of rate, accuracy and prosody at times conflating the landscape and often leading to an educational shrug of the shoulders, a convenient abdication of responsibility and a return to comprehension 'skills'.
Taking each element separately (but not hierarchically) may be helpful but always remembering that for fluency they occur simultaneously (not dissimilar to sentence structure, text structure and rhetoric in fluent writing).
Rate, or words-read-per-minute, is the easiest. Faster reading speeds are EVIDENCE of fluency development but attempting to 'teach' children(or anyone) to read faster is fallacious (Carver, 1985) and will result in processing deficit which in young readers will be catastrophic.
Reading rate is dependent upon eye-movements and cognitive processing development along with orthographic development (more on this later).
This is a really interesting question and, in essence, asks what reading comprehension actually is. Beck et al. (1997) argued that it has historically been viewed as the extraction of information from the text and that this was assessed by the asking of questions AFTER reading.
They suggested that this approach had led to strategies-based instruction with the major drawback being that teachers focused on the strategy rather than the meaning of what is being read - eg. 'Success For All'. More
They posited that comprehension is the building of understanding; the construction of meaning from the text and that this takes place DURING reading. The role of teachers, therefore, was more dialogic. Queries rather than questions -
This is far more aligned to 'close reading' as articulated so gently and coherently by @Doug_Lemov in 'Reading Reconsidered' whereby students are supported by the teacher to use information to construct meaning rather than to merely collect pieces of information.
Through the articulation (through writing) of the development of understanding of meaning, students are able to express understanding and teachers are able to check that understanding, refer back to it and build upon it.
How else to do test for understanding if don\u2019t answer questions?
— Dr CharlieMain (@lomas_scot) December 31, 2020
They suggested that this approach had led to strategies-based instruction with the major drawback being that teachers focused on the strategy rather than the meaning of what is being read - eg. 'Success For All'. More
They posited that comprehension is the building of understanding; the construction of meaning from the text and that this takes place DURING reading. The role of teachers, therefore, was more dialogic. Queries rather than questions -
This is far more aligned to 'close reading' as articulated so gently and coherently by @Doug_Lemov in 'Reading Reconsidered' whereby students are supported by the teacher to use information to construct meaning rather than to merely collect pieces of information.
Through the articulation (through writing) of the development of understanding of meaning, students are able to express understanding and teachers are able to check that understanding, refer back to it and build upon it.