I have noticed that teachers are talking about subitising like it’s going out of fashion and I’m sure this wasn’t even in my vocabulary early in my career. I find children’s learning fascinating and this was an excuse to dig a little deeper.

As Doug Clements said, “Subitizing: What is it? Why teach it?”

He had me hooked in his opening sentence: “Three pictures hang in front of a six month-old child. The first shows two dots, the others show one dot and three dots. The infant hears three drumbeats. Her eyes move to the picture with three dots”.

It turns out scientists have been exploring this for hundreds of years and of course, they disagree.

Some purport that subitising is a necessary pre-cursor to counting – such as Fitzhugh in 1978, who found that while she could find some children able to subitise sets (very young children and very small sets of 1 or 2) without being able to count them, none of them could count any sets that they could not subitise.  This led her and many followers to conclude that subitising must come first.

But there are many eminent minds who believe that children use counting in order to develop the skill of subitising and in this camp, you will find our good friends Gelman and Gallistel who have been instrumental to our understanding of counting for many years. Many teachers will tell you that it was only when they read their five principles of counting that they began to understand how number should be taught.

Do you know what? I love a good discussion but I think I am happy to know that subitising and counting are inextricably linked and I want to understand them both to give my children the best chance!

So let’s pick it apart to understand it better:

Breaking it up a little bit, we know that there is ‘perceptual subitising’ and ‘conceptual subitising’ that lay behind the skill.

 

 

So this is just “recognising” values and this is what the six month old baby was doing when she moved her eyes to the three dot pattern but we know this only works with small sets, usually up to 4 or 6, unless they are in a very familiar pattern (like dots on a die or a tens frame).

 

 

Conceptual subitising, on the other hand, requires arithmetic strategies – recognising smaller values within larger ones – like subsets – and then knowing what to do with those to find the larger total.

So you don’t want one without the other; you need to be able to recognise small values to see them within a larger set and children who cannot subitise conceptually are at a distinct disadvantage in arithmetical processes.

I wanted to think about this and its implications for teaching, because in the end I’m not a scientist; I’m a teacher. Did my provision in the classroom teach conceptual subitising?

Some of you may already be aware of a collaborative project between my colleague and me from the maths team, with members of the early years team, to produce “Essential Foundations for Counting” in which we unpick subitising and what progression looks like for this and 3 other skills:

 

 

The criteria that map the progression for each skill takes place across four stages that we decided to call NOTICE, COPY, EXTEND and CREATE because it feels like all learning begins when children start to notice things. We then have the opportunity to deepen their confidence and grow their independence to be creative with what they have learned.

If perceptual subitising is ‘recognising’ then I’m going to want to start with interesting conversations.

Let’s look at 3 in different ways, for a bit of challenge, and to make sure the conservation of number is also growing. Look at these alongside some familiar patterns that they can visualise more easily than three saucepans and then “find” 3.

 

Of course, the re-modelling of the language is the real teaching here and I’m going to follow it up with…

 

 

 

Knowing that this is just the first step in their progression, I will continue to explore, ask questions and re-model their language to point out matching arrangements when they “copy”. Then ask more provocative questions to encourage the children to “extend” their thinking so that they will begin to recognise smaller amounts within a larger arrangement of marks or objects. I can see that many children will begin to respond to the prompts and will start to show evidence of conceptual subitising in their learning. With enough opportunities for exploration and enough variation in the learning experiences, I feel confident that most of our children in Reception will learn to use their group recognition skills to partition and combine numbers, reaching the “create” stage of the progression and using their conceptual subitising skills to work arithmetically.

We realised just how important this is in our teaching when we devoted a whole booklet to subitising but what practitioners are saying is that they are really only just beginning to see how important this learning is but have found a great freedom in giving it the value it deserves and immersing the children in rich and broad learning opportunities just to talk about values up to 4!

If we allow sufficient time and depth to model and remodel the language of this hugely significant learning, maybe conceptual subitising will look more reachable in Reception.

Those of you familiar with the learning in ESSENTIALmaths for Year 1 will already know that we begin the year with this very learning in the second learning sequence.

The key concepts for this sequence include the exploration of patterns in numbers through subitising. Initially starting with familiar dot patterns, like those found on dice and playing cards, pupils will begin to see how numbers can be regrouped in different ways but still conserve their value. Using the tens frame provides a structure for this and helps pupils to begin to notice complements to 10.

This year we have published the “missing bridge” - Reception ESSENTIALmaths.

 

 

Once again, at the beginning of the Reception ESSENTIALmaths, we explore the perceptual and conceptual subitising. In this first sequence, having recognised values in familiar patterns, children will begin to compare quantities by recognising equivalent and different totals that are not always in familiar patterns. There is a focus on their mathematical language again of course. 

The vocabulary of more, less and equal is used to describe quantities they can see and compare.

 

 

 

 

Clements and Samara explore children’s developmental paths in learning mathematics through learning trajectories where they ask:

• What objectives should we establish?
• Where do we start?
• How do we know where to go next?
• How do we get there?

They track the developmental progression from age 1 to 5 (and beyond) and match it to “instructional tasks” and when you read this you can see that the understanding of the five principles of counting is firmly embedded.

Rochel Gelman and Randy Gallistel introduced the idea of “five separate and distinct principles that children need to understand in order to be proficient counters” in 1978 and I mentioned these at the top of the blog. For any mathematical learning to be meaningful for our children, numbers need to be meaningful and learning to count is hard!

You can crudely categorise the five principles as:

“How to Count”

1. The 1:1 Counting Principle: You say one number and only one number name for each object you count.

2. The Stable-Order Principle: There is a sequence of number names that is universal and will not change.

3. The Cardinality Principle: The last number of the count, when counting objects, labels the total of the set.

“What to Count”

4. The Abstraction Principle: We still count the same way whatever we are counting (the objects could be varied, moving, hidden etc.)  

5. The Order-Irrelevance Principle: It doesn’t matter where you start to count from or the order you count the items in, the total of the set will always be the same.

You can see that it’s pretty complex stuff so deep and rich learning experiences are absolutely essential for real understanding. Using number in as many different contexts as possible, counting moving objects, objects that vary, objects that cannot be seen but only heard are just some of the ways we need to explore early mathematical development and the focus is to gain a true understanding of numbers as values in a system that will help you all of your life once you understand it. You can use the system to understand values you have never seen before when it all makes sense.

This is why being a teacher in EYFS is so fascinating, so challenging but so rewarding too. If we can unpick these early developmental stages and understand the conceptual progression that every child needs, we can make the learning so powerful and that will be thrilling. We have tried to share all that we know in the Reception ESSENTIALmaths materials to keep the learning well informed by key mathematical concepts.

Most of our teachers are investing a huge amount of time in this first sequence of the year because of all its hidden complexities and they are able to use the steps to ensure the learning is not rushed. It is so important for children to fully explore numbers up to five – count them, put smaller numbers within five together and take them apart and compare them – before they explore sets to 10 in the same way.

Fully understanding that a whole can be made up of several parts within a set and indeed that smaller parts can be used to make bigger sets (wholes) is also crucial. We learn to create sets, make pictorial representations of sets and visualise them in our minds before we can be truly playful with number. This is why we don’t address numbers greater than 10 until the 13th out of 16 learning sequences.

I think we can pretty safely conclude that this is important stuff and no wonder teachers are talking about subitising. Hey who knew? When you’re seeing dots, there’s nothing wrong. You’re subitising and you’re going to be a brilliant mathematician!

 

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Further reading/research:

You may be interested in a lecture that explores subitising and early learning in number by Doug Clements on YouTube.

There is much more to support you including ideas and resources on his website.

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Bibliography

D. Clements (published 1999) “Subitizing: What Is It? Why Teach It?”

Fitzhugh, J. I. (1978). The role of subitizing and counting in the development of the young children’s conception of small numbers  Dissertation Abstracts International, 40,   4521B-4522B 

D. Clements & J. Sarama (published online July 21, 2010)Learning Trajectories in Early Mathematics – Sequences of Acquisition and Teaching

Gelman, R., & Gallistel, C.R. (1978). The child's understanding of number. Cambridge: Harvard University

 

 

Repeat after me: the HfL KS2 reading fluency project works… works… works

Further findings from the KS2 reading fluency project

To date, the KS2 reading fluency project has supported over 300 year 6 pupils from 46 schools to improve their trajectory towards the expected standard in reading.

The spring 2018 data mirrors the data yielded from the first round:

Pupils made an average of 23 months progress in reading comprehension age following the 8-week project period (pupils on the autumn round made 22 months progress – click here to read the autumn summary report {data gained using the York Assessment of Reading Comprehension assessment tool}).

86% of pupils made 6 months+ progress (81% of pupils on the autumn round made 6 months+ progress).

Having a wealth of experience of working with a diverse range of pupils from a wide range of schools, we are now in an even better position to share more findings from this innovative project.

Finding 1: Trigger Change

One of the indicators of pupil eligibility for the project that we ask teachers to consider is whether the child sounds like they understand what they are reading. In simple terms, the project is based on the premise that faking fluency leads to real understanding. In other words, the more the child sounds like they are ‘getting’ what they read, the more likely that they actually are. Do they pause at the correct points (even if there is no punctuation to indicate that they should?); do they adopt a menacing tone for darker points in the narrative and jollier tones for lighter moments; do they alter volume and pace accordingly? If instead, they read in a staccato manner, with each word read as if in isolation, and use a bland monotone voice, running through overt punctuation, then their understanding will no doubt be stunted and the strategies used within the project will most likely work for them.

If indeed they do read in the manner of the latter, chances are they have been embedding this reading style for some time. What is required is an overt shunt towards a more fluent reading style. In the project, we have used the term ‘Performance Read’ totrigger this shunt.

At the end of each echo reading session, pupils are invited to ‘Performance Read’ a section of the text, mimicking the exact same delivery offered by the expert reader (the teacher). Very quickly, the children learn to associate the term ‘performance read’ with this new, meaning-laden form of reading. After several weeks, the children are so familiar with the term that it can be used outside of the fluency session to trigger the child’s reading from monotone to magnificent. Whenever a child slips back in bad habits –and they often do in the early weeks of the project – this trigger term swiftly gets them back on track.

Finding 2: Keep it clean

As is befitting the experimental nature of a project, we invite teachers to play with some aspects of the project delivery. Other aspects, however, we insist upon strict adherence. One aspect of the project that we ask teachers to adhere closely to is that the ‘echo reading’ session (which precedes the discussion session) involves no discussion of the text. Instead, we ask teachers to allow the echo to do the work. Our early trials suggested to us that a swift echo reading session could be more powerful – and more motivational for the children – than an extended discussion session. Therefore, we ask teachers to save any discussion for a separate session. In this sense, the echo read becomes an access strategy that allows the meaning of the text to open up to the readers. We found that interrupting this session with interspersed questioning/discussion impacted negatively upon the child’s coherent understanding of the whole text.

Finding 3: text choice is key

As part of the project, we offer each participating school a coaching session where their linked adviser visits and observes, or jointly delivers, an echo reading session. One of the most common feedback comments that we offer following this session is: go harder! Throughout the duration of the project, we urge teachers to present their pupils with challenging texts. By challenging, we mean texts that are comparable to the hardest texts used within the KS2 SATs tests. The philosophy here is: train hard, win easy. Our intention is that, come SATs reading test day, the children will be so comfortable with tackling challenging texts that the ones presented to them on the day will feel like a walk in the park. Obviously, this requires some careful consideration and a brave leap of faith for teachers who are used to presenting their pupils with texts that are well aligned to their current reading ability. We ask the teachers to keep a portfolio of these texts for each child so that the child can reflect with pride upon the challenging texts that they have mastered.

With a further cohort of 16 schools joining us for the summer term, we are sure to have many more findings to share.

KS2 reading fluency project: implications for classroom practice

This  one-day CPD event allows teachers to access the strategies that have been used successfully within the HfL KS2 reading fluency project and consider how they can be used to support children within their own settings. Throughout the day, colleagues will have an opportunity to dissect, discuss and practise the techniques, ensuring that they leave with an in-depth understanding of how they can be best used to ensure rapid progress in reading comprehension for their own pupils. Resources to support you with effective delivery back in the classroom will also be shared.

If you would be interested in hosting this event, please contact reading.fluency@hfleducation.org

KS2 reading fluency project: expressions of interest for participation

To express an interest in being part of the project, please contact reading.fluency@hfleducation.org

With thanks to the following schools for participating in the spring 2018 round:

Rowans Primary School

St Bernadettes RC Primary School

Pope Paul Catholic Primary School

St Augustine's Catholic Primary School

Dewhurst St Marys

Coates Way JMI

Mandeville Primary

Lodge Farm Primary

Kingsway Junior School

Yewtree Primary School

The Leys Primary & Nursery School

Martins Wood Primary

Thorn Grove Primary School

Oughton Primary

Chaulden Junior School

Howe Dell Primary School

Micklem Primary School

Woolenwick Junior

Wilbury Junior School

Cowley Hill Primary

How Wood Primary School

Holtsmere End Junior School

St Paul's Catholic Primary School

Stonehill School

Maple Grove Primary

Hillmead Primary School

 

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Please contact the HFL Primary English team members for more details on the Reading Fluency Project on email: reading.fluency@hfleducation.org

Find out more about the HFL Reading Fluency Project

 

The Herts for Learning KS2 Reading Fluency Project prescribes that teachers work with a group of struggling readers – those working below, and often well-below, age-related expectations – for a period of 8 weeks. Throughout the 8-weeks, the teacher meets with the small group twice a week. Session 1 focuses on fluency training; session 2 allows for discussion of the text. Each week the group turn their attention to a new text.

One aim of the project CPD is to support project teachers in selecting quality texts to use across the 8-week intervention period.

Below are some of the factors for text selection that we cover on the training, along with some recommendations for tried and tested texts that have worked well on the Y5/6 project:

• The texts have to be hard! They should be in line with the challenge expected by the end of the key stage. In the Y5/6 cohorts, this means getting to grips with the demands of the texts in the KS2 SATs and choosing texts that work towards reflecting this challenge.
• The texts have to be good! This sounds obvious but it is an important point. We ask our young readers to work really hard in these sessions. They should be rewarded with a text that packs a punch: whether that be in the form of a quirky take that provokes a belly laugh at the end, or a text so tantalisingly terrifying that the reader cannot help but shiver. With this in mind, complete short stories are our text of choice.
• The texts have to be diverse. We don’t want the children to get better at reading just one type of text. Instead, we support them to hone their reading muscles on a range of texts that look, feel and sound remarkably different to one another. Variety is the key here!

Text recommendations:

How Cats Really Work by Alan Snow

Don’t be fooled into thinking that this comically illustrated picture book doesn’t contain some challenging reading material. Choose a double-page spread that is dense with text: the ‘Control of Humans’ section works really well. Be sure to convey the sense of irony when providing your modelled expert read.

Why is Snot Green? by Glenn Murphy

This collection of question and answer texts provide a wealth of material for a fluency session. The texts appear a little less formal on the surface, but each contains some fairly long and challenging sentence constructions which may cause a struggling reader to come unstuck. Try ‘what do people taste like to sharks and tigers?’ and see how the children get on. This probably represents more of an entry-level text for the purpose of the fluency project. We would urge project participants to rank up the challenge at a pace.

The Wonder Garden by Kristjana S Williams

The number of text types on a double page of this text gives scope for variety within one text. I have seen the ‘The Great Barrier Reef’ page used for a fluency session, and the children responded well to the required changes in prosody throughout the piece.

Arthur Spiderwick’s Field Guide to the Fantastical World Around You by Tony DiTerlizzi and Holly Black

This is a challenging read! Many of the sections within this text work well for a fluency session, but we have seen the ’Sprites: Family Cordimundidae’ section in use many times, and it never fails to delight. The children will be keen to seek this book out from within your book corner following a fluency session focus.

The Spider and the Fly, illustrated by Tony DiTerlizzi

Following on from the poem itself, the letter at the back of the book – penned by the spider – is perfect for a Y5/6 fluency session.

The Mirror

Home From the Sea

The above are taken from Short! by Kevin Crossley-Holland

All of these are perfect in length and ‘punchiness’ for a fluency session. There are other good options within this text, but don’t use too many as the format of the texts within the compilation can become a bit too familiar to the children.

The Immortal Fly is Tired by Dave Eggers

Challenging short story – we guide project participants towards using this as one of their final texts on the Y5/6 project. It sets an ambitious expectation and ends the project on a high! Not only is it a great read that is sure to provoke a reaction (I challenge you not to laugh at the end!) but you may notice that it is littered with grammatical features that match the Y5/6 Programme of Study.

Find the text here.

Fowlers Yard by Pie Corbett (available via Teachwire)

Fast-paced and atmospheric – the children are taken straight into the action with this highly engaging text.

A Sea Above the Sky by Thomas Wright (from a short story compilation, Mystery Stories by Helen Cresswell)

This intriguing short piece will no doubt give rise to a discussion about ‘urban myths’. Other stories within this text, although too long for a fluency session, would be perfect for an end-of-day read-aloud. ‘The Scythe’ by Ray Bradbury is a superb short story.

A Stellar Job by Elizabeth Quigley age 13

This 500-word competition winner is always a hit with the children and project participants. Not only is it a great short story, but it reminds the children that they can be authors too!

Find the text here.

Ex Poser (taken from a short story compilation, 13 Unpredictable Tales) by Paul Jennings

This has a little more dialogue in it than we would normally advocate for a fluency session text, but this short story is so sharp and rewarding that it is well worth including.

The Nameless Holiday from Tales from Outer Suburbia by Shaun Tan

Just as we would expect from Shaun Tan, this short story provoke more questions than answers. This is just the kind of quirky tale that should leave the children pondering the meaning of the text long after they have finished reading it.

 

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For more tips on text selection and to receive further text recommendations, join us on one of our fluency training sessions. Forthcoming dates and venues are published on our HFL Education Hub.

Please contact the HFL Primary English team members for more details on email: reading.fluency@hfleducation.org

Find out more about the HFL Reading Fluency Project

 

The Herts for Learning KS2 Reading Fluency Project prescribes that teachers work with a group of struggling readers – those working below, and often well-below, age-related expectations – for a period of 8 weeks. Throughout the 8-weeks, the teacher meets with the small group twice a week. Session 1 focuses on fluency training; session 2 allows for discussion of the text. Each week the group turn their attention to a new text.

One aim of the project CPD is to support project teachers in selecting quality texts to use across the 8-week intervention period.

Below are some of the criteria for text selection that we cover on the training, along with some recommendations for texts that would work well with Y3/4 cohorts on the project:

NB. For text suggestions for Year 5/6 fluency groups, read KS2 Reading Fluency Project: text selection guidance

• The texts have to be challenging! They should support the children to secure the reading skills and stamina that was required to meet the expected standard in the end of key stage 1 test (the assumption is that the children selected for the project did not meet this standard at the end of the key stage). The project aims to place children on a good trajectory to be able to read age-related texts independently by the end of the year. The project is designed to lead to accelerated progress.
• The texts have to be good! This sounds obvious but it is an important point. We ask our young readers to work really hard in these sessions. They should be rewarded with a text that packs a punch: whether that be in the form of a quirky take that provokes a belly laugh at the end, or a text so tantalising terrifying that the reader cannot help but shiver (all within moderation for our younger readers, of course!). With this in mind, complete short narratives are our text of choice.
• The texts have to be really good! This is a purposeful reiteration of the point made above. Repeated re-reading is a key aspect of the project. If the text isn’t good enough, the children won’t be enticed to re-read it. So, to emphasise it one more time, the texts have to be great!
• The texts have to be diverse. We don’t want the children to get better at reading just one type of text. Instead, we support them to hone their reading muscles on a range of texts that look, feel and sound remarkably different to one another. Variety is the key here!

Text recommendations:

Moving House by Louise Copper from The Story Shop: stories for literacy, compiled by Nikki Gamble

A bit creepy, but not too terrifying: this text is just right for Year 3/4 and the length makes it perfect for a 20-minute fluency session. The use of rhetorical questions, exclamation marks and the balance of short and long sentence give lots of scope to challenge children’s developing prosody.

Lesser Spotted Animals by Martin Brown

Any of the double-page spreads would work well for a fluency session, but the ‘Introduction’ is particularly suitable. Although the text looks fairly accessible, be warned – lurking in the introduction is a 36 word sentence: the perfect length for modelling well-paced, phrased reading.

Ask Dr K Fisher about Minibeasts by Claire Llewellyn (Author) and Kate Sheppard (Illustrator)

Like Lesser Spotted Animals, each double-page spread would work well for a fluency session. The text is formed of question and answer texts, written in the form of letters from concerned minibeasts to the renowned agony aunt, Dr K Fisher. The texts are both informative and amusing – the perfect combination to test the comprehension of readers within this age bracket.

Poo: a natural history of the unmentionable by Nicola Davies (Author), Neal Layton (Illustrator)

A text that delights and disgusts in equal measure! Although there are a number of sections that would work well for a fluency session, try the ‘Rainbow Poos’ section on page 11. There are a number of longer sentences in quick succession which will work well to build up the reading stamina of pupils in the group.

No Ideas George by Robert

This 500-word competition winner is simply brilliant – well done, Robert! There is a great deal of inference involved in unpicking the story; something that the children should be able to do after a well-modelled read. Not only is it a great short story, but it reminds the children that they too can be authors.

Find the text here.

Fantastically Great Women who Worked Wonders by Kate Pankhurst

Some of the double-page spreads in this book might be too ‘busy’ for a fluency session with this age group – there is a lot going on across some of the pages! The page focusing on Katherine Johnson works well however as the text is a little easier to navigate and contains some chunks of text that will require stamina to work through.

Water, Water, Water! From from Sidesplitters, Fantastically Funny Stories by Michael Rosen

Much like ‘No Ideas George’, this short story is very funny, but will require inference on the part of the child to achieve a reaction. Following an expert modelled read and echo reading, the children should be able to spot the joke and even explain it to you.

The Tortoises Picnic, an English Folktale, from Funny Stories chosen by Michael Rosen

This text is just the right length to build the stamina of year 3/4 readers, and it is genuinely funny. The hope is that, following modelled expert prosody and echo reading, they will snort with laughter when they get to the end, but if not, it provides lots of scope for unpicking to reveal the ‘joke’.

Pirates Magnified by David Long

There is plenty of choice of double-page spreads within this text to choose for a fluency session. Try ‘Life on Board’ as a starting point. The main body of the text could be read during the fluency session, while the children could be encouraged to engage in repeated re-reads at home, with the aid of a magnifying glass to spot the various members of the crew.

 

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For more tips on text selection and to receive further text recommendations, join us on one of our fluency training sessions. Forthcoming dates and venues are published on our HFL Education Hub.

Please contact the HFL Primary English team members for more details on email: reading.fluency@hfleducation.org

Find out more about the HFL Reading Fluency Project

 

The HFL KS1 Reading Fluency project prescribes that teachers work with a group of struggling readers – those working below, and often well-below, age-related expectations – for a period of 8 weeks. Throughout the 8-weeks, the teacher meets with the small group twice a week. Session 1 focuses on fluency training; session 2 allows for discussion of the text. Each week the group turn their attention to a new text.

One aim of the project CPD is to support project teachers in selecting quality texts to use across the 8-week intervention period.

Below are some of the factors for text selection that we cover on the training, along with some recommendations for tried and tested texts that have worked well on the Y1/2 project:

• The texts have to be hard! They should be in line with the challenge expected by the end of the key stage. In the Y1/2 cohorts, this means getting to grips with the demands of the texts in the KS1 SATs and choosing texts that work towards reflecting this challenge.
• The texts have to be good! This sounds obvious but it is an important point. We ask our young readers to work really hard in these sessions. They should be rewarded with a text that packs a punch: whether that be in the form of a quirky take that provokes a belly laugh at the end, or a text so tantalisingly terrifying that the reader cannot help but shiver. With this in mind, complete short stories are our text of choice.
• The texts have to be diverse. We don’t want the children to get better at reading just one type of text. Instead, we support them to hone their reading muscles on a range of texts that look, feel and sound remarkably different to one another. Variety is the key here!

Text recommendations:

Mr Big by Ed Vere:

This heart-warming picture book tells the tale of a huge gorilla who overcomes his self-consciousness about his size, to rise to fame as a musician in a blues band. There is plenty to plunder in the beautiful language used: ‘His music drifted out through the open window and into the evening sky.’

Eat Your People by Lou Kuenzler and David Wojtowycz:

This deliciously naughty book delights young readers on the project as we see a large monster family tucking into little people for their dinner. It works particularly well as there is a most satisfying and grizzly conclusion!

The Way Back Home by Oliver Jeffers:

This text is wonderfully accessible for children on the project, but there are plenty of long sentence structures to challenge and, as we expect from Jeffers, big themes to explore in subsequent discussions.

Amazing Animal Journeys by Chris Packham:

This is a fine example of an information text for KS1 that is packed full of literary features so that it feels like narrative at times. Not only do children delight in their success with the challenging sentence lengths and vocabulary in this book, they are rewarded with fascinating content which the project strategies allow them to digest. 

The Story of Life. A first book about evolution by Catherine Barr & Steve Williams, illustrated by Amy Husband:

I have seen extracts from this gorgeous book used a number of times on the project. Children love the technical vocabulary and find it accessible through the wonderful literary language used throughout: ‘Ever so slowly, over millions of years, cells got more complicated’. I recently heard a child in year 2 exclaim, “Wow. This is so interesting!”

Rosie Revere, Engineer by Andrea Beaty and illustrated by David Roberts:

The rhyming couplets in this picture book cry out for an expressive read. The detailed illustrations are delightful and it is packed full of rich vocabulary to explore.

When We Were Very Young by A. A. Milne:

We suggest that project participants use at least 1 poem over the course of the 8 week project and this collection is perfect for KS1. Poetry, by its very nature, facilitates re-reading and expressive performance. There are plenty to choose from within this title; children on the project have particularly enjoyed Water-Lilies, The Island, Market Square but this list is not exhaustive. The archaic language used in places raises the challenge, and children delight in rising to it.

A First Book of the Sea by Nicola Davies, illustrated by Emily Sutton:

Nicola Davies has written a number of information texts for KS1, covering a variety of subject matter. Many of them are used on the project as they are wonderfully descriptive and lyrical. This particular title is great as it can be opened at almost any point for an extract of perfect length.

The Snail and the Whale by Julia Donaldson, illustrated by Alex Scheffler:

This is a favourite amongst project children as Julia Donaldson is familiar territory, but this title is perfect for a fluency session. There is plenty of vocabulary to explore: ‘…shimming ice and coral caves and shooting stars and enormous waves.’ and children love the illustrations which take us on that journey with the snail. 

 

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For more tips on text selection and to receive further text recommendations, join us on one of our fluency training sessions. Forthcoming dates and venues are published on our HFL Education Hub.

Please contact the HFL Primary English team members for more details on email: reading.fluency@hfleducation.org

Find out more about the HFL Reading Fluency Project

 

Penny Slater, Education Development and Partnership Lead (Primary English Specialist) shares some class-based exploration of reading fluency.

There is definitely a buzz in the air about fluency at the moment! And quite rightly so…

The DFE videos ‘2016 teacher assessment exemplification’, released back in April, highlighted fluent reading of an age-appropriate text as an indicator of working at Age Related Expectations. The series of videos, exemplifying fluent reading at both KS1 and 2, showed a range of children reading with accuracy, fluidity, appropriate intonation and expression – all of which gave us, the viewer, the clear impression that they were ‘getting’ what they were reading. Without the need to ask the children any questions, we could safely assume that they understood the meaning of the words on the page.

This realisation was the starting point for a piece of class-based research that I conducted with the Year 6 teacher/English Subject Leader at Reedings Junior School, in Sawbridgeworth, Hertfordshire. Despite most children achieving well in the 2016 reading paper (80.6% achieving ARE in reading) and having high numbers of pupils in each year group working well towards Age Expected standards, the Subject Leader was keen to raise standards even further by ensuring that those pupils who were in danger of dipping just below the expected standard, were helped as much as possible to succeed. Specifically, she had concerns that the pupils who entered year 3 at 2C were going to struggle to reach the new required standard by the end of Y6. As is often the case, these children were still grappling with some decoding issues, as well as comprehension issues, and as a result were often working on texts that were pitched below the age-appropriate standard for their year groups. The Subject Leader, having lived through the 2016 reading paper, was well aware that if these children were not given regular access to age-appropriate texts, and were supported to access them, they would be ill-equipped to face the challenge of the KS2 reading paper. She was also concerned that by ensuring these children were having access to texts well-pitched to their current stage of reading development, they were missing opportunities to work with texts that were capable of giving their limited vocabulary banks a much-needed boost. And so a plan was hatched…!

The Subject Leader was keen to explore the idea that repeated re-reading aids fluency, and that fluency, in turn, aids comprehension. Ultimately, we decided that we wanted a child to be able to read a text in a way that convinced us, just from hearing them read-aloud, that they were getting the meaning of what they were reading. We then hoped that by giving the child an opportunity to read the text in a meaningful way, they would actually gain greater understanding of the text. Our plan was simple: model how a text should be read; support the children to read it in the same way; expect greater understanding of the text.

In order to give us a baseline for judging the impact of our method, we selected two children from the Year 5 class (both who were judged as being at risk of not meeting ARE at the end of Y6) and asked them to read aloud a challenging text. The Subject Leader wanted to choose a challenging text in order to hopefully show that by using simple instructional methods, even these currently lower-achieving pupils could be expected to tackle a text that would normally be considered beyond their capabilities. On this basis, the teacher chose an extract from a brilliant, thought-provoking text that she acknowledged many of her Y6 pupils struggled to fully comprehend: All Summer in a Day by Ray Bradbury. Not only is this text based on a concept that less mature readers might find hard to grasp, it is written in a sophisticated manner with sentence structures that wind and spiral and twist and turn…and go on…and on…and on (not dissimilar from the sentences year 6 children would have had to wade through in the 2016 test). Following this ‘cold’ read, the children were asked some simple questions about the text. What was obvious from observing this first read is that neither child ‘got’ the text first time round. Yes, they paid heed to the obvious punctuation marks (dutifully rising in pitch where they noted a question mark), and yes, there were fairly fluent in their reading in regards to decoding (both children had reached an adequate stage in their ability to decode that they could decode ‘on the run’. Interestingly however, both children mis-read the word in the 4th line ‘scientists’. One child read this as ‘sentences’; and the other as ‘dentists’ – neither seemed fazed by the fact that the word would have been unlikely – in the case of the second example – and bizarre in the case of the first. This led us even further to appreciate the fact that the children were not paying attention to the sense of the passage when they were reading). Overall, their reading could have been accurately described as ‘barking (or mumbling, to be more precise) at the text’. The fact that the experience seemed to offer them very little more than words on a page was confirmed from their responses to the follow-up questions that we asked. The initial questions and responses are noted below:

What are they waiting for?

Child 1 and 2: The rain to stop.

Where is this story set?

Child 1: A planet.

Child 2: I don’t know!

We had intended to ask more probing, challenging questions at this point, but based on the children’s obvious limited understanding of the text – and to avoid the imminent danger of losing the children’s attention altogether (after all, who could possibly be expected to stay alert and engaged when attempting to discuss a text that they clearly have no understanding of) – we chose to move swiftly on.

We then invited a few more children to join the group, and therefore had six children in total. Without telling the children anything about the text (other than the fact that it was a challenging text that was usually reserved for the Y6 class – this caused a few mutterings of pride), I launched into a full-throttle read aloud. The teacher and I had spent several minutes beforehand discussing how we would – as expert readers – read this text aloud to the children in order to best impart meaning. We wanted to demonstrate how good readers pay attention to so much more than the obvious punctuation marks. Specifically we talked beforehand about how we would emphasise the verbs in the 6th sentence (‘pressed’ and ‘peered’) to alert children to the actions being undertaken. We discussed how we felt that a short sentence (in this case, consisting of only two words: ‘It rained.’) required clear, bold intonation of each word, with a noticeable pause in between. We also discussed how this phrase should be spoken in a way that expressed the disappointment felt by the children at this point, so therefore, using a lower pitch for the word ‘rained’. We also noted that when we read the text aloud to each other, we emphasised the adjectives that fell before nouns e.g. ‘hidden sun’, rather than the noun itself. We also identified that we paused slightly before propositional phrases – interestingly, this is something that we hadn’t realised we did when reading aloud before. Specifically, we were asking ourselves what we understood from the words on the page, and considering how we could read it in such a way that this could be conveyed through no more than a good read-aloud model.

After swiftly reading the text aloud once through to the children, I dived straight into a second reading, but this time I paused after each sentence – when the sentences became very long, I paused after each phrase – and challenged the children to tell me what I did when reading that bit aloud. The children found this quite hard to articulate – initially saying things like, ‘well, you read it like this, Miss’ (and doing a pretty good impression, it has to be said). Clearly, the children did not have the metalanguage to describe the techniques that a good reader employs when reading aloud – definitely a point for later consideration, we felt! After each sentence/phrase I encouraged the children to ‘read that bit just like I did’. I increased motivation for this activity by inviting children to say the section again to their partner, taking turns and offering feedback. The children were invited to indicate if their partner had done it particularly well. The children were also invited to text mark, or annotate, their texts to remind them how they wanted to say certain words/phrases; I shared with the children how I had roughly text marked my own version (using no more than double or triple underlining to indicate the need for emphasis, and slashes to indicate the need for a micro-pause). It took about ten minutes to work through the extract in this way. In order to ensure coverage of the text, some sections I simply read aloud, without inviting the children to mimic my reading performance (notably, this offered the teacher and I am interesting teaching point which we discussed at the end of the session- we’ll come onto this later!).

Following this teacher-led session, the children were bitterly disappointed to discover that we hadn’t planned time to allow them to read their passages in its entirety aloud to the group – an over-sight on our part, so we indulged for a moment and allowed each pair to ‘perform’ their reading, thus allowing another sneaky re-read! By this stage, enthusiasm was high, and the children were enjoying themselves. From our perspective, our input was done. We had modelled a meaningful read-aloud, and allowed the children multiple opportunities to read and re-read the text. However, we had at no point discussed the text! We had not unpicked any of the language, nor had we discussed word choice, sentence structure, grammar etc – the usual stalwarts of a shared reading session. So, we wondered, would this be enough to allow the children to gain greater understanding of the text?

Our next step was to invite the original two children to re-read the text aloud once again. The difference was stunning! What had been an inaccessible text, read like the children were wading through treacle, was now read with all the outward signs of fluency that we were hoping for. Most significantly, it sounded like they were actually ‘getting’ what they were reading, much like the revered child in the DFE video. This of course we had anticipated, seeing as we had heavily modelled how to read the text during the session. But, the real test for us was whether the greater fluency that the children now possessed had led to greater understanding. With fingers crossed, we asked the children the same questions again:

What are they waiting for?

Child 1: For the rain stop and for the sun to come out.

Where is it set?

Child 1: Venus

Child 2: Venus

Both children offered this answer without hesitation.

This time, based on the level of enthusiasm that we were detecting for the text, we felt we could probe with a few further, more challenging questions.

How do they feel about the rain?

Child 1: They don’t like it because it ruins everything. It’s noisy.

The child was able to locate sections from the text that supported with his answer to this question and was keen to do so.

Child 2: They were happy that it was going to stop. They don’t like it because it just never stops.

Who might the rocket men and women be?

Both children agreed that these must be the humans who travelled there from Earth.

Would you like to live there?

This question created a moment or two of quiet thinking time before Child A offered a response….

Child 2: Yes.

At this point, we wondered if the child had fully appreciated the characters’ despair at their monotonous and destructive weather conditions. Surely he could see that there would be downsides to living in a place like the one described? But he continued…

Child 2: At first at least. I like going outside in the rain and mucking around in puddles. But it would get boring after a while. I wouldn’t like it for long.

How wonderful to hear the children talking with increased understanding and engagement about the text, and offering many more thoughtful insights into its meaning, and in doing so, alerting us to their own unique interpretations! Clearly, the children now had a much greater appreciation – and enthusiasm – for the text. Put simply, they ‘got’ it!

Earlier in this blog, I referred to an interesting teaching point that the teacher and I stumbled upon when reflecting on the session. I stated earlier that in order to get through the entire text in the short session we had, I simply read aloud certain sections, rather than asking the children to mimic my reading performance. Interestingly, the children were less able to answer questions about sections of the text that I had simply read aloud to them (albeit having been read in a full-throttled, meaning-laden manner). We concluded that it was the act of reading the text aloud themselves, with the meaning dripping from every word that they uttered, that really helped the children to draw understanding from the words on the page. Put simply: reading a tricky text aloud to children will certainly begin to help them to comprehend it, but in order to go deeper, they have to read it themselves in a way that imparts meaning.

Although as always, a session like this can often leave you with more questions than answers, we did conclude the session feeling that we had made some headway. Specially we felt satisfied that we would be able to present these children, and others at similar stages of reading development in other year groups, with challenging, age-appropriate texts, and that with some forethought – in the form of pre-teaching consisting of modelled fluent reading– they would be able to access them and enjoy them, along with their peers. In the long-term, we discussed how repeated exposure to challenging texts in this way would hopefully attune these children’s ears to the rhythms of complex language structures making them more confident when tackling texts of this nature independently. We discussed how, moving forwards, we might be able to prompt children further in their response to the ‘what did I do when I read that?’ question, and actually get them to bring forth some of their grammatical terminology at that stage, so instead of saying, ‘You paused after the word ‘look’ in line 7’ they might be prompted to say, ‘You paused before the prepositional phrase ‘at the hidden sun’’. In this way, the children might be able to begin to establish a set of generic guidelines to help them tackle any unknown text, allowing for a meaningful read that might just in itself allow for meaning to be drawn from the text.

Clearly this technique does not offer a quick fix. The Subject Leader and I acknowledged this. Instead it is more about the long game. But, our session made us believe that on this occasion, it was a game well worth playing and that the results would be well worth waiting for.

Read more about our Reading Fluency Project.

Reading fluency has been enjoying something of a renaissance in recent years; after an extended period of arguable neglect in England, there seems to be a great and growing deal of interest.  As well as being a hot topic, it’s sometimes something of a hot potato. In the evidence base related to reading fluency, this aspect of reading has sometimes been described as ‘controversial’ or ‘a can of worms’.  In part, this is because of the ways by which fluency has been variously defined. In part, it is because of the ways by which approaches to developing fluency have been implemented. And partly it is because of differing views in terms of its overall importance.

Some notable books on reading do not explicitly tackle the concept of fluency as a single entity and as an aspect of reading proficiency.  This includes Seidenberg’s Reading at the Speed of Sight, and Dehaene’s Reading in the Brain, though both go into great detail in relation to aspects of fluency, and the cognitive processes that underpin those aspects, such as those that lead to automatic word reading (code learning, orthographic mapping).  Elsewhere, references to reading fluency have been incomplete or unduly fragmented. A notable example would be the 2018/19 KS1 Teacher Assessment Framework (TAF) for reading which included the following bullet point:

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In age-appropriate1 books, the pupil can:

• read most words accurately without overt sounding and blending, and sufficiently fluently to allow them to focus on their understanding rather than on decoding individual words

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In the most commonly accepted, contemporary definitions of ‘reading fluency’, accuracy is an integral part of fluent reading, so the apparent separation of ‘accurately’ from ‘fluently’ could lead to misapprehensions.  Can you be inaccurately fluent?  Perhaps only very occasionally. This may not seem important, but talk of fluency has the potential to send out all kinds of unhelpful messages.  It is important to keep this in mind as the blog proceeds. It’s why the blog came into being.  We are thrilled that the fluency renaissance is well underway, and we are doubly thrilled at the impact we have seen in so many schools in relation to our Fluency Project work. But we are also mindful that talk of reading fluency can be riddled with misconceptions.  One of the driving forces behind this blog was a recognition that word has spread far, wide, and quickly in relation to fluency. But so, too, have some associated misapprehensions or misapplications.

We’ve also noted an increase in a focus on the methods (the ‘what’ as in ‘what is echo reading?’) over the rationale or justification behind their use (the ‘why’  or 'how' as in ‘why or how might echo reading be helpful?’).   The word ‘might’ is significant here.  Echo reading can be a very helpful strategy if used in a targeted way to develop expressive, phrased reading. But it can also be over-used if applied liberally at a whole class level. Worse still, it can sometimes mask fundamental difficulties or give a misleading picture of progress if it is being used to circumnavigate difficulties with decoding.  Echo reading is not a short cut for when independent decoding is unsuccessful.  You can find more on echo reading in the latter half of this blog.

What do we mean by reading fluency?

Given the scope for confusion, fragmentation, and misapplication mentioned above, it is important to define our terms clearly. The terms ‘fluency’ and ‘fluent’ are far from new in relation to reading and writing. They’ve been used to describe a range of linguistic behaviours. We speak of being fluent in particular languages and of being fluent writers, but what do we mean? Very often, when it comes to reading, fluency has been associated just with speed.

Reading fluency is now more commonly agreed to be made up of the following components:

• automaticity (rapid word reading without conscious decoding)
• accuracy (words read accurately, typically measured as a percentage)
• prosody ( expressive, phrased reading)

Let’s unpick these terms so that we are clear on why a good understanding of these concepts is important in developing fluent readers who are able to think and respond more effectively to what they read, as they read.

Automaticity (word recognition rates)

This refers to a level of experience and competency in relation to word reading that means that conscious decoding is no longer required for familiar words. Word reading is so rapid it effectively occurs on sight (hence the term sight words – words that are processed with minimal cognitive effort in a split second).  Automaticity is key in that it frees up the cognitive space that would be used for low level processing of words. This means that more of our mental energies can be directed more effectively towards other activities ‘…such as comprehension, analysis, elaboration and deep understanding.’ (Hattie, 2014) In relation to fluency work, we are concerned primarily with oral reading speeds. It might well be argued that part of the reason for the above reported neglect of fluency in the recent past is that once a certain level of reading competency has been assumed, often marked by the shift to silent reading practice, there is a potential risk for nascent or emerging difficulties to go undetected. In the words of Seidenberg: ‘Children who struggle when reading aloud do not become good readers if left to read silently; their dysfluency merely becomes inaudible’ (2017. P130). As the complexity of reading materials increases, these masked issues will most likely be exacerbated. 

As such, attention to oral reading fluency – or what Shanahan calls text reading fluency - is important. But a careful balance needs to be struck, both in terms of developing oral and silent reading, and also in terms of how we handle the development of rate. Where England has focused far more heavily on the development of systematic phonics instruction over the past 15 years or so, it could be argued that greater focus has been given to fluency and, within that, reading rate, in the US. From this focus, some cautionary tales emerge. If reading rate development and measurement is not sensitively handled, it could quite easily become an ill-advised race to achieve ever-faster rates. Reading too fast is not what we are aiming for with our strongest readers and is something that has often had to be addressed with overly speedy readers in our Fluency Project work. Beware too the peer worship of the class's speediest reader.  To the children, they are acing this reading game.  For the enquiring adult, they all too often struggle to show anything like the depth and range of understanding we might hope for.  Conversely, we risk demotivating less confident readers if we set unrealistic targets or too overtly celebrate the achievements of the whizziest decoders.  We are looking to support children to move towards a suitably paced rate when reading aloud an age-appropriate text. For our money, something around 120 WPM by the end of Year 4 rising to around 150 WPM by the end of Year 6 is a fairly good indicator.  This reflects rates shared by Rasinski and Cheeseman Smith in their Megabook of Fluency (2018) as well as the Oral Reading Fluency data of Hasbrouk and Tindal (2017).

Of course, keeping  Duke and Cartwright's (2021) messages relating to active reading  in mind, reading rates should demonstrate a degree of flexibility for the increasingly strategic reader. If I am reading a favourite Anne Tyler novel, I’m whipping through it.  My silent reading for pleasure will be markedly faster than my oral reading. Seidenberg describes this as a ‘technological advantage’ of reading – where the unnatural act of deriving meaning from printed words outstrips our natural processing capacities with spoken language. However, even when reading silently, if I am reading a pension letter – a field way out of my comfort zone and no doubt affected by my own motivation – I slow down. I go back over technical language, and I deploy a different, more deliberate set of reading gears that allow me greater traction with the words, and a better chance of understanding quite how bad my financial future might be looking. I alter my speed according to need.

As a closing tip, Seidenberg also points out that audiobooks are generally recorded at around this sweet spot of reading rate – typically around 120 to 150 WPM. So if you are looking to supplement your models of a good oral reading rate, audiobooks may just be worth a punt. Audiobooks can offer many of the other associated benefits of a good storytime session, too, if you choose well (text and the cast of readers).

Accuracy (word recognition and pronunciation)

Accuracy is inextricably bound up with automaticity. Appropriately paced reading is desirable but not at the expense of accuracy. Decoding errors and omissions will also impact upon the degree to which the text is read and understood. Any drive to improve the rate of reading has to attend to the level of accuracy that the reader achieves.  Accuracy should develop as words become familiar. In the course of reading, skilled readers use context to support them in accurately reading homographs – words that are spelled in the same way but that have different pronunciations or meanings. This act of selecting the correct pronunciation to reflect meaning is one way by which we begin to see how fluency is an aspect of reading that straddles both word reading and comprehension.  It is our knowledge of the word used in context that is tapped into to in order to inform the word’s pronunciation. I’ve written about this straddling previously. However, given that time is in short supply, I would urge you, instead to read this recent article by Duke and Cartwright (2021). 

My admiration and excitement for this article is still at the boundless stage, and so a further, fuller blog is on the cards – likely to be on my own site, given the likelihood that I will froth about its usefulness and brilliant design. Why do I like it so? It’s open access; it’s serious about bridging research and practice and places practitioners at the heart of its rationale; it is expertly structured; it has a reading model that offers a comprehensive insight into active reading and the processes that straddle word reading and comprehension, as well as providing explanations for these as potential causes of reading difficulties.  As such, it scratches so many itches for those of us who acknowledge the value of the Simple View of Reading, but are sometimes, perhaps often,  frustrated by how the simplicity of that framework is misunderstood or misapplied in practice. Duke and Cartwright’s model of an active View of Reading reflects the Herts English team’s own driving forces in all of our fluency work.  From the off we have been concerned with shifting reading from being a passive experience to an active joy, or ‘busy brain reading’ to borrow my colleague Penny’s phrase. Active reading informs the third strand of our preferred fluency definition: prosody.

Prosody (appropriate use of phrasing and expression)

As noted in relation to accuracy, but on a more consistent, integral basis, prosody links comprehension to the ways by which we read words aloud (and the associated ‘subvocalisation’ that occurs when we read in our heads).  It’s important to understand that prosody not only reflects some level of comprehension, in playing a part in fluent reading, it supports further, deeper understanding. There is plenty to read on prosody.  Perhaps our favourite article to share is Schwanenflugel and Flanagan Knapp’s The Music of Reading Aloud. It’s an article that has been shared by our Reading Fluency Project team on many occasions: its free to access and it’s a very satisfying (melodic even) read in its own right.  Daniel Willingham gets similarly musical in The Reading Mind, with his talk of ‘the melody of speech’ (2017, p66), and the ways in which this melody carries information: emotion, tone, emphasis…and more. So this keying into the rhythms of speech is especially important in bridging word reading and comprehension. It’s also important from the point of view of diagnostic assessment.  If the reading is flat, or monotone, we might need to unpick and address the degree to which meaning making has been activated. Prosody is meaning made audible and you may want to read our earliest blog on the topic, from Kirsten Snook, who offers some excellent gateways into this critical topic, and offers a perspective that take account of our younger readers: Do you sound good to listen to? (or ‘fluency: reading’s best-kept secret weapon’). In the blog, Kirsten offers what I still think is one of the most beautifully simple prompts for prosodic reading I have yet come across:

“The book is talking to us. If you were the book, how would you say this?”

Just to close this section, it is worth noting that there is a growing bank of evidence that extends our knowledge of the roots of prosodic sensitivity and the role this may play in the acquisition of word reading (for a taster, you may want to follow the Holliman reference towards the end of this blog). A consideration of that evidence base is beyond the reach of this blog, but we may just want to note that we have by no means exhausted our understanding of the ways in which complex processes overlap and link word reading and comprehension.

Developing comprehension

Developmental work to enhance these three aspects of reading fluency should be in service of greater comprehension of increasingly complex texts. Our initial work in developing the Fluency Project was heavily inspired by Professor Tim Rasinski, amongst others, and following their lead, was particularly geared towards children that did not present difficulties with word recognition, but struggled to comprehend texts that reflected an age-appropriate level of challenge. At the heart of our intervention work is an intention to improve reading comprehension.  It shouldn’t come as a surprise that this aim, and gains seen in oral reading performance, has had wider benefits such as increased confidence and motivation to read. This is a highly desirable effect in that it becomes a driver for further improvements to reading performance. Returning to Duke and Cartwright’s recent paper, the authors suggest that influential models of reading such as Scarborough’s reading rope are in need of updating to reflect advances in our understanding of the processes that make up proficient reading.  Central to this suggestion is the description of processes that straddle word reading and comprehension, and reading fluency is one of the processes described in this way. The authors also point out that a ‘growing body of research has demonstrated that skilled readers are highly active, strategic, and engaged, deploying executive skills to manage the reading process …Readers play a central role in making reading happen. In addition to acquiring necessary word-reading and language comprehension knowledge and skills, readers must learn to regulate themselves, actively coordinate the various processes and text elements necessary for successful reading, deploy strategies to ensure reading processes go smoothly, maintain motivation, and actively engage with text.’ (2021, p30)

This talk of agency, and associated executive skills is echoed in a blog from Shanahan also published this year.  Exploring reading comprehension, Shanahan offers some pertinent insights:

‘What do I make of executive functioning?

Well, first it requires intentionality … it’s the part of our mind (not brain) that takes agency, that tries to accomplish things, that aims at goals. Too often we treat reading comprehension as if it operated mainly through automaticity — arising spontaneously from reading the words.

But to comprehend we must focus on the ideas. Research reveals that adults often “read” text without attention to meaning…

So here we have a note of caution.  Yes, we want to develop fluency, but we need to maintain a focus on the real end goal of reading: understanding.  Even if the reading sounds meaningful, we need to ensure that reading for meaning is our real aim.  As such our Reading Fluency Project makes deliberate use of targeted questioning to ensure reading is active and strategic. Where the first session with a text is focused upon fluent reading performance, the follow up is always focused on comprehension of that text.  Shanahan goes on to make a case for the role of challenging reads in this work in order to provide sufficient motivation to develop strategic reading, self-regulation and reflection.  This too, is a key feature in the design of our Fluency Projects and you can find a range of links to previous blogs offering suggested texts for all phases:

Flexing fluency muscles with great texts (Oh…and they are free too!)

KS1 Reading Fluency Project: text selection guidance – Years 1 and 2

KS2 Reading Fluency project: text selection guidance – Years 3 & 4

KS2 Reading Fluency Project: text selection guidance

KS3 (Year 7) Reading Fluency Project: text selection guidance

Ways by which we might develop reading fluency

As part of our KS1 and KS2 Reading Toolkit, we offer a chapter devoted to fluency.  This graphic offers a capsule summary of the core methods that we have been lucky enough to read about, explore, and refine in the course of our work.

 

 

As well as these listed approaches, paired and assisted reading have been shown to be very effective in developing fluent reading. Of the pictured approaches, echo reading seems to be causing the biggest buzz and deserves some special mention. Contrary to some recent reports, echo reading was not christened in 2021 – which is a good thing.  Rather than worry ourselves about the possible limitations of a “fad of the week” type scenario, echo reading has a long and well-developed history, and has more and more empirical weight behind it. It is not new, nor is it the only strategy or approach that we might use as part of our reading fluency development work. Like other aspects of reading, two rules of thumb are helpful:

• use of a limited range of development techniques means that more time can be devoted to practice, as there is not a need to spend additional time on explaining unfamiliar activities for our learners. It also allows practitioners to develop expertise in the delivery of these methods, and supports increasingly responsive teaching. The processes (for example, echo reading, paired/assisted reading, text marking, choral reading) are staples; the reading materials are novel and our part of the deal is to provide rich, diverse, engaging, and motivating, challenging material to help us develop proficiency as efficiently as possible.
• instructional approaches should be targeted to need and designed to have good effect. The vehicle, or approach or strategy (the what) is less important than the desired outcome and how effectively we support our learners to achieve it (the why). What really matters above all is improved outcomes in terms of reading performance, confidence and motivation.

Further reading

As I said somewhere above and seemingly years ago, there is so much more to be said on the subject.  I’ve barely scratched the surface. However, in order to make good on a stated promise on Twitter to provide a comprehensive reading fluency digest, the following suggestions for further reading should be sufficient to keep even the most hardened reading teacher going across the summer. Now that I've made good on my promise of a digest, this particular blog will be refreshed with newer signposts/links as more content is added. 

Below you will find:

• links to all of our blogs on this topic with a brief summary of content.  For your ease, I have grouped these under clear, and logical sections beginning with an opportunity to join us to hear more, then links to blogs offering our reasoning for our investment in fluency work, as well as our methods, outcomes and suggested texts for class use
• helpful websites or reports/guidance that situate fluency work as part of effective reading instruction provision
• accessible introductions to fluency or to the importance of fluency within the reading act and/or the importance of reading fluency development within our practice
• more in-depth looks at fluency – open access/free to download
• research articles or published books that offer deep insights but that require some form of payment

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Why fluency matters

Do you sound good to listen to? (or ‘fluency: reading’s best-kept secret weapon’)  

A key early primer that looks at how reading fluency is commonly defined and that goes on to provide a very clear rationale as to why reading fluency needed greater attention as part of our collective drive to improve reading achievement

As easy as A B fluenCy!

An early account of some class-based exploration arising from the release of the DfE’s 2016 working at ARE videos and following research work in support of the development of our EY/KS1 and KS2 reading guidance toolkits

What do we mean when we talk about reading (and writing) fluency?

A gathering of thoughts from workshop sessions delivered (at the ResearchEd National Conference & Oxford Reading Spree in 2019).  These sessions looked in particular at how reading fluency spans both dimensions of the Simple View of Reading – something more fully and helpfully explored in Duke & Cartwright’s Active View of Reading (2021, see discussion above) - and were concerned with the integration of multiple processes in the act of meaningful/meaning-led reading.

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Comprehensive summaries

The Herts for Learning (HfL) KS2 Reading Fluency Project – strategies and outcomes

An overview of the various iterations of the KS2 Reading Fluency Project. This comprehensive read offers observations related to the drivers of our work in this field, as well as helpful notes on where the intervention strategies proved most helpful.

Fluency: the bridge from phonics to comprehension

A short and sharp collection of notes taken from Tim Rasinki’s keynote session at our Fluency Expo! Conference, January 2021.

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What we do in our fluency project – approaches and strategies

Read like nobody is watching

A comprehensive, and highly practical collection of hints and tips to develop active reading.  A good read to follow Duke & Cartwright’s (2021) global look at reading.

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Outcomes and impact

Early findings from the KS2 reading fluency project

Some hints and tips and early observations from the first iteration of our KS2 Reading Fluency Project

Repeat after me: the HfL KS2 reading fluency project works… works… works!

This is a summary of later findings from the very successful rounds of the project delivered across a wide range of schools.  In amongst the findings, you will find some very helpful key pointers.  One such pointer is the importance of carefully calibrated use of ‘echo reading’ as one strategy amongst a range of approaches designed to enhance confident, meaningful reading. It needs to be used strategically.   ‘Echo reading’ seems to be a particular strand that has generated quite a buzz.  As sometimes happens when practice achieves a trend state, it can get warped out of shape. We’d just like to draw attention to some key messages:

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Wider reading

Open access papers, articles and blogs

Duke, N., Alessandra, E,. David Ward, P. The Science of Reading Comprehension Instruction, The Reading Teacher, Vol 74, No. 6, pp.663-672

EEF (2017) Improving Literacy in Key Stage Two Guidance Report

Heitin (2015) Literacy Expert: Weak Readers Lack Fluency, Not Critical Thinking

Heitin (2015) Reading Fluency Viewed as Neglected Skill, Education Week

Holliman, A. J., Mundy, I.R., Wade-Woolley, L.W., Wood, C. & Bird, C. (2017) Prosodic Awareness and children’s multisyllabic word reading. Educational Psychology, 37:10, pp1222-1241

Kuhn, S. & Stahl, M.R. (2003) Fluency: A Review of Developmental and Remedial Practices, Journal of Educational Psychology, 95 pp.3-21

Lofflin, K (2012) offers critical reflections on Marcell, B. (2011) Putting Fluency on a Fitness Plan, The Reading Teacher Vol 65 issue 4 (see ‘paid for’ reading list below)

National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (2000) Report of the National Reading Panel; Teaching Children to Read: An evidence-based assessment of the scientific research literature on reading and its implications for reading instruction, US government Printing Office

Rasinski (2012) Why Reading Fluency Should be Hot!, The Reading Teacher Vol 65 Issue 8          

Rasinski, T. Yildirim, K. & Nageldinger, J.  (2011) Building Fluency Through the Phrased Text Lesson, The Reading Teacher Vol 65 issue 4

Rasinski, T.  (2014) Delivering Supportive Fluency Instruction, Reading Today

Schwanenflugel, P.J. & Flanagan Knapp, N. (2017) The Music of Reading Aloud

Shanahan, T. (2017) How to teach fluency so it takes

Published books, academic subscription or purchase/rental only

• Dowhower, S.L.  (1994) Repeated Reading Revisited: Research Into Practice, Reading and Writing Quarterly, 10
• Dowhower, S.L.  (1991) Speaking of prosody: Fluency's unattended bedfellow, Theory Into Practice, 30:3, 165-175
• Klauda, S.L. & Guthrie, J.T. (2008) Relationships of Three Components of Reading Fluency to Reading Comprehension, Journal of Educational Psychology, Vol. 100, No. 2, 310–321
• LaBerge, D., & Samuels, S. J. (1974). Toward a theory of automatic information processing in reading. Cognitive Psychology, 6, 293-323
• Marcell, B. (2011) Putting Fluency on a Fitness Plan, The Reading Teacher Vol 65 issue 4
• Miller, J. & Schwanenflugel, P.J. (2006) Prosody of Syntactically Complex Sentences in the Oral Reading of Young Children, Journal of Educational Psychology, Vol. 98, No. 4, 839–853
• Rasinski,T. & Nageldinger, J.K. (2016) The Fluency Factor: Authentic Instruction and Assessment for Reading Success in the Common Core Classroom, Teachers College Press
• Rasinski, T., Homan, S.  & Biggs, M.  (2009) Teaching Reading Fluency to Struggling Readers: Method, Materials, and Evidence, Reading & Writing Quarterly, 25:2-3, pp. 192-204
• Samuels, S.J. (1979). The Method of Repeated Readings The Reading Teacher, Vol. 32, No. 4, pp. 403-408
• Stahl, S.A. & Kuhn, M.R. (2002) Making it sound like language: Developing fluency, The Reading Teacher; Mar 2002; 55, 6; pg. 582
• Therrien, W. J. (2004). Fluency and Comprehension Gains as a Result of Repeated Reading: A Meta-Analysis. Remedial and Special Education, 25(4), 252–261

Reading Fluency Project Page

Links to further information relating to our KS1, KS2, and KS3 Reading Fluency Projects.