January 9, 2012
Hello Families,
We will be working with students on their reading, hopefully on a daily basis. Some goals that we have are the following:
- ability to sound out letters in words in order to eventually read words
- read words within a sentence
- read with fluency
- comprehends reading
We are aware that each student is at his or her own individual reading levels. There might also be confusion or questions regarding how to improve in any of the aforementioned areas. After much reading, I found a statement that best describes the steps students will need to take to get to “fluency.”
Fluency forms the bridge between decoding and comprehension, and children acquire fluency word by word, by repeated exposures to a word - if they begin pronouncing the word correctly. Fluency is acquired word by word, reflecting the words a child has read and fully mastered. Fluent readers no longer have to sound out words part by part (Shaywitz, M.D., 2003).
At this point, many of our students are still at the point of mastering words. This includes recognizing new words from our spelling lists, recognizing word families and recalling spelling rules. I am not expecting that all of our students will be “fluent readers” at the end of the school year. However, I am confident in the thought that many will have the ability to sound out letters in words to eventually read them. Certainly an excellent goal!
Let’s continue to read with our children on a daily basis to encourage their love of reading :)
Sincerely,
Ms. Kata
Sources and other great reading material:
Shaywitz, Sally M.D. (2003). Overcoming Dyslexia. Vintage Books: New York
Lems, Kristen, Blachowicz, C. & Rasinski, T. (2006). Fluency Instruction, Research-Based Best Practices. The Guilford Press: New York, NY.