Works for Me Wednesday- reading fluency for kids

I have taught 5 of my 6 children how to read. Along with potty training, tying their shoes, and at least teaching the oldest to drive, that is my greatest accomplishment!

I cannot say that it was easy, in fact my first child had a learning disability that we were unaware of and as a first time homeschooling mom I thought it was me. Many hours, tears, and reading curricula latter, I found some professional help and my son, who didn’t learn to read until he was 12, is now working as an EMT and reading books written on an adult level for pleasure. I wrote about some of our adventures with Calvin and his reading a few years ago.

So I thought this summer I would share some of the things that I learned during that experience that helped us so much.

One of the things our reading specialist taught me was that for struggling kids, it takes at least 6 reads before they can become fluent, and 2 of those reads have to be back to back. For example, in the early grades we use the Pathway Readers. These stories are short, interesting, with good sized print and a repeating vocabulary. Our reading specialist loves them.

I will read the story to my child first so he will be familiar with what is going on. Then I will help the child read through the story. That usually takes a while for the first read. I usually let them take a little bathroom break or get a snack after that. I had one kid that wanted to take a run down the street after the first read and I was fine with that. After the break, we read the story again and that’s it for the first day.

We then read that same exact story for four more days in a row and usually by the last day, the child is reading with a lot more ease, expression, confidence and fluency.

I do make some adjustments on this. My daughter Izzy could not tolerate a complete read of the story in one sitting, so I have her read a paragraph through and then re-read the exact same paragraph again. She is reading the entire story twice, only one paragraph at a time. Also as my kids have gotten better and better at reading they do fewer reads. Izzy is also a struggling reader, but now she only has to read a story for three days or so before she moves on.

Works for Me!

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