Increasing Accuracy and Fluency with Repeated Reading

WHY? One way students can become more accurate and fluent readers is by having opportunities to reread a passage. S. Jay Samuels (1979)¹, was one of the first to document that students become more fluent upon subsequent re-readings of the same passage. As well, he noted that rereading a passage also helped students become more fluent in reading future passages. Presumably, there was some overlap of words in subsequent passages, but unfortunately this was not addressed in the study. However, one can draw a parallel to other areas where we learn something new, like learning to play a song on the piano. One needs to practice playing a song repeatedly in order to play it well. The same is true of reading a decodable passage with a new phonics concept. Continuing the analogy, if a beginner piano student learns to play a song with five different notes and practices it until accurate and fluent, it is not a stretch to imagine that it would be easier for the student to next learn a new song that has some of the same notes. This is exactly what Samuels’ study found to be the case with repeated reading and it’s effect on reading subsequent passages as well.

Since Samuels’ article in The Reading Teacher in 1979, many other studies have looked at various aspects of repeated reading. In fact, Kuhn, M. et al. (2018)², found that students benefited from both repeated readings and wide reading of early texts which had the same phonics patterns. This is ultimately exactly the same effect we see in the piano music above, both repetition (practice) of one song and a new song with the same notes in a different order.

Additionally, William J. Therrien (2004)³ performed a meta-analysis of repeated reading and its effects on fluency and comprehension and identified certain aspects of repeated reading which were particularly effective:

• Rereading a passage about 3-4 times – (not much benefit found beyond 3-4 re-readings)
• Corrective feedback – it is essential to have an adult or student who can coach their partner when errors are made

As well, Vaughn et al., 2006, confirmed that EL learners with initial low literacy and language skills also profited from instruction that builds in features such as repeated reading.⁴

HOW? In our gr. 1 and gr. 1/2 classes, students Read to a Friend during Independent Centers in order to practice rereading the UFLI decodable passages after the associated phonics lesson. Students are paired with a Strategic Partner who can read the passage accurately, but perhaps not yet fluently. This way, Partner 1, who is already reading accurately, can provide corrective feedback for Partner 2, who is not yet completely accurate. Students each have a duotang to which they add each UFLI decodable passage as it is introduced by the classroom teacher. As a result, students have a selection of passages to read to their partner after a few weeks. Within the Read to a Friend structure, students can also choose to read the decodable UFLI texts with varying levels of support from their partner. Keep reading below for the step by step instructions for setting up the Read to a Friend routine.

1. Place students in Strategic Partners based on decoding ability. If you have already done this for Roll & Read, use the same partners! In my experience, Strategic Partners should be changed every 4-6 weeks throughout the school year to keep partnerships fresh and productive. The goal for Partner 1 will be to increase fluency (they should already be accurate), and the goal for Partner 2 will be to increase accuracy and fluency.

2. Model different ways students can Read to a Friend. This works best if you can model with another adult in the room. However, you can also use a suitable student as a partner for modelling as well. You will want to model the following:

• I want to read by myself. Here the reader reads a passage on their own while their partner listens attentively. The reader is accurate and working on fluency. Make sure to highlight that the non-reading partner is actively listening and not looking around the classroom or otherwise distracted!
• I want a little bit of help. In this case, the reader is mostly accurate, but will still need help with a few words. The reader will read independently, but ask for help when needed. As well, their partner will point to any word that is read incorrectly to prompt the reader to reread the word. If the reader still reads the word incorrectly, their partner can make the sounds in the word for the reader to blend together. If this level of support is not sufficient, the partner can then supply the correct word. The reader repeats the word, rereads the sentence and continues reading.
• Let’s read together. With this method, the partners echo read. Partner 1, the accurate reader, will read one sentence while pointing to each word and Partner 2 will then reread the sentence while pointing to each word. This provides a high level of support to Partner 2.

• Let’s read together at the same time. Another form of partner reading is Dyad Reading, where a stronger reader reads a passage and a less fluent/accurate reader, reads along, trying to match the reading and pacing of their partner. We modeled this for students and encouraged them to try it out. See the video clip below for an example of students using this method.

I developed the chart below to establish routines for Read to a Friend. We would review the guidelines each day we had Read to a Friend as an Independent Center. This would typically be the Independent Center time on Day 2 of the UFLI lesson, as students would have just worked with a new connected text during the UFLI lesson.

3. It is important to monitor your students’ accuracy with the decodable passage. Partner 1 must be accurate with the passage for Read to a Friend to be effective. Partner 1 must also be able to give corrective feedback to Partner 2; otherwise, Partner 2 will continue misreading certain words and potentially be practicing mistakes!

A few weeks into establishing the Read to a Friend routine as an Independent Center, I decided to pause my small groups in order to observe the partnerships and ensure they were still working well. As I listened in, it became apparent that a few of the Partner 1s were not able to read the newest decodable passage with complete accuracy. As I discussed this observation with classroom teachers, we decided we would implement more whole group practice during the lesson to support students. We accomplished this by adding the following whole class routine for each new UFLI decodable passage:

• Teacher reads aloud new decodable passage, while pointing to the words. This is easiest with the passage projected onto a whiteboard. Students are looking at the whiteboard and do not have their own copy yet.
• Teacher guides students in finding periods, circling them, and then underlining the sentences. The Teacher modelled this on the whiteboard with rainbow dry erase markers and students did the same with crayons. *We eventually phased out this step of underlining each sentence when we noted that it was no longer needed a few months later.
• Teacher and students echo read the passage, one sentence at a time. The underlining in the step above really helped students with this at the beginning as sentences often spill over to the next line.
• Teacher and students choral read the passage together at the same time.

As well, we realized that students were not having sufficient opportunities to practice reading texts with new phonics concepts in order to become accurate with repeated readings. Students had four UFLI whole class phonics lessons a week, but only three independent practice times (Roll & Read 2x a week and Read to a Friend 1x a week). Eventually we were able to move to a schedule that accommodated the 30 minute UFLI whole class lesson and 30 minutes of independent practice 4 days a week (Roll & Read 2x a week and Read to a Friend 2x a week).

We can not expect students to keep pace with the UFLI scope and sequence when we do not give them adequate time for practicing the phonics concepts taught. Simply teaching the UFLI whole class lesson is not enough. It is essential for students to have time after the lesson to practice what they have just learned and what has been learned previously.
This is how UFLI was designed. This is how UFLI needs to be implemented.

HOT TIP: Photocopy the UFLI decodable passage and Roll & Read for the same lesson back to back and have students place it in a duotang. This makes it easier to keep all the papers organized and uses less paper than single-sided copying! The duotangs were quite full by Spring Break, so students took their duotangs home and could read them during the break. When students returned, classroom teachers started them off with a new duotang. For some students, who were still having a hard time with classroom passages, we also added some of the older passages that we knew they would be able read. Thank you to K. D’Angelo for sharing this idea with me!

HOT TIP: Have students Read to a Friend (and play Roll & Read) from one duotang at a time. This way students are focused on the passage together which makes it easier for their partner to follow along.

4. Collaborate with your Learner Support Teacher (LST). One of the most powerful moves we experienced this year was having the LST also use UFLI for intervention. Students who needed LST support would stay in class for the regular UFLI whole class lesson and would then be pulled at another time of the day to receive UFLI instruction at their own phonics level. We assessed gr. 1 students regularly for their letter sound knowledge (following the UFLI scope & sequence) and their phonemic awareness. In LST, students were placed in UFLI lessons that corresponded to their letter sound knowledge. LST would also give students the decodable passages from their LST UFLI lessons to put in their duotang. As a result, students had their classroom passage as well as their LST passage to read during Read to a Friend. In this way students were able to continue practicing their accuracy and fluency with passages at their phonics level. I believe it was this key factor that allowed a number of students to ‘close the gap’ and end the year on track with the rest of their classmates!

This also falls in line with a finding by O’Conner et al. (2002)⁵ where gr. 3-5 students made stronger fluency gains when the reading material used was at their instructional level. By having LST provide instructional level material and the classroom teacher provide grade level material, students can begin to close the gaps in their learning instead of falling further behind.

HOT TIP: In order to make it easier for students to differentiate between classroom and LST UFLI passages, have the LST stamp the corner of the sheet so the passages will be easy to find and practice.

References

1. Samuels, S. J. (1979). The Method of Repeated Readings. The Reading Teacher, 32, 403-408. ↩︎
2. Kuhn, M. R., Rasinski, T., Young, C. (2018). Best Practices in Reading Fluency Instruction. Strategies for Literacy Learning and Teaching, 271-288. ↩︎
3. Therrien, W. J. (2004). Fluency and Comprehension Gains as a Result of Repeated Reading, A Meta-Analysis. Remedial and Special Education, 25, 252-261. ↩︎
4. Vaughn, S., Mathes, P., Linan-Thompson, S., Cirino, P., Carlson, C., Pollard-Durodola, S., Cardenas-Hagan, E., Francis, D.(2006). Effectiveness of an English Intervention for First-Grade English Language Learners at Risk for Reading Problems. The Elementary School Journal, 107, 153-180. ↩︎
5. O’Conner, R. E., Bell, K. M., Harty, K. R., Larkin, L. K., Sackor, S. M., Zigmond, N. (2002). Teaching Reading to Poor Readers in the Intermediate Grades: A Comparison of Text Difficulty. Journal of Educational Psychology, 94, 474-485. ↩︎