Tips to Improve Reading Fluency
If you have a kid who reads haltingly, with many stops and starts, you may be wondering what you can do to improve their reading fluency. Fluent reading is essential not only for smooth-sounding out loud reading, but also for comprehension and confidence. When kids are stopping and starting, struggling over every word, so much of their brain power is being used to decode that they can’t simultaneously keep up with what the text is actually saying. Building reading fluency comes with time, practice, and building up foundational skills.
How Can You Improve Your Child’s Reading Fluency?
#1: Lay a Solid Foundation
To build strong reading fluency, it’s essential to lay a solid foundation by addressing key cognitive processes. Fluency is a higher-level skill that requires many underlying cognitive skills to be strong and efficient, including:
- Auditory processing (accurately sounding out and “hearing” the words and connecting them with meaning)
- Processing speed (reading quickly and processing what’s in front of you efficiently)
- Visual processing (accurately viewing the letters in front of you, visually tracking on a page, and creating mental images to depict the story)
- Working and long-term memory (having some words become automatic, remembering word patterns, keeping up with what you’ve already read, and remembering words after you’ve figured them out)
If your child understands the basics of reading but struggles to build fluency, investigating these (and other) cognitive skills is essential to dig in and figure out what’s going on under the surface.
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#2: Echo Read
A great way to practice reading fluency is to model it and have your child echo you so they can get a feel for what fluent reading feels like. For kids who stumble over unknown words (or even words they do know), it can be helpful for you to read a portion of the sentence and have them repeat it back to you, working on pronunciation, inflection, and tone of voice. These are the things that will make reading more engaging and fun, and for kids who struggle with reading, it shines a light to show what’s possible!
#3: Read the Same Books (Over and Over)
As a parent, you may get tired of reading the same books with your kids over and over. But for kids who are working on building their reading fluency, this repetition is key! It takes many repetitions of seeing a word before it becomes automatic. Kids who read the same books over and over should see progress in how quickly they’re able to read.
Worried that they’re just memorizing the words and not “actually” reading? It’s ok! This is an exercise that is more about building confidence and speed. Nailing the mechanics of reading can happen in other ways.
Reading Fluency Starts in the Brain
Reading fluency is a skill that requires time, practice, and patience. For kids who have cognitive weaknesses, it’s important to address concerns from the root. In many of these cases, more practice is not going to be enough to build skills, confidence, and fluency.
Reading struggles don’t just go away on their own. It’s important to invest in targeted interventions to give your child’s brain the skills it needs to read fluently and confidently!
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