Improving Students’ Oral Reading Fluency in Middle School

Teachers expect students to arrive at middle school with foundational reading skills, like being able to decode multisyllabic words. But this mindset can lead to overlooking fluency.

Oral reading fluency—the ability to read a text with a natural flow, correctly and expressively—is closely connected to reading comprehension. As a student’s fluency skills become more automatic, they can spend less time decoding a text. The goal is for students to be fluent readers so they can focus on the meaning of a given text.

The suggestions below are ones I have had success with this year while working with my students in a Tier 2 reading intervention, but many of the strategies can be adapted to support all students in Tier 1 to improve their fluency.

Recorded Readings

I believe there is power in having students hear what they sound like when they read. This is why recorded readings have become an essential practice in my classroom. When I saw that our curriculum requires students to record themselves reading a passage, I worked to create more opportunities for students to engage in this practice by creating recorded reading assignments for students to work on at home.

Having worked in secondary schools for several years, I’ve learned that it’s not uncommon for students to go the entire day without reading aloud in school. I recognized that my students needed even more practice reading grade-level passages, so I incorporated weekly fluency homework. Sometimes I selected passages that students had been exposed to during a lesson so that they had a chance to work on their speed and expression using familiar texts. Other times, I used practice fluency passages from Achieve the Core and Fluency Passage Pack. Using our learning management system, I created an assignment so that students could record themselves reading. I added short comprehension questions to ensure that they were thinking about the text as they practiced their fluency.

All content-area teachers can have students reread class materials as extra fluency practice. It is especially important for students who struggle with their fluency to be given opportunities to practice a passage so that they can see how they improve in their accuracy, speed, and prosody (rhythm and intonation) the more they practice.

Coaching Peers

Students, especially students who are struggling readers, may hesitate to read aloud. As the students in my classes continued to practice their oral reading fluency, I realized that it would be important for them to have the chance to listen to their peers read and to provide feedback, similar to the teacher feedback they themselves receive about their fluency on a frequent basis. Before having students work with their peers, we always talk as a class about what makes a reader fluent. This is an essential step to take before allowing students to provide feedback to their peers. In student-friendly terms, students can ask, “Did the reader read at a conversational pace? Did they add expression? Did they adhere to punctuation? Did the reader self-correct if they mispronounced a word?”

When students coach one another, I remind them that it is important to start with the strengths first. Teachers can encourage students to share two things that the reader did well as they read the passage aloud. Then, students can provide one suggestion for how the reader can improve their fluency the next time they read. Having one specific focus to work on ensures that students don’t feel overwhelmed or discouraged. Reading aloud can be scary for students, so keeping the feedback constructive and kind is essential so that the student doesn’t get discouraged.

Daily Practice

Choral reading, oral cloze reading, and modeling fluent reading are a part of our daily routines in my reading intervention class. In addition to these fluency practices, general education teachers can have students whisper-read or partner-read to increase the amount of opportunities students have to read aloud in a day.

As reading aloud becomes more normalized for students, they will begin to feel confident in themselves and in their abilities as readers. It is imperative that we use the classroom time we have with students to encourage them to read aloud. This becomes even more crucial for students who struggle with reading because they may not be practicing reading aloud outside of school hours.

Tracking Progress

I always remind my students that fluency progress is not linear. If students are more familiar with a topic and the vocabulary words related to that subject, they will likely sound more fluent while reading that passage. Despite this, it can still be beneficial for teachers to look at fluency trends and for students to keep track of how their reading is progressing.

Through progress monitoring, I keep track of my students’ fluency over time. Progress monitoring is an essential step when working with students receiving a reading intervention because it helps determine whether or not the intervention is working. Reading intervention teachers and English language arts (ELA) teachers with struggling readers can consider having students keep track of their fluency progress by graphing their speed and accuracy after reading one of the DIBELS progress monitoring passages. Keep in mind that if students aren’t making progress in their fluency while in a reading intervention, the intervention may not be working with that particular student, and a different intervention may be necessary.

While some teachers may think that fluency practice should only occur in ELA, helping students become stronger readers is a shared responsibility. These practices can easily be adapted to work within any content area.

The more fluency practice we can implement in our lessons, the more that students will improve their reading. They’ll be able to analyze texts, understand an author’s message, and use this information to challenge their thinking and make connections in their own lives. When they become stronger readers, they become more confident individuals.