1st Grade

Fluency
Action Research
Grace Culbreth
Samford University
Fall 2014

Initial Meeting with Teacher

On September 30, 2014 I met with my
teacher to discuss my action research
project.
She suggested that I take two students who
are ahead of the class and need further
instruction to move forward.
She wanted me to work with Student A and
Student J on their fluency.

About the Students

Student A:
Student A is a bright, excited firstgrade boy. He loves to read, but sometimes
struggles with fluency. His mom encourages
him to read often at home, and he loves it
when others read to him as well.
Student J:
Student J is a fireball, and he is
always up for a challenge. He is a great
reader and already very fluent. He does not
like to read, instead he likes others to read
to him.

Question
After meeting with my teacher, we decided
that working with higher-level readers and
concentrating on their fluency would be the
best choice for my action research. I was
able to meet with both Student A and
Student J to observe their reading and
fluency skills. Since both students were
good readers, but needed help with fluency,
the question I needed answered was, what
are the best strategies for helping students
improve on their fluency?

Initial Assessments:
Starring Me.. Interest Inventory
Reading Habits Assessment
Things that Interest Me
Oral Reading Fluency Assessment

(Used for midterm and final assessment

as well)

Initial Assessments

Initial Assessments

Best Practices for fluency

Reading fluency is characterized by accurate
effort, and automatic word identification; age, or
grade-level-appropriate reading speed or rate;
suitable use of volume, pitch, juncture and
stress in the voice; and correct text phrasing
(Reutzel and Cooter, 2015).
Reading fluently helps free working memory so
children can focus on the meaning of text
instead of laboriously figuring out individual
words, (Calo, Woodson-Ferguson and Koitz,
2013).

Repeated Readings
According to Begeny and Martens (2006),
repeated readings is one of the best
practices for fluency.
Oral repeated readings help improve
students fluency (Cooter & Reutzel, 2015).
Repeated Reading is when a student
rereads a passage until they are reading it
fluently enough to be at an appropriate
reading level, which is 100 words per
minutes (Begeny & Martens, 2006).

Passage Previewing
Begeny and Martens (2006) also state that
passage previewing helps increase fluency.
Passage Previewing is when the student
listens while a fluent reader reads the
passage while they follow along silently
(Begeny & Martens, 2006)

Feedback
Also according to Cooter and Reutzel
(2015), having feedback from instructor or
even their peers helps to increase students
fluency levels.
Teachers should model what fluent reading
sounds like, along with what non-fluent
reading sounds like (Cooter & Reutzel,
2015).

Wide Range of Text

Students need to read a range of genres,
such as fantasy, fairy tales, myths, science
fiction, historical fiction, series books,
autobiographies, diaries, journals, logs,
essays, encyclopedia entries, and
information books (Reutzel and Cooter,
2015).

At Home Practice
At home reading practice is essential for
fluency in addition to practice in the
classroom. Teachers need to model to their
students the importance of independent
reading at home as well as in school.
Teachers must model fluency for the
students and demonstrate it in their
everyday life to encourage their students to
do the same (Burgess, S.R., Sargent, S., et
al, 2011).

What We Did
On October 7th, I assessed both students

in their fluency, reading habits, and

interests.
On October 15th, I started by explaining
fluency and modeling both appropriate
and inappropriate examples of it by
reading a passage aloud. Then, we
choral-read the same passage followed by
the two students reading the passage on
their own.
On October 16th, the students read aloud
and recorded their reading. I had the
students listen and critique, not only
themselves, but each other as well.

What We Did
On October 20th, I had Student A and

Student J come in separately and read

their just right books to me. I was able to
give them feedback and model fluency
from these books.
On October 21st, we did a readers theater
of the Three Little Pigs.
On October 22ndwe did a repeated
reading of the choral reading from the first
time we met together.
On October 23rd, I modeled fluency
through reading The Frisky Little Squirrel.

What We Did
On October 28th, I gave the two students

their midterm.
I saw that they had both been improving,

so I decided not to change the strategies I

had been using already.
On November 18th, I re-recorded the

students reading the same passage as

before. They both got to hear how they
had improved and what they still needed
to work on.
On December 2nd, I gave the students
their final assessment. They both had
improved significantly through this.

Resources I Used

Resources I Used

Progress Monitoring Student

A

Progress Monitoring Student

J

Initial Assessment Results

34%

69%

Midterm Assessment Results

40%

82%

Final Assessment Results

68%

97%

Students Growth
100%
90%
80%
70%
60%

Assessment 1

50%
Assessment 2
40%
Assessment 3
30%
20%
10%
0%
Student J

Student A

My reflection
Through this process, I learned that I need to be
more patient with the students.
I also need to allow them to learn at their own
rate.
If I could go back, I would make use of
additional practice lessons, and try to find a
longer time to meet with the students to try to
make our time together more engaging and fun
for them.
I would also use a wider range of texts to better
capture their interest.

References
O Begeny, J. C., & Martens, B. K. (2006). Assisting Low-

Performing Readers with a Group-Based Reading Fluency

Intervention. School Psychology Review, 35(1), 91-107.
O Burgess, S. R., Sargent, S., Smith, M., Hill, N., & Morrison,
S. (2011). Teachers' Leisure Reading Habits and
Knowledge of Children's Books: Do They Relate to the
Teaching Practices of Elementary School
Teachers?. Reading Improvement, 48(2), 88-102.
O Calo, K. M., Woolard-Ferguson, T., & Koitz, E. (2013).
Fluency Idol: Using Pop Culture to Engage Students and
Boost Fluency Skills. Reading Teacher, 66(6), 454-458.
O Reutzel, D.R., & Hollingsworth, P.M. (2015). Strategies for
reading assessment and instruction: Helping every child
succeed (5th ed.). Boston, MA: Pearson Education