Understanding how to build fluency
Automatic word reading (fluency) enables students to focus on the meaning of the text, instead of trying to work out key words.
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Teach strategies explicitly
Teach strategies explicitly
Fluency develops step by step. After systematically learning letters and their sounds, learners apply this knowledge to sound out words.
Teach foundational skills in the context of reading, writing, speaking, and listening.
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Source: Ministry of Education | Te Tāhuhu o te Mātauranga
Orthographic mapping
Orthographic mapping
Orthographic mapping is the mental process we use to store written words for immediate retrieval. It requires phoneme and letter–sound proficiency.
Students with dyslexia often have difficulty with phonemic awareness and phonic decoding, which affects their ability to read fluently and interferes with their comprehension.
Successful intervention needs to include:
- teaching phonemic awareness (including blending, segmenting, and phoneme manipulation such as deleting, adding, substituting, or reversing phonemes)
- teaching phonic skills and decoding
- providing decodable readers so students can practise reading connected text.
Word recognition
Word recognition
Fluent readers recognise words almost instantaneously.
With repeated decoding of the same word, the child’s brain makes a neural model, called a word form, which allows the word to be read far more quickly. Just seeing the word activates all of the necessary components at once, without any conscious thought on the part of the reader. This process is orthographic mapping.
As more word forms collect, reading fluency and reading skill levels rise dramatically.
Source: Building a strong foundation for learning to read (opens in a new tab/window)
Teach the different syllable types
Teach the different syllable types
Learners need a strategy for chunking longer words into manageable parts.
Teach syllable-spelling conventions so students know whether a vowel is long or short, is a diphthong, or is r-controlled or whether endings have been added.
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Source: Ministry of Education | Te Tāhuhu o te Mātauranga
Fluency and comprehen­sion
Fluency and comprehension
When students read accurately, they solidify their word recognition, decoding, and word-analysis skills. Perhaps most importantly, they are likely to understand what they read – and, as a result, to enjoy reading.
Richard Allington & Rachael Gabriel
Useful resources
Useful resources
Orthographic mapping: Beyond the alphabetic stage of reading
A simple explanation of orthographic mapping, explaining the skills needed and suggested classroom activities for teaching those skills.
Publisher: Academy of Orton-Gillingham Practitioners and Educators
Download PDF
Building a strong foundation for learning to read
A description of the foundational skills for reading and how to build them.
Publisher: Zaner-Bolser
Download PDF
Six syllable types
A description of the different syllable types and how to teach them.
Publisher: WETA Public Broadcasting
Next steps
More suggestions for implementing the strategy “Understanding dyslexia and literacy acquisition”:
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Current page Building fluency
Return to the guide “Dyslexia and learning”
How to use this site
Guide to Index of the guide: Dyslexia and learning
Understand:
- Understanding dyslexia
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Understanding dyslexia and literacy acquisitionShow suggestions for Understanding dyslexia and literacy acquisition
- Structured Literacy
- Learning the code
- The simple view of reading
- Building fluency
Strategies for action:
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Develop a schoolwide approachShow suggestions for Develop a schoolwide approach
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Identify student needs and how to provide supportShow suggestions for Identify student needs and how to provide support
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Support early literacy development through a structured literacy approachShow suggestions for Support early literacy development through a structured literacy approach
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Helpful classroom strategies in years 1–8Show suggestions for Helpful classroom strategies in years 1–8
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Helpful classroom strategies in years 9–13Show suggestions for Helpful classroom strategies in years 9–13
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Supporting literacy and numeracy in NCEAShow suggestions for Supporting literacy and numeracy in NCEA
