Ric

Cassie Mayer
RICA Reflection 8&9
Fluency
Once a driver becomes experienced, it is easy for them to navigate roads and
freeways without much thought. The driver can hold a conversation, think of other
things, or even change the radio station, this is called driving on autopilot. While
driving autopilot, your attention is on the road but its not with effort, they are not
confused about where they are going next or what to do, however, if anything were
to happen, a bump in the road, accident, or lane change, the driver quickly analyzes
the situation and responds accordingly. Similar to driving autopilot is reading
fluently. Fluency in reading is done with accuracy, the appropriate rate, and with
prosody. Fluency is important because it promotes comprehension, and those
without it struggle for understanding (Zarrillo, pp. 70-72). Just like an experienced
driver, someone with fluency read on autopilot, they recognize and comprehend
words quickly, only needing to stop and decode if something does not make sense
to the reader. There are many ways to develop fluency in students, three of which
are through modeling fluency, timed reading practice, and through echo reading.
In my third grade Master Teachers classroom, Mrs. Buck models fluency
daily, and throughout all content areas. She does this through a variety of ways.
During science she models fluency as kids reads expository text alongside a
recording of a fluent reader. She also models as she reads aloud during English
Language Arts, as well as Social Studies. When Mrs. Buck models fluency she reads
at an appropriate pace for the content, intonation, and with accuracy. Modeling
fluency is important because it helps students comprehend but also gives them
positive examples of what fluency is.

Another way to promote fluency in students is through timed reading. My

third graders practice fluency every day with their reading partners. They take turns
reading the same prompt for one minute marking where they left each time with
different colored crayons. As they read each day, the passage becomes smoother
and easier to decode. I do not believe this is the best way to promote fluency, but it
does give them exposure to words they may not see in every day print, making the
decoding of those words easier in the future.
During my time as a tutor at College Park Elementary, I have participated in
echo reading with my tutees. As one of my students is labeled as an English
Language Learner, this helps promote her English speaking skills, comprehension,
and fluency. My tutees both read at a preprimary level, using echo reading this gave
my students the opportunity to read with fluency at grade level. I had my tutees
follow along with me using their fingers each time we read the phrase and they
repeated it back to me. We used this strategy while reading grade level text, as well
as when we practiced readers theatre.
In my future classroom my goal is to promote fluency in a variety of ways. As
a candidate for teaching I will create a print-rich environment where students learn to read

and write, comprehend and compose, appreciate and analyze, and perform and enjoy the
language arts (California teaching performance expectations, 2013). My classroom will be a
print rich environment. Having a print rich environment for my students will
encourage my students to read throughout their day, giving them practice with
words they wouldnt otherwise be consistently exposed to, and it will greatly help
my English Language Learners. One thing I have learned in my classrooms and in
my classes is that students need to be exposed to fluency through modeling. I can
do this is a variety of ways in my classroom, by reading out loud to my students,

having capable readers read aloud, and through fluent recording of text across
content areas.

Works Cited
California teaching performance expectations. (2013). Retrieved from Commission
on Teacher Credentialing: http://www.ctc.ca.gov/educator-prep/TPA-files/TPEsFull-Version.pdf
Zarrillo, J. J. (2011). Ready for Revised RICA A Test PReparation Guide for California's
Reading Instruction Competence Assessment (3rd ed.). Boston, MA: Pearson
Education, Inc.