Lori, I wish that some of the parents of my students with the same issue had your wisdom. I cannot convince them that oral fluency does not impact reading comprehension, and that reading comprehension is the most important part of reading. All they see is that when their ten-year-olds read aloud, they read painstakingly slowly and they stumble over "easy" words. Through a variety of measures, I have shown that these children are often comprehending texts above grade level at deeper levels than many of the "good readers," to no avail. I tell them that instead of having their child read aloud at home, to have her/him read silently and then discuss what was read.
The parents also cannot hear when I say that oral fluency is only meant for performance, even when I ask them to tell the last time they read aloud in their lives (other than reading to their kids). I too use Readers' Theater and poetry to make fluency authentic, and one nice resource is Benchmarks Readers' Theater books which have a variety of topics and genres, and "level" each part so that a variety of children can participate in the same book. I am not sure why fluency has suddenly become so imperative; I know it is one of the facets of reading the NRP came up with for the ESEA legislation, but I'm not sure why.... Maureen _______________________________________________ Mosaic mailing list [email protected] To unsubscribe or modify your membership please go to http://literacyworkshop.org/mailman/options/mosaic_literacyworkshop.org. Search the MOSAIC archives at http://snipurl.com/MosaicArchive.
