AUTOMATICITY AND FLUENCY WITH THE CODE Planning for Instruction

1. AUTOMATICITY AND FLUENCY WITH THE CODEPlanning for Instruction Sarah Mc Donagh, Ph.D. smcdonag@uoregon.edu Western Regional Reading First Technical Assistance Center

2. Content Development Content developed by: Edward J. Kame’enui, Ph. D. Deborah C. Simmons, Ph. D. Professor, College of Education Professor, College of Education & Human University of Oregon Development Texas A & M University Beth Harn, Ph. D. Sarah Mc Donagh, Ph. D. College of Education Western Regional Reading First University of Oregon Technical Assistance Center University of Oregon Prepared by: Patrick Kennedy-Paine University of Oregon

3. Acknowledgments • U.S. Department of Education, Office of Special Education Programs • Institute for the Development of Educational Achievement, College of Education, University of Oregon • Dr. Sharon Vaughn, University of Texas at Austin, Texas Center for Reading and Language Arts website: http://www.texasreading.org/utcrla/

4. Copyright • All materials are copy written and should not be reproduced or used without expressed permission of Dr. Edward J. Kame’enui or Dr. Deborah C. Simmons. Selected slides were reproduced from other sources and original references cited.

5. Session Objectives The objectives of today’s session are to: • Define automaticity and fluency, and identify the components of reading fluency. • Identify what the research tells us about the importance of fluency and effective fluency instruction. • Determine how to assess automaticity and fluency development and establish the need for fluency building. • Plan for automaticity and fluency instruction in the classroom. • Select and sequence letter-sounds, words and text to enhance oral reading fluency. • Set appropriate fluency goals. • Select and deliver instructional strategies to promote automaticity and fluency in letter sounds, irregular word reading and passage reading.

6. Fluency with the Code: “The ability to read connected text rapidly, smoothly, effortlessly, and automatically with little attention to the mechanics of reading such as decoding” (Meyer & Felton, 1999, p. 284)

7. Principal components of reading fluency: • Accuracy in decoding • Automaticity in word recognition • Appropriate use of prosodic cues

8. Definitions • Automaticity: The ability to translate letters-to-sounds-to-words fluently, effortlessly. LaBerge and Samuels (1974) described the fluent reader as "one whose decoding process are automatic, requiring no conscious attention" (cited in Juel, 1991, p. 760). Such capacity enables readers to allocate their attention to the comprehension and meaning of text. • Fluency: The combination of accuracy and speed in reading connected text. Fluency in oral reading includes additional dimensions involving the "quality" of oral reading including intonation and expression. • Passage Reading: Structured activity in which students read stories or connected text designed to provide practice and application of decoding and comprehension skills. Passage reading provides students the practice to become accurate and fluent.

9. Session Objectives The objectives of today’s session are to: • Define automaticity and fluency, and identify the components of reading fluency. • Identify what the research tells us about the importance of fluency and effective fluency instruction. • Determine how to assess automaticity and fluency development and establish the need for fluency building. • Plan for automaticity and fluency instruction in the classroom. • Select and sequence letter-sounds, words and text to enhance oral reading fluency. • Set appropriate fluency goals. • Select and deliver instructional strategies to promote automaticity and fluency in letter sounds, irregular word reading and passage reading.

10. Why Fluency is Important? • Fluency “may be almost a necessary condition for good comprehension and enjoyable reading experiences” (Nathan & Stanovich, 1991, pg. 176). • If a reader has to spend too much time and energy figuring out what the words are, she will be unable to concentrate on what the words mean(Coyne, Kame’enui, & Simmons, 2001).

11. What the Research Says About Fluency Fluent readers: • Focus their attention on understanding the text • Synchronize skills of decoding, vocabulary, and comprehension • Read with speed and accuracy • Interpret text and make connections between the ideas in the text • Nonfluent readers: • Focus attention on decoding • Alter attention to accessing the meaning of individual words • Make frequent word reading errors • Have few cognitive resources left to comprehend

12. What the Research Says About Fluency • Successful readers... • rely primarily on the letters in the word rather than context or pictures to identify familiar and unfamiliar words. • process virtually every word they read. • use letter-sound correspondences to identify words. • have a reliable strategy for decoding words. • read words numerous times to build instant recognition.

13. What Skills Does Fluency Include? • Accurate and efficient skills in: • Letter-sound correspondences (alphabetic understanding) • Blending sounds to form words (alphabetic principle) • Word identification (regular and irregular) • Word knowledge or vocabulary • Comprehension monitoring

14. Instructional Priorities: Grade 1

15. Instructional Priorities: Grade 2

16. Instructional Priorities: Grade 2

17. Instructional Priorities: Grade 3

18. Critical Elements in Automaticity & Fluency with the Code • The National Reading Panel report (2000) indicates the following elements as essential in Fluency Instruction: Repeated Readings Corrective Feedback Not all children need all... differentiate! Keep the end in mind.. Fluency is only part of the picture! Relatively brief sessions (15-30 minutes)

19. Critical Elements in Automaticity & Fluency with the Code • Activities should involve the following: • Repeated reading of materials that students read with good accuracy (>90%) • Regular practice at the skill (e.g., multiple times a day/week) with short time intervals (15-30 minutes) • Corrective feedback from teacher/instructor • Ambitious goal setting • Graphing/charting of learner performance • Modifying instructional materials as student performance warrants

20. Application Activity: Identifying SBRR in Practice • Work in small groups to analyze two lessons, and evaluate the effectiveness of the instruction in terms of the critical elements of automaticity and fluency with the code.

21. Session Objectives The objectives of today’s session are to: • Define automaticity and fluency, and identify the components of reading fluency. • Identify what the research tells us about the importance of fluency and effective fluency instruction. • Determine how to assess automaticity and fluency development and establish the need for fluency building. • Plan for automaticity and fluency instruction in the classroom. • Select and sequence letter-sounds, words and text to enhance oral reading fluency. • Set appropriate fluency goals. • Select and deliver instructional strategies to promote automaticity and fluency in letter sounds, irregular word reading and passage reading.

22. Assessing Automaticity and FluencyDIBELS NWF & ORF • Each measure is designed to assess accuracy and fluency. • Accuracy:How well does the child perform the skill? • Fluency:How easily or quickly does the child perform the skill? • The best way to gather this information is to use the student booklets and examine responses to the task.

23. Assessing Automaticity: DIBELS NWF The DIBELS Measure Used to Assess Automaticity: NWF • Nonsense Word Fluency (NWF) for 1st Grade • How Well? 50 • By When? Middle of First Grade • Interim performance predictive of the later goal: 24 at the beginning of First Grade

24. Assessing Automaticity: DIBELS NWF Examine Student Booklets for Patterns • How well does the child perform the skill? • Accuracy • Skill

25. Assessing Automaticity: DIBELS NWF • When analyzing student performance, look for patterns of performance: • Words or sounds Correct? • Specific sounds correct (e.g. stop vs. continuous), blends, words that begin with continuous sound, vowels, etc. • Pattern of Errors? • Specific sounds (e.g., stop vs. continuous), substitutions, omission, errors involving vowels. • Make sure to rule out articulation, hearing difficulties, or simply having a bad minute!

26. Assessing Automaticity: DIBELS NWF • How easily and quickly does the child perform the skill? • How many nonsense words were attempted? • A score of 50 letter-sounds per minute involving 20 words is an indication of a whole word strategy. • A score of 50 letter-sounds per minute involving 12 words is an indication of a sounding out strategy. • How many errors did the student make? • Determine accuracy by dividing the number of letter-sounds read correct by total letter-sounds read. • 33 correct / 52 total attempted = 63% accuracy

27. Assessing Automaticity: DIBELS NWF Examine Student Booklets for Patterns • How well does the child perform the skill? • Accuracy • Fluency • General performance patterns: • Not Accurate: student makes many letter-sound/nonsense word reading errors or is prompted by the examiner to move on to additional items. • Accurate but Slow: student reads letter-sounds/nonsense words with over 90% accuracy; however, many hesitations, repetitions and slow pace. • Fast but Not Accurate: student is fast but makes many letter-sound/nonsense word reading substitution errors. • Fluent Reading: student reads letter-sound/nonsense words with good speed and accuracy.

28. Assessing Automaticity: DIBELS NWFFrank • What is Frank’s knowledge of the alphabetic principle? • Inconsistent on letter-sounds • Does not blend any sounds together • How accurately can Frank perform the skill? • 70% accuracy • Readiness for automaticity instruction? • Focus on accuracy instruction • Develop automaticity with known letter-sounds • Instructional implication? • He is in need of intensive intervention to meet the end of year goal of being a reader. 16

29. Assessing Automaticity: DIBELS NWFTanya • What is Tanya’s knowledge of the alphabetic principle? • Accurately produces all letter sounds • Consistently blends sounds together to read the word • How accurately can Tanya perform the skill? • 100% accuracy • Readiness for automaticity instruction? • Not required at the letter-sound level • Develop automaticity with known words: regular and irregular • Provide opportunities for connected text reading • Instructional implication? • Has met mid year benchmark. • Move to instruction on connected text reading. 58

30. Application Activity • Work in small groups to complete two additional NWF case scenarios. In doing so, please determine the instructional implications for each case. Is letter-sound and word reading automaticity an appropriate target for instruction for these students? Why or why not?

31. Assessing Fluency: DIBELS ORF DIBELS Measure Used to Assess Fluency: • Oral Reading Fluency (ORF) at the beginning of the year. Interim or progressive benchmarks by grade: • 2nd: 44 Correct words per minute • 3rd: 77 Correct words per minute

32. Assessing Fluency: DIBELS ORF Examine Student Booklets for Patterns • How well does the child perform the skill? • Accuracy • Fluency • General reading patterns: • Not Accurate: student makes many word reading errors or is provided words after the 3-second wait. • Accurate but Slow: student reads words with over 90% accuracy; however, many hesitations and repetitions. • Fast but Not Accurate: student is fast but makes many word reading or word substitution errors. • Fluent Reading: student reads with good speed and accuracy.

33. Assessing Fluency: DIBELS ORF • When analyzing student performance, look for patterns: • Specific word types, sight words, or other words read correctly and incorrectly. • Hesitations, self-corrections, repetitions • Rule out articulation, hearing difficulties, or having a bad minute!

34. Assessing Fluency: DIBELS ORF • How easily and quickly does the child perform the skill? • How many words did the student read correctly? • How many errors did the student make? • Determine accuracy of reading by dividing the number of words read correct by total words read. • 45 words correct / 57 total words=79% accurate

35. Assessing Fluency: DIBELS ORF Terry • How well is Terry reading? • Accurate but slow • How accurately can he perform the skill? • 92%! • Readiness for fluency instruction? • Fluency building and sight word instruction may be appropriate

36. Assessing Fluency: DIBELS ORF Dan • How well is Dan reading? • Making many word reading errors. • Reads at a slow pace. • How accurately can he perform the skill? 70% • How easily can he perform the skill? • Labored approach • Readiness for fluency instruction? • Intensive instruction in decoding, irregular word reading, and advanced word reading. • Check alphabetic principle skills with NWF. Automaticity instruction may be appropriate.

37. Application Activity • Work in small groups to complete two additional ORF case scenarios to determine instructional implications. Is connected text fluency instruction an appropriate target for instruction for these students? Why or why not?

38. Application ActivityUsing Your Data to Plan for Instruction • Examine the Fall DIBELS benchmark booklets for each of your students. Complete the following steps for each student probe on the provided worksheet: • Select probe to examine for whole class (NWF or ORF) • Identify error patterns: specific sounds (e.g., stop vs. continuous), substitutions, omission, hesitations, vowels, word types, sight words, decoding strategies etc. • Calculate fluency score and accuracy score. • Determine instructional implication • Is the score in the Low Risk, Some Risk or At Risk range? (see progressive benchmarks on slides 40 & 41) • Is the performance: Not Accurate, Accurate but Slow, Fast but Not Accurate, or Fluent • Determine whether automaticity/fluency instruction is appropriate

39. Progressive BenchmarksIs the Student On-Track to Achieve the Benchmark Goal? First Grade Measures

40. Progressive BenchmarksIs the Student On-Track to Achieve the Benchmark Goal? 2nd & 3rd Grade ORF Scores

41. Session Objectives The objectives of today’s session are to: • Define automaticity and fluency, and identify the components of reading fluency. • Identify what the research tells us about the importance of fluency and effective fluency instruction. • Determine how to assess automaticity and fluency development and establish the need for fluency building. • Plan for automaticity and fluency instruction in the classroom: • Select and sequence letter-sounds, words and text to enhance oral reading fluency. • Set appropriate fluency goals. • Select and deliver instructional strategies to promote automaticity and fluency in letter sounds, irregular word reading and passage reading.

42. Automaticity with the code involves instruction in building automaticity at the sound or word level Fluency with the code involves instruction in building fluency within and between sentences “Fluency may be almost a necessary condition for good comprehension and enjoyable reading experiences.” (Nathan & Stanovich, 1991) Instructional Components for Automaticity and Fluency with the Code

43. Determining Readiness for Automaticity Instruction Students are ready to practice developing automaticity with letter-sounds, regular and irregular words when they can accurately identify some: • letter-sounds, • regular words, and • irregular words Or when their DIBELS data indicates necessity

44. Guidelines for Selecting Letter-Sounds and Words for Automaticity Instruction • Select letter-sounds and words based on priority and utility (frequently occurring and used in text reading). • Select letter-sounds and words (both regular and irregular) students are able to identify accurately. Provide additional accuracy instruction on letter-sounds and words not identified accurately. • Separate highly similar examples: auditory (b, d) and visual (v, w) on early practice. • Begin letter-sound instruction with lower case letters and move to upper case letters as students demonstrate fluency.

45. Automaticity Instruction: Lesson Design Considerations • Include multiple examples of each letter sound/word in the practice set. • Provide two to three short practice opportunities per day. • Decrease the amount of time per response (3 - 2 – 1 second). Students should be able to respond to each letter-sound/word within one second. • Remove letter-sounds/words students identified accurately and automatically for 2 consecutive weeks. • Review errors from previous lessons and provide continued practice with sounds/words students find difficult.

46. Setting Goals for Automaticity Instruction 2 approaches to setting automaticity goals: • Program provided • A final response rate of 1.5 sounds/words per second is considered an adequate minimum response time enabling transfer to reading comprehension (Levy, B. A., Abello, B., & Lysynchuk, L., 1997)

47. Selecting and Implementing Instructional Strategies for Automaticity Instruction • Implement the strategies provided in the core reading program. Determine: • if the strategies in the core are appropriate as is. • if the strategies in the core require enhancement. • Will the students require additional activities/games outside of the core to provide practice and review? • Will the students require a supplemental or intervention automaticity program?

48. Letter-Sound Automaticity Example:The 1 Minute Dash • Identify a set of letter sounds students can correctly identify. • Include multiple cards of each letter in the set. • Set a goal (i.e., 30 letter sounds correct). • Do a 1-minute small-group practice. Position cards so all can see. • Start the stop watch. • Present the first letter sound card so that all students answer. • Provide quick corrective feedback on errors. • Continue presenting letters. • Letter-sounds correctly identified go in one pile. • Place errors in a second pile. • At the end of 1 minute, tally the number of letter sounds correct. • Review errors and repeat activity for 1 more minute.

49. Word Reading Automaticity Examples 1. Paired peer practice. Pair a higher performer with a child who needs fluency practice. Use similar procedures as in 1-Minute Dash. Each child may use his/her set of known but not fluent words. 2. Word recognition grid. Prepare a 5x5 grid of 5 words. One word per row randomly ordered. Include a short review of words. Then, do a timed recall of the words.

50. 5 x 5 Grid (Modification of Region XIII Texas Educational Service Center)