- English Language Arts and Reading
- Grade 3
- Developing and sustaining foundational language skills
Use Reader’s Theater as a platform for students to demonstrate fluency. Encourage students to adjust their rate while reading with accuracy and prosody.
Important Notes:
For this assessment, students will demonstrate fluency while reading a Reader’s Theater script. The use of Reader’s Theater supports fluency through rereading of text multiple times. In addition to reading their part of the script, students must also silently read along as others read in order to know when it is their turn. Students should read through their parts of the script with appropriate speed, accuracy, and proper expression. The speed with which students read should be easily understood by themselves and their audience. The decoding of words should be accurate enough that it does not impede comprehension. Prosody is necessary, especially in Reader’s Theater as students read in phrases and add intonation appropriately. They should not sound robotic. Fluent reading is necessary for the readers and listeners to comprehend what is being read. Although Reader’s Theater is a popular way to practice fluency, it should be practiced with a variety of text types.
1. Hosp, J. L., & Suchey, N. (2014). Reading assessment: reading fluency, reading fluently, and comprehension--commentary on the special topic. School Psychology Review, 43(1), 59+. Retrieved from https://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A364693563/PROF?u=tea&sid=PROF&xid=af82488e
Summary: This article provides a summary of four articles related to the assessment of oral reading. The authors acknowledge that while there are increasing accountability standards for reading, measuring reading ability remains complex and difficult. The authors make a case for oral passage reading as a way to measure both reading fluency and comprehension.
2. Wise, J. C., Sevcik, R. A., Morris, R. D., Lovett, M. W., Wolf, M., Kuhn, M., & Schwanenflugel, P. (2010). The relationship between different measures of oral reading fluency and reading comprehension in second-grade students who evidence different oral reading fluency difficulties. Language, Speech, & Hearing Services in Schools, 41, 340+. Retrieved from https://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A230773834/PROF?u=tea&sid=PROF&xid=79d66536
Summary: The purpose of this study was to examine whether different measures of oral reading fluency relate differentially to reading comprehension performance in two samples of second-grade students. Results of this study indicate that real-word oral reading fluency was the strongest predictor of reading comprehension and suggest that real-word oral reading fluency may be an efficient method for identifying potential reading comprehension difficulties.