Silent Reading Is Not the Best Fluency Enhancing Technique

Passionate teachers are interested in enhancing their students’ cognitive skills to help them grow into better learners and ultimately make their path towards adult life much easier. Students are grateful to teachers who put effort into them, and those teachers have a huge part to play in students’ future success. 

Children are not born able to read fluently. They have to practice for a long time before they can excel at and develop fluent reading skills. Every student has a different aptitude level – some may learn faster than others, while others take their time. Fluency helps students comprehend the subject and enables them to catch on to different concepts more quickly. 

Round Robin Reading

Many schools encourage the practice of Round Robin Reading (RRR) to enhance the fluency of students. This is a technique that has been practiced for a long time. This practice encourages students to read silently while others read aloud. 

The group takes turns reading aloud so that each student has a turn. A lot of research has been conducted to support the claim that RRR does not necessarily improve fluency. For this reason, many schools and teachers have discredited this research. 

Common Practice Is Not Always the Best Practice

To improve students’ fluency, teachers must create practices that guide them carefully into practice reading in a way that will enjoy it. For students to read more books, it is crucial that students are interested in reading. 

Teachers play a significant role in developing children’s interest in reading. From organizing libraries creatively to arranging routine reading activities, there are many ways to get children to read and enjoy what they read. 

However, certain practices that have been common for a long time are not supported by effective results. An example of this is “sustained silent reading” (SSR) or “drop everything and read” (DEAR). 

Fluency Goes a Long Way

Many teachers are encouraged to use this practice as a means of encouraging students to read silently. Though many buy into the practice, many passionate teachers who are genuinely concerned about their students’ cognitive skills bring other practices in their classrooms that can improve fluency. 

It is found that students who are fluent in reading understand the text better. This will help them while they are in school and give them an excellent chance to score higher as their learning levels increase. 

High school GPA plays a massive role for students who choose to go to college or want to get a good job directly after high school. Their GPA is dependent upon their academic activities, and fluency has a significant part to play.

Concluding Thoughts

Fluency in reading goes a long way. Students need to enhance their reading abilities, which means they need to be able to become fluent and enhance their comprehension and recognition of texts.