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Self-Study Project

Erica Kettlewell EDC 460 Hohlbein 11/25/2013

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Summary
The problem of practice that will be discussed will be fluency and decoding for first graders in my student teaching classroom. This is important because when a child is efficient at decoding, their fluency increases and so does their understanding. My future cooperating teacher, Mrs. Simcox, expressed to me that these aspects of reading are what our students struggle on frequently. Therefore, I have been working on learning new strategies the students will use during their reading and gain a deeper understanding of the relationship between decoding and fluency. My process towards this goal will be to gain a deeper understanding of decoding and fluency before I begin to teach my students. In my classroom, I will implement my goal through mini-lessons of guided reading, shared reading, and working with words lessons. This will help me gain understanding on the progress of the students fluency and decoding. Also, it will allow me to work individual with them. I think some challenges I will face are understanding specific challenges each child faces and how to help them. Also, when students are struggling with fluency and decoding, it will be difficult ensuring that they are being taught every strategy possible for success. When emphasizing fluency, it will be hard to create a balance of fluency, decoding, and comprehension. First, the focus will be on reading fluency what it requires for teachers and students to teach and learn it effectively. Reading fluency is no longer thought of solely as an oral skill but it is defined also as the ability to decode and comprehend text at the same time (Marcie). There are three components that indicate fluency: accuracy, automaticity, and prosody. Accuracy is the ability to correctly produce a phonological representation of each word, either because it is part of the readers sight-word (Marcie). Automaticity is quickly recognizing words without using

Kettlewell 3 much cognitive processes, one automatically knows the word. Prosody occurs during oral reading and is the ability to read with natural phrasing and expression. Fluency is important because it reveals reading outcomes such as comprehension. Assessments of fluency need to focus on accuracy, rate, and prosody and need to be done frequently. A traditional belief to improving fluency is for students to read as much as possible, however; studies have shown that especially with struggling readers, students need expert guides during their reading. There are two main strategies a teacher can use to increase fluency. One instructional strategy is repeated reading and/or choral reading. The most important aspect of this instructional technique is that improvements extended to unpracticed text (Marcie). Another way for students to increase their fluency is through various independent reading sessions. Also, reading out loud to students and modeling reading allows student sot focus on the content of the passage initially before they read it independently (Pikulski, Chard). Another strategy that should be taught to students is the skill of chunking texts and words into parts (Pikulski, Chard). Decoding is the ability to retrieve meanings from other familiar words and use the context to figure out unfamiliar words. Also, decoding involves learning the features and phonetic meaning of words. The skill of decoding supports the students self-teaching that will help them prepare for assessing words quickly based on their orthography (Perfetti). It is important to understand that decoding leads to a words meaning, but not to comprehension beyond the word directly (Perfetti). However, it depends what meaning is coming from the context in order to identify the word. It is a reciprocal relationship because comprehension can support decoding (Marcie). One way to support decoding for students is through individual conferences and assessing their progress. With that, mini-lessons about parts of words focused

Kettlewell 4 on phonics and phonemic awareness are excellent supporters of decoding. As students develop the ability to decode, words become automatic and fluency increases. There are many ways I will continue my goal for improving students fluency and decoding. One way is participating in professional development through online webinars. From the online webinars, I will also gain insight for using technology with fluency and decoding. The webinars provide excellent resources, authors, and people that can assist any further inquiry on the topic. Also, it is important that I keep updated on the latest research and strategies because even if I do not implement it, I will know what is out there and being studied. Participating in workshops and going to conferences will be a way to learn about new strategies and become informed.

Kettlewell 5 Annotated Bibliography Marcie, Penner-Wilger. "Reading Fluency: A Bridge from Decoding to Comprehension." School Specialty. N.p., Feb. 2008. Web. 18 Oct. 2013. <http://eps.schoolspecialty.com/downloads/research_papers/other/Fluency_Research.pdf >. This source provides definitions and explanations to the foundational skills of reading fluency. Also, the article explains the theory of automaticity and how important fluency is for readers. Ways to assess and approach instructionally reading fluency is described clearly for the audience. Having this resource strengthened my understanding of what fluency is and the many elements it requires. I selected this article because it provides an in-depth explanation of fluency and how it impacts reading and students.

Perfetti, Charles. "Decoding, Vocabulary, and Comprehension." University of Pittsburgh. N.p., 2010. Web. 18 Oct. 2013. <http://www.pitt.edu/~perfetti/PDF/Decoding%20Beck%20festschrift%20chapt.pdf>. This source discusses the connections between vocabulary, decoding, and comprehension which is labeled the DVC triangle. The individual differences in lexical quality are presented to ensure the audience sees the interconnectedness of the skills and aspects of reading. The authors focus is to present there are many aspects of reading that significantly effects decoding. This article is helpful to my understanding because it provides many connections. Pikulski, John J., and David J. Chard. "Fluency: The Bridge From Decoding to Reading Comprehension." EDU Place. Houghton Mifflin Reading, n.d. Web. 2003. <http://www.eduplace.com/state/author/pik_chard_fluency.pdf>.

Kettlewell 6 This article discusses the components of fluency and what it means for teachers and students. The most significant aspect of this article is the descriptions of Ehris Stages of Reading Development as They Relate to Fluency. This resource also provides many strategies to build fluency in developing readers through independent reading, repeated reading, coached or assisted reading, and chunking texts. This article is helpful because it provides many strategies for instruction and how it can be implemented into the classroom.

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