Peer-Teach Week 1 / Engaging Struggling Readers: A Closer Look into the Repeated Reading Strategy

by Erin Aukward, Amelia Martin and Lauren Tiffany

You know those moments where you get to the end of a sentence, paragraph, section, or chapter, and you find yourself wondering, what in the Sam Hill (to quote Scout from To Kill a Mockingbird) did I just read?! We’ve all had those moments at some point or another with some form of text, no matter what age we are or how well we typically read. But can you imagine feeling that way every time you read? Or even worse, not being able to read or understand the words that make up the sentences in that paragraph, section, or chapter? This week we are taking a look at one particular strategy—repeated reading—that when used appropriately, can help us to engage our struggling readers and help them become avid, motivated, lifelong readers.

In order to engage struggling readers, it is important to first consider what it means to be a struggling reader. Chapter 8 of our Alvermann et al text, Readers and Writers Who Struggle with Content Area Learning, asks us to consider those who we have often labeled a struggling reader, posing the following questions:

*Did they process texts fluently (with speed, accuracy, and appropriate expression) or was their reading slow and labored, perhaps marked by numerous stops and starts, so many in fact that their comprehension suffered?

*Was their spelling affected, too?

*Did their struggle to read contribute to difficulties in learning content?

As we consider what it means to be a struggling reader, we have to also consider what it means to be a fluent reader, and what components of reading must be met in order to be labeled a fluent reader.

The article we read this week, “Intensive Word Study and Repeated Reading Improves Reading Skills for Two Students with Learning Disabilities” by Deborah Hill Staudt, shares insight into the repeated reading strategy, known to have a positive influence on students’ fluency skills. Staudt describes her experience utilizing repeated reading when working with two elementary age children with learning disabilities. Her experience is eye opening, as she works to bridge the gap between intensive phonics instruction the children had already been receiving with word recognition, fluency, and comprehension instruction that they’d been lacking. Her experience is a positive one—both children experienced significant gains in their reading abilities by the end of the school year—bringing to light how effective the repeated reading strategy can be.

While repeated reading was initially meant to address fluency as a standalone, the Staudt (2009) article conveys the message that repeated reading combined with phonics, word recognition, flency, and comprehension, is repeated reading at its best. The article “Two Essential Ingredients: Phonics and Fluency Getting to Know Each Other” introduces a concept of how each component of reading is like a necessary ingredient to a delicious recipe, but when one ingredient is missing, the result is lacking: “Just as leaving out essential ingredients in a recipe can result in a less than desirable culinary product, readers who have difficulties in word decoding and fluency will experience problems in reading comprehension and overall reading achievement . . . sometimes it is the mixing of the spices that results in a special ingredient that adds more to a culinary delight than what each could contribute individually” (Rasinski et al, 2008, p. 257).

The big takeaway here is the importance of including all components of reading when utilizing the repeated reading strategy, rather than considering each component as a distinct instructional element that stands alone. Rather than introduce these components separately and sequentially, they should be mixed together and taught synchronically! Hey, you wouldn’t bake bookies without milk, eggs, and sugar, would you? (Unless you buy the break & bake cookies from the freezer section, that is!)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=rrrLJR7Zbq0

Glossary for Staudt article (2009):

Repeated Reading:  This is a strategy used to help improve students’ reading fluency, word recognition skills, and comprehension (Staudt, 2009, p. 143-144). It is simply “practicing a passage until you can read it accurately, at an acceptable speed, and with good oral expression” (Alvermann, 2004, p. 148). It is the most commonly used method for helping struggling readers strengthen their fluency skills.

Fluency: Our Alvermann et al. text describes fluency as “the rate at which a child reads a passage and the accuracy and expression with which it is read” (2004, p. 140).  Research by the National Reading Panel (NRP) in 2000 concluded that fluency is the most widely overlooked component in reading instruction.

Comprehension: Comprehension in reading is the process of actually understanding and making meaning of what you have read in a text.

 

Phonics: Phonics is the study of the relationship between sounds of the spoken language and the letters, especially when paired or grouped together, of the written language. Decoding is the process of sounding each letter out to make a word.
 

Word recognition: Word recognition is the ability to identify and understand written words quickly, correctly, and effortlessly. Sight words are common words that are used regularly and are identified in this way. 
 

Decoding:  Decoding is the process of recognizing words by sounding out each letter so that they blend together into the word. The ability to do this quickly and effortlessly, and to simultaneously understand the meaning of the word, is the result of automaticity.

 

Automaticity: The Staudt article conveys the message that automaticity is the key to helping students retain the information they have learned, seen, heard, etc. “Students who do not reach automaticity in word recognition skills are at serious risk of forgetting and having to relearn the material” (Staudt, p. 143).