Expository Reading Fluencies

Hey Reading Intervention Teachers! Thought I'd share my latest project on Expository Reading Fluencies and ask for your feedback. I'm putting 129 of my animal fluency passages on YouTube. Each modeled reading passage is read at 95‒115 (Level A), 115‒135 (Level B), and 135‒150 (Level C) words per minute to challenge remedial readers at their respective reading levels.

I'm just starting to use these modeled readings with a seventh grade ELA "support" class. We're lucky enough to have access to Google Chromebooks. Students just put on their earbuds, access the playlist link above, and practice at their challenge levels. My recommendation would be to assign students to read at the level slightly above, say 10-15%, their initial diagnostic reading fluency rate.

Here's the Diagnostic Fluency Assessment I use. It's a two-minute assessment on an expository passage. The passage (like those on my videos) begins with two paragraphs at the third grade level, followed by two paragraphs at the fifth grade level, and ending with two paragraphs at the seventh grade level. My sense is that this multi-level assessment provides much more accurate diagnostic data than reading at any single reading level. More on the rationale/research base here.

With the shift from narrative to expository reading in the Common Core State Standards, it just makes sense to abandon the past reading intervention practice of using primarily narrative passages to help students practice reading fluency. This would especially be true for upper elementary, middle, and high school remedial readers. It would also make sense that practice with expository passages would particularly benefit these students as they read social studies and science texts while concurrently taking a remedial reading course or English class with an RtI tiered intervention model.

See what you think. I've got a thick skin!

Mark Pennington