Modeling Fluency Instruction

Tim Shanahan

Teacher Question

At our school, we test students oral reading fluency three times a year (aimswebPlus), and we teach fluency in both our Tier 1 and Tier 2 programs. I believe that I have a good understanding of how to teach fluency using repeated reading. However, one step in that process that I’m unsure of is modeling. How much fluency modeling should a teacher do and how is that best accomplished?

Shanahan responds:
Since the National Reading Panel (2000) determined fluency instruction to be beneficial, I’ve been queried often about it. Those questions have focused on text difficulty, amounts of fluency practice, role of speed, inclusion of comprehension questions, how to pair students, and so on. I don’t remember ever before getting a question about modeling.

Some aspects of literacy instruction are obvious sites for modeling or demonstrating. Teachers often profitably provide such support when teaching comprehension strategies or when guiding kids to write or print letters and words.

It is very reasonable pedagogy to show someone how to do something and then to give them a chance to emulate what you demonstrated. Then, of course, the teacher must carefully observe those attempts at replicating the model.

If students miss the mark by too much, then the whole thing should be repeated – with the teacher again demonstrating and explaining the skill. When there is a flaw in the kids’ attempts, that problem should be addressed in the reiteration.

When kids do a reasonably good job duplicating a teacher’s model – not perfect, perhaps, but close enough, I would eschew further modeling. An emphasis on guided practice would be the better route forward in that case.

That all makes sense – and, yet the how to of all that might not be so clear when it comes to text reading fluency. What is it that a teacher is supposed to demonstrate and how do you know when to offer more modeling and when to emphasize guided practice instead?

Books and articles on fluency usually recommend modeling (Algozzine, Marr, Kavel, & Dugan, 2009; Archer & Hughes, 2011; Donaldson, 2011; Harrison, 2011; Josephs, 2010; McBride, 2016) though they rarely provide much in the way of specifics. Their descriptions of fluency teaching reveal some apparent but unacknowledged differences in opinion about both the purposes and the methods for fluency modeling. In some cases, the advice is aimed at communicating general ideas about fluency – like phrasing or reading rate. Other authorities promote a more close mimicking of the reading of specific sentences, paragraphs, or pages. 

Are practices like “reading while listening” or “choral reading” forms of modeling or types of guided practice? The literature doesn’t acknowledge the importance of that distinction.

I know of no recent studies of fluency modeling, but several such studies were meta-analyzed a couple decades ago (Chard, Vaughn, & Tyler, 2002). Basically, the researchers concluded that modeling provided clear immediate benefits – kids comprehended the texts better when they had already been modeled or they read more words right. None of the studies provided convincing evidence of higher reading achievement or fluency improvement that generalized to other passages due to modeling.

Given all that, this is one of those times when experience is the truest guide.

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