When reading the fluency chapter and article by Rasinski (2014), there were a few major things that stood out to me. One of these things was the concept of reading stamina. Many of the basal reading programs that students are provided with only have short 15-minute stories. While these stories can be great to help students reading experience, students are not being pushed to read for longer periods of time (Tompkins et. al., 2022). This is not only because of their shorter length, but also because students may not be as interested in the topic. Allowing students to choose their own books that they are interested in will help them engage more with the text and want to read more, therefore building their reading stamina.
A concept from Rasinski (2014) that I found very important was the relationship between comprehension and word recognition. When it comes to reading, there are two essential cognitive tasks that need to happen - word recognition and comprehension (Rasinski, 2014). This is important to recognize because as humans we only have a limited amount of cognitive power, and so if we need to use cognitive energy to recognize and decode words, then there is less cognitive energy to comprehend what those words mean. Therefore, we cannot expect students to be able to comprehend what they read, even if they knew all of the words, if they were unable to read it fluently. I think a lot of times this concept is overlooked and teachers feel as though if a student is able to read a passage they should know what it means. Reading this portion caused me to reflect on my own experience as a reader. There have been several times in my academic journey that I was able to fluently read a passage, and I knew all of the words used, but I still wasn't able to find meaning in what I read. This thought caused me to reflect on Muhammad (2020) and her discussions on background and identity. If students are unable to have background knowledge and connect to the readings, they may struggle to or even be unable to find meaning in what they read. Therefore, we cannot expect students to comprehend and interact with a text if too much of their cognitive energy is being spent on trying to decode the words or find purpose/meaning.
References
Rasinski, T. (2014). Fluency matters. International Electronic Journal of Elementary Education, 7(1), 3–12.
Ah! You raise an interesting point at the end of this entry Adeline. It is absolutely true. For students to *understand* the words they are effortlessly, automatically, accurately reading (i.e., fluently) they must have some background knowledge about the concepts being presented in the text. Interestingly enough, this is why vocabulary instruction in all of its various forms is yet another foundational component of literacy instruction.
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