FluentZoo
Reading Fluency?
Time for FluentZoo
FAQs
Do we really need a separate resource for teaching reading fluency?
Of course you don’t. But... Some great books, some skilful teachers, a bit of time set aside on the curriculum and some willing children are all you need to get reading fluency right. In lots of schools, fluency teaching will be embedded in reading lessons already, with children having plenty of opportunities for the sorts reading activities that build fluency. But (and we bet you knew that was coming), finding the right texts for fluency teaching can be tricky sometimes, and it can be very time-consuming- it’s another thing for busy teachers or subject leaders to do. And while some teachers know everything there is to know about reading fluency, others might need a bit more support to make it as effective as possible. Resources like FluentZoo can help by giving you everything you need in one place, including texts ready-to-use activities. FluentZoo also helps to make sure that fluency instruction is systematic and structured, with concepts and opportunities to practise carefully interleaved so children return to the same ideas, helping them to become permanent.
Do we use FluentZoo instead of a phonics scheme?
Eek, no. Please don’t. Systematic phonics teaching, alongside lots of chances to practise reading and lots of listening to books being read aloud is the diet that beginner readers need become fluent readers. For beginner readers, learning to decode quickly and accurately and learning to recognise more and more words at a glance without having to stop and sound them out is what builds speedy, accurate, automatic reading. FluentZoo helps to keep that going as children get older, giving them opportunities to keep decoding longer, more complicated words (in activities like Dinosaur or Fungi?) and to practise reading words in meaningful phrases (in activities like Phrases at a Glance). Where FluentZoo really comes into its own is with the prosodic elements of reading fluency: reading with expression; controlling tone, volume and pace; attending to punctuation and other clues in the text; and bringing out the meaning of a text through emphasis and intonation. Specific work on these areas can help children to read aloud with expression, but more importantly to develop internal fluency, so the voice they hear when they read is one that reflects the meaning of the text.
Which year groups is FluentZoo suitable for?
The aim has always been that FluentZoo is as flexible as possible, with schools building it into their existing reading curriculum in the way that makes the most sense to them. Some schools begin using the Stage 1 resources straight after most children have moved on from decodable books (usually Year 2/P3). Others begin to use FluentZoo from the start of KS2, using one stage per year added into their existing whole-class sessions.
Do we have to complete the different FluentZoo sessions in order?
Hmm, that’s up to you. The benefit of working through the sessions in order is that children will have the chance to return to the same ideas and facets of reading fluency with progressively more challenging texts and slightly less teacher input, moving responsibility from the adult to the child. But, you’re the teacher and you know what will work best in your class. It might be that the children you teach would benefit from a specific focus on one aspect of reading, so you can search for sessions that will support that. Or it might be that they’ve been really motivated by one type of activity and you want to capitalise on that by doing lots of it. As we say, you know best.
Should we start FluentZoo with beginner readers?
No. Fluency teaching with younger children is likely to involve lots and lots of listening to brilliant books and poems being read aloud so they develop an ear for language and how a reader can bring a text to life, alongside a systematic approach to teaching word-reading. FluentZoo has been designed to help children develop the different strands of reading fluency once they’re past the early stages of learning to read.
Why would we need to run fluency sessions with older children? Shouldn’t we be focusing on comprehension? Can’t they all read already?
We think some fluency teaching is really useful for older children. First of all, fluency and comprehension are very closely linked. Our understanding of a text helps us to know how to read it- where to add emphasis or the right tone to read in, for example. Equally, the prosodic elements of reading carry lots of the meaning beyond the words themselves. FluentZoo sessions provide lots of opportunities for children to explore this idea and get better at understanding different texts. Activities like those used in FluentZoo help older children to engage with rich texts and think really carefully about their meaning. Stage 4 of FluentZoo makes use of more complicated texts, including some literary heritage texts, which can be useful in preparing children for the texts they’ll study at secondary school. Also, the activities used in FluentZoo keep fluent reading on the agenda (important as lots of the reading older children do as they get older and fluency activities help you to check where children are having difficulties. Finally, as well as being educationally valuable, fluency teaching can be sociable and lots of fun - just what we might need to make time for sometimes.
Can we run FluentZoo sessions with a small intervention group?
You can, if you think there’s a group of children that would benefit from some extra work on something specific. However, FluentZoo was designed for everyone to do together. It focuses on the prosodic aspects of reading that are helpful for everyone, even the most confident readers. Developing readers benefit from working with their friends in sessions, listening to lots of words being read aloud by others and having frequent opportunities to think carefully about how to read a text and to read the same text several times. For children who are in older classes but are still at the early stages of learning to read, they’ll still need plenty of individual or small-group support with reading. Hopefully there are lots of aspects of the FluentZoo sessions that they can take part in while they’re learning to read. The aim is that FluentZoo sessions are fast-paced, collaborative and enjoyable. If someone is finding learning to read hard, then something that helps them to have fun reading together with their friends might be no bad thing.
Are children learning lists of sight words in some sessions? How does that fit with learning to read through phonics?
No, the Phrases at a Glance words aren’t intended to be lists of sight words to be memorised. That’s very unlikely to be a good way to learn to read- English has quite a lot of words, so expecting children to memorise them all wouldn’t be terribly efficient. For almost all children, the words in Phrases at a Glance are words that they will be able to read already; they’ll have met them in Reception or early in Year 1 as part of the wider business of learning to read (probably through a phonics programme). Research suggests that there are two pathways readers use to take words from the page. The first is consciously decoding them and the second is through recognising the sound-spelling correspondence across the whole word (what is called ‘orthographic mapping’). Some short sessions of focused practice can these common words to move from being words that need to be consciously decoded each time they are encountered to words which can be read automatically at a glance. This allows children to read the words quickly, fluently and accurately, freeing up space for decoding the less familiar words children encounter and meaning that children can concentrate on making meaning from the text.
Why do the At a Glance sessions use words and phrases out of context? Surely, we want children to read rich texts, not just lists of words?
You’re absolutely right. The whole point of learning to read is so children can choose to read anything they want: fascinating non-fiction texts, exciting stories, hilarious jokes or even just the football gossip on the internet every morning. We want children to learn to read using the most interesting, exciting, authentic texts available. That’s why FluentZoo uses poems, playscripts and short stories across the different sessions. But, one way we can help children to enjoy reading is to help them become fluent, so reading is a joy rather than a challenge. Practising reading the warm-up words so they can be read quickly and easily helps to make reading effortless. The words have been carefully chosen because they are the most common words children encounter when they read independently. They’ve then been organised into meaningful phrases which often occur in authentic texts. A bit of practice recognising these words automatically, rather than having to decode them each time (what’s called orthographic mapping, to be technical) means children can concentrate on some of the less-familiar words they encounter and focus on what the words they’re reading mean. It’s a bit like how knowing their times tables and number bonds automatically allows a child to concentrate on solving problems in maths. If children practise for a few minutes they can soon read them quickly and fluently. Then, they can take this new superpower into their wider reading. Plus, we’ve found that lots of children quite enjoy racing through the words and phrases with a friend.
Have another question we haven’t answered here?
Drop us a line and let us know. We’ll get back to you (and maybe add it here to help everyone else).