The Fluent Reader (2nd Edition): Oral & Silent Reading Strategies for Building Fluency, Word Recognition & Comprehension

Very practical for teachers but at the same time is research-based.

The book was given to me by my principal and after reading the first chapter I gave it back so I could buy my own. This is a book every elementary teacher should own and refer to on a regular basis. It has enough theory to it to support its findings without slowing down the reading. Most of the book has practical suggestions and methods to use in the classroom. I have been so motivated by this book that I have completely changed the way I am teaching reading in my 4th grade classroom.

This book was a lifesaver for me, when I was thrown in with a class of middle-school students who had very poor reading skills. I used a number of the techniques described in the book, with good results: paired reading for very low readers (which I also encouraged their parents to do with them); Fluency Development Lesson for the whole class (reading poetry aloud, both whole class and in pairs); and much more. This book promotes oral reading, which I think is imperative in boosting reading skills (in contrast to my college professors, who said "never require students to read out loud"), and also gives a good, concise background on how and why oral reading fell out of favor. This book is easy to read, and gets across a lot of information in as painless a way as possible. Each chapter describes a particular technique, and then has a "(that technique) at a glance" box at the end that summarizes the information. I had looked at all the books on fluency I could find, and selected this as the best, and I recommend it without reservation. I used Jack Prelutsky's "Something Big Has Been Here" book of poetry for the Fluency Development Lesson, and it was awesome. Clever, humorous poetry that appeal to kids, but contain very sophisticated vocabulary, which became the basis of our vocabulary study. The other two books that were part of my "reading instruction triumvirate": "Teaching Phonics and Word Study in the Intermediate Grades" by Wiley Blevins, and "Building Reading Comprehension Habits in Grades 6-12: a Toolkit of Activities" by Jeff Zwiers. Both indispensable.

After teaching for many years, I didn't think one book could have the impact this book did. I look at fluency in a new light. I have always used repeated oral readings to increase fluent reading, but with more and more students, the time to listen to individual readers decreased. Mr. Rasinski has given us many new ways to bring oral reading for fluency back into a busy classroom. After using some of his ideas for only a few weeks, I had children reading orally in front of the class. This wouldn't sound so outstanding until you know these are children with very substantial learning disabilities who are reading way below grade level, until they read the poem, book or passage they have practiced many times and then... for a few minutes, they are fluent readers.

I was at a workshop where dozens of books were recommended. I asked if I only want to order one book which should I get. I was told to get "The Fluent Reader". I was blown away with the great reading ideas in this book. None of these are difficult to implement, and all are well researched to work. This book is not a "cutesy" book, but great reading ideas that are clearly innovative, well-reasearched, effective, and inspiring for the children. Yes, most appear to be very fun to. The 1st chapter is rather slow, but chapters 2-6 will more than make up for the slow start.