With over twenty years of reading teaching experience with hundreds of students, it is the conviction of the OnLine Reading Tutor that most English-speaking students can learn to read fluently by the end of the third grade. However, the OL' Tutor has observed that, due to a variety of factors, reading scores in America have steadily declined over the past few decades.
Many educators have suggested simplistic reasons for this decline. For example, there are those who suggest that the decreasing emphasis on phonics in our schools has been the main reason for lower reading success. The OL' Tutor agrees that this is ONE reason, but certainly not the only reason. He believes in a balanced approach to reading instruction and he has found several effective methods which parents can successfully use at home using normal children's books.
Of course, there are a variety of societal factors which account for lower academic achievement in reading and other subjects in our schools. These factors include many which break down stability in the lives of students both at home and at school. A stable, secure learning environment is essential for the success of reading or any other skill to be learned. A quiet place for reading is the first requirement which the OL' Tutor would suggest.
The other major problem with the reading instruction of many schools is that they have not had a balanced, sequential reading curriculum. The educational establishment has swung like a pendulum between two reading philosophies: phonics and whole language instruction. The OL' Tutor does not recommend an either/or approach to reading. His approach recommends the use of both phonics and whole language skills in order to assure student success.
The goal of reading is fluency and comprehension. It is not enough to be able to sound out words on a page of print, if the child cannot understand what is being read. Reading fluency is perhaps the most neglected skill in our public school system.
Fluency in reading is the ability of the student to read aloud sections of print. The OL' Tutor can tell you from his own classroom experience, that it is very difficult to monitor the actual reading fluency level of each student in a large class! As class sizes have increased, it has become more difficult to assure that every student can read fluently the grade level material in class. That is where parents must step in and provide for reading practice at home.
The OL' Tutor can provide the parent, grandparent, or guardian with a method of checking reading fluency using regular children's books from their own library and a common-sense approach toward solving reading fluency problems.
Click on Reading Fluency Help below for this practical method.
| Reading Fluency Help | Main Menu |