Building English Reading Fluency: Activities That Work

Many pupils can read English accurately but slowly. They work through each sentence word by word and lose the thread. Fluency is the cure, and it is built with practice of a particular kind: easy text, read for meaning, a little faster each time. This article sets out four activities that build it, what research found for each, who the studies involved, and how to run each one in class.

How do you improve reading fluency?

You improve reading fluency by having pupils read large amounts of easy text, with some push to read faster than usual. The text must be easy enough that nothing new stops them.

Nation (2007) calls this the fluency development strand of a language course. He sets four conditions for it:

• What learners read is largely familiar, with no unfamiliar language.
• Their focus is on understanding the message.
• There is some pressure or encouragement to go faster than usual.
• There is a large amount of it.

His test is blunt. If the activity involves unknown vocabulary, it is not a fluency activity. If there is no push to go faster, it is not one either. He suggests that fluency work should take about a quarter of course time.

Speed matters because of what it frees. Chang and Millett (2013) argue that good comprehension depends on recognising words quickly and accurately, which leaves attention for meaning.

In practice, fluency texts should be easier than the books pupils read for extensive reading, often a level below their reading band. How to Match Students to the Right Graded Readers explains how to find that band.

Fluency activities compared

The table sums up the evidence. Extensive reading is included because it builds speed too.

Timed reading at an easy level

In timed reading, pupils read a short passage once, as fast as they can while still understanding it. They note the time, answer a few gist questions and record their speed. The passages are easy and of equal length, so speeds can be compared.

Chang (2010) ran this for 13 weeks with 84 college students in Taiwan, at high beginning to intermediate level. Once a week, the timed reading group spent 15 minutes reading three 300-word passages written at the 1,000-word level. Their speed rose by 29 words per minute on average, or 25%. The control group gained 7.

Comprehension rose by 4%, so speed did not come at its cost. Students also reported feeling more confident in their reading. It is one study, but it shows how little class time the activity needs.

How to run timed reading

1. Choose passages of equal length, a level below the pupils' reading band, each with five gist questions.
2. Say 'Go' and start a timer that everyone can see. Pupils read once, without looking back.
3. When they finish, they note the time on the board and answer the questions without the text.
4. They work out their words per minute and plot it on a personal graph, with their comprehension score beside it.
5. Run two or three passages a session, once or twice a week, for a term.

Keep the comparison personal: each pupil races their own last score, not the class. Watch the comprehension column as well. Chang and Millett (2013) describe scores around 50% as unsatisfactory and around 70% as acceptable. A pupil who drops below that should slow down or move to easier passages.

Repeated reading

In repeated reading, a pupil reads the same short passage several times, each time a little faster and more smoothly. The aim is that the speed carries over to texts the pupil has not seen.

Chang and Millett (2013) tested this with 26 college students in Taiwan, aged 18 to 19. For 13 weeks, the repeated reading group read two passages a week, each five times silently, timing their readings. A comparison group read the same passages once. The weekly activity took about 40 minutes.

The repeated reading group gained 47 words per minute on practised texts and 45 on a new text. The comparison group gained 13 and 7. Comprehension rose too, by 19% and 17%. Each group had only 13 students, and the repeated readers were volunteers who may have been more motivated.

Taguchi, Takayasu-Maass and Gorsuch (2004) added an audio model. For 17 weeks, 10 Japanese university students timed a first reading, read the passage twice while listening to a recording, then twice more silently. Another 10 read books of their choice. The authors judged the two methods equally effective for silent reading rate.

Faster reading did not bring clear comprehension gains in that study. Even so, eight of the ten repeated readers said, unprompted, that the audio helped them understand the stories.

With young first-language readers, Rasinski (1990) compared repeated reading with listening while reading. His 20 participants were third-grade pupils in the United States. Both methods improved reading fluency, and neither was better than the other.

How to run repeated reading

1. Choose a passage of 150 to 300 words that pupils can read with no unknown words.
2. First reading: pupils read silently and note their time.
3. Second and third readings: they read again, aiming to be smoother, and note each time.
4. Last reading: they read once more, then retell the passage to a partner or answer two gist questions.
5. Next session, start a new passage at the same level.

Reading while listening

In reading while listening, pupils follow the text with their eyes while a recording reads it aloud. The voice sets the pace, so the pupil cannot stall on each word. It also shows how words sound and where phrases break.

Chang and Millett (2015) gave 64 secondary school beginners 20 graded readers over 26 weeks. One group read silently and the other read while listening to the audio. Both groups read faster by the end. The audio group gained 43 words per minute, against 18 for the silent group, and understood more.

The gains held three months later. This is one study of 64 pupils, so treat it as promising, not settled. Reading While Listening: What It Does for English Learners covers the wider research and when to take the audio away.

For fluency, choose audio slightly faster than the pupil's own reading, so it pulls them along. If you read to the class yourself, Read-Aloud vs Read-Along: What's the Difference? explains why pupils need the text in front of them.

Paced reading

In paced reading, the teacher sets the speed. Pupils read an easy text while you call out each minute, or while a marker moves down a projected page. Each week the target pace rises a little.

The evidence here is thinner. Chang (2010) describes a university course that combined timed readings with paced readings at an imposed rate, rising by 25 words per minute each week. The effect of the pacing cannot be separated from the rest. No study cited here tested paced reading on its own.

Use it for pupils who do not push themselves in timed reading. Start at a pace the whole class can manage, and raise it only when most pupils keep up and still answer the gist questions.

Plenty of easy reading is the base

The four activities are short bursts. The base of fluency is still a large amount of easy reading. Beglar, Hunt and Kite (2012) followed 97 first-year Japanese university students for a year. All three pleasure reading groups gained more reading speed than an intensive reading group.

The groups that read most gained most, and reading a book every two weeks or more worked best for most learners. Comprehension stayed high, and simplified texts led to greater gains than unsimplified ones.

Taguchi, Takayasu-Maass and Gorsuch (2004) point the same way: extensive reading raised silent reading rate as well as assisted repeated reading did. Drills sharpen speed, and extensive reading gives it room to grow. Extensive vs. Intensive Reading: What's the Difference? explains how the kinds of reading fit together.

Who was studied?

Almost all the studies above involved college or university students in Taiwan or Japan. Only Chang and Millett (2015) studied secondary school pupils. Only Rasinski (1990) studied children, and they were first-language readers. The activities are simple and low-risk, but nobody has shown that the gains are the same for pupils aged 8 to 16.

A fluency routine for the week

Fluency work fits into short slots. Here is one way to combine the activities for a class at A2.

Keep three rules. Fluency texts are easier than reading books. Every timed reading ends with a gist check. The only comparison is with the pupil's own last score.

How iRead handles this

In iRead, every story, quiz and game is levelled to the CEFR, from A1 to C2. Many stories have narrated audio synced to the text, optional per story, so a student can follow the words while listening. Four word games, built from the vocabulary of the story the class is reading, are regenerated every 24 hours with no teacher setup. A quiz runs after every session, with questions generated from the story itself.

Key takeaway

Give pupils text they can read without stopping, and a reason to read it a little faster: a timer, a repeat, a voice or a pace. Back the short drills with plenty of easy extensive reading.

Frequently asked questions

Sources

1. Nation, P. (2007). The four strands. Innovation in Language Learning and Teaching, 1(1), 2-13. doi.org/10.2167/illt039.0
2. Chang, A. C.-S. (2010). The effect of a timed reading activity on EFL learners: Speed, comprehension, and perceptions. Reading in a Foreign Language, 22(2), 284-303. doi.org/10.64152/10125/66837
3. Chang, A. C.-S., & Millett, S. (2013). Improving reading rates and comprehension through timed repeated reading. Reading in a Foreign Language, 25(2), 126-148. doi.org/10.64152/10125/66864
4. Taguchi, E., Takayasu-Maass, M., & Gorsuch, G. J. (2004). Developing reading fluency in EFL: How assisted repeated reading and extensive reading affect fluency development. Reading in a Foreign Language, 16(2), 70-96. doi.org/10.64152/10125/66783
5. Rasinski, T. V. (1990). Effects of repeated reading and listening-while-reading on reading fluency. The Journal of Educational Research, 83(3), 147-151. doi.org/10.1080/00220671.1990.10885946
6. Chang, A. C.-S., & Millett, S. (2015). Improving reading rates and comprehension through audio-assisted extensive reading for beginner learners. System, 52, 91-102. doi.org/10.1016/j.system.2015.05.003
7. Beglar, D., Hunt, A., & Kite, Y. (2012). The effect of pleasure reading on Japanese university EFL learners' reading rates. Language Learning, 62(3), 665-703. doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9922.2011.00651.x