Customer Reviews

The Fluent Reader: Oral Reading Strategies for Building Word Recognition, Fluency, and Comprehension

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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.

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.

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.

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.

The Fluent Reader is Rasinski's definitive work on the subject. It is a book that should be on every grade school teacher's shelf. The strategies developed in this book are applicable to any age or grade level. Since fluency is directly correlated with comprehension, it is imperative that children learn to read fluently as soon as they know how to decode. This book shows how to make that happen!

This book is an excellent resource if you are teaching reading at any level. It is researched based and provides concrete, practical teaching tips.

This book was recommended in a class I took, and I found it very useful. Some of Scholastic's books can feel dumbed-down, but this one did not. It explained the importance of fluency in developing overall reading skills and gave several practical ways to include fluency practice in class. I especially liked the rubrics provided in the appendix and have found them a useful way to track my students' developing fluency. Great resource!

It is great. We use it as a text for our "Fluency" professional development workshop at Alpine School District.

This book is fantastic! It is easy reading with ideas that are applicable the moment you start reading. I teach kindergarten and some of the ideas had to be watered down to meet my needs, but for grades 1-8th it is perfect.
I ususally get rid of a book after I've read it, but not this one. It is a great reference book for any teacher. I highly recommend this book.

This book is a wonderful resource the the reading teacher from k-8th grades. I have been a kinder teacher for 16 years and I found it helpful not only for my grade level but it helped me feel that I would be effective in other grade levels as well, something I had not previously felt. It reads very easily, gives many strategies, and contains resources to implement the strategies. I would make this required reading for every teacher.