Richard L. Allington
What Really Matters in Fluency
Research-based Practices across the Curriculum
Unlike any other approach, What Really Matters in Fluency stresses wide, voluntary reading as an overlooked part of reading fluency. Dick Allington’s teacher-friendly framework includes plans to implement this wide reading, fluency interventions, and tools for assessing and monitoring fluency development. Presented alongside a comprehensive background of what fluency is, how it develops, and why it is important, these strategies give teachers the confidence to teach fluency effectively.
In their well-known and much welcomed thought-provoking style, Dick Allington and Pat Cunningham bring you the best research-based instructional advice available. Each of the brief and inexpensive books in the What Really Matters series features what Dick and Pat know about one aspect of teaching and learning to read independently with understanding. To learn more about the series see the inside front cover.
“Once again, Allington delivers an insightful, practical book that enables the application of research to practice in the area of reading fluency. [His] years of work with teachers are reflected in his understanding of the kinds of assistance teachers need to make research-based changes in classrooms.” —Pamela Williamson, University of Cincinnati, Ohio
“The authoritative treatment of the topic, [Allington’s] masterful explanations, the accessibility of the text, and a host of practical suggestions. . .make this book immensely appealing to teachers.”—Mary DeKonty Applegate, professor of education, St. Joseph’s University, Philadelphia
Richard Allington is a past president of the International Reading Association and of the National Reading Conference. He has written more than 100 published papers and reports on reading difficulties, and is the author or coauthor of What Really Matters for Struggling Readers, Classrooms That Work, and Schools That Work. Dick is a former classroom teacher, reading specialist, and federal programs director who has studied and written about fluency since his classic 1983 article in Reading Teacher, "Fluency: The neglected goal."
Richard L. Allington is past-president of the International Reading Association and of the National Reading Conference. Dick Allington has been studying and writing about fluency since his 1983 "classic" Reading Teacher article, Fluency: The neglected reading goal. He is author of over 100 published papers and reports on reading difficulties and the author of a number of books including What Really Matters for Struggling Readers (Allyn & Bacon)and Big Brother and the National Reading Curriculum: How Ideology Trumped Evidence (Heinemann). He is coauthor of Schools that Work, Classrooms that Work (both Allyn & Bacon), and Reading to L earn: Lessons from Exemplary 4th Grade Classrooms (The Guildford Press). Dick is a former classroom teacher, reading specialist, and federal programs director.
