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Joshua Cohen
Building Fluency through the
Repeated Reading Method
ev
I
f you have sympathized with
students who stumble through
reading passages or pore over
ery word in an expressionless manner
while barely comprehending, this
article is for you. For the last two years
I have used Repeated Reading (RR) to
teach reading fluency in English as a
Foreign Language classrooms in colleges
and universities in Japan. RR
is a method where the student reads
and rereads a text silently or aloud
from two to four times to reach a predetermined
level of speed, accuracy,
and comprehension. All my students
made progress, many in relatively
short periods of time. By practicing
RR and the skills associated with it,
students learn to read faster and more
accurately and to apply gains made to
more challenging texts.
Although using RR to develop
fluency appears best suited for beginning
readers who have difficulty with
pacing, expression, or word recognition,
I also have used the method
successfully with mature readers.
Providing opportunities to read ageappropriate,
authentic content such
as prose, poetry, novels, and newspapers
is excellent practice for learners
with some ability to read because it
gives them a chance to integrate skills
they have already begun to acquire,
such as flow, fluidity, and comprehension
(Koskinen and Blum 1986;
Dowhower 1989).
Providing second and foreign language
(L2) learners with sufficient
exposure to and experience with reading
can be a challenging task. In
particular, students who are not yet
fluent readers seldom read when it is
not required and tend not to enjoy
the process when they do engage in
it. The opposite, however, can be said
of good readers—the more they read,
the more they improve their reading
abilities. It is probably safe to say
that reading ability and reading confidence
are very closely related. RR
supports the learning of English by
creating confident readers who enjoy
reading, and the three techniques
described in this article will illustrate
how the method can be used to develop
fluency, comprehension skills, and
greater reading self-esteem.
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Background of the Repeated Reading
method
First popularized by Samuels (1979), RR
was initially designed for special needs students
in first-language (L1) settings. The
method was so successful that it is now used
widely with developing L1 readers (Kuhn and
Stahl 2000). For over 30 years it has been
used extensively in L1 environments to help
build fluency and is supported by research
(LaBerge and Samuels 1974; Samuels 1979;
Dowhower 1989).
RR works as a scaffold for struggling
readers by providing them with short-term,
achievable mini-goals such as completing
a passage in faster time (speed), increasing
words read correctly (accuracy), and
reading for a better understanding of the
text (comprehension). The resulting success
learners experience through RR builds their
confidence and encourages them to invest
more time and effort into achieving the
skill of reading fluently (Dowhower 1994;
Nuttall 1996).
However, RR has not received the same
recognition in L2 classrooms, where the
method has been slow to catch on. Its benefits
have seemingly gone unnoticed, and very little
research has been published in support of
the method as a fluency-building tool for L2
learners (but see Taguchi 1997; Taguchi and
Gorsuch 2002; and Taguchi, Takayasu-Maass,
and Gorsuch 2004 for excellent coverage of
RR’s great potential in developing reading
fluency among L2 learners).
One explanation for RR’s relative absence
from L2 classrooms may be that some educators
feel fluency develops naturally over time.
As other reading skills progress and gradually
improve, so too does the ability to read fluently.
Another possibility is that teachers faced
with big class sizes, limited contact hours, and
strenuous curriculum demands may not have
the time to focus on fluency as an essential
reading skill.
Fortunately, the RR method is firmly rooted
in sound linguistic theory, and good theory
often leads to practical outcomes. There are
a variety of simple-to-implement techniques
for using RR in the L2 context that require
little preparation on the teacher’s part, including
(1) Oral Repeated Reading, (2) Paired
Repeated Reading, and (3) Reader’s Theater.
Technique 1: Classic Oral Repeated
Reading
Oral Repeated Reading (ORR) is a technique
that is fun and easy to carry out and
that provides a window into readers’ ability
to integrate the skills associated with reading
fluently (National Institute of Child Health
and Human Development 2000). Oral reading
helps students associate printed language
with spoken language, improves their reading
rate and rhythm, and provides opportunities
to experience the pleasure of reading with a
real purpose (Rasinski 2003). It can also build
confidence and strengthen learners’ perceptions
of themselves as readers (Greenberg,
Buggey, and Bond 2002). Oral reading has
also been shown to correlate with reading
comprehension (August and Shanahan 2006)
and to help learners acquire a greater understanding
of how to comprehend material that
is read silently (Opitz and Guccione 2009).
In the classic version of ORR, students
read and reread short, meaningful passages of
text aloud, typically four times. I find setting
short-term goals, such as reading faster or
reading with more appropriate phrasing, helps
learners stay focused. Alternatively, you can
set criteria for speed, accuracy, and comprehension.
After four readings or when the criteria
are met, learners may proceed to the next
section of the text. Other versions of ORR
include using pre-recorded audio to provide
a model and the use of computers to record,
time, track, and chart learners’ progress.
Oral Repeated Reading classroom suggestion:
Chunk it
Oral reading fluency is best developed
when learners focus on reading sentences
seamlessly, as opposed to word by word. A
chunk (or sense group) is a meaningful part of
a sentence, such as a phrase or a clause, and
often corresponds to the places where an individual
will naturally pause or use appropriate
intonation when reading a text out loud. The
following four steps will help your students
begin to visualize sense groups.
Step 1: Begin with a compelling poem or
story
Most genres of writing work well as ORR
activities, including prose, poetry, speeches,
fables, short or serialized stories, recipes,
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radio/TV commercials, and public service
announcements. For learners who can sightread
easily, but have not yet mastered reading
with expression or good rhythm, find a poem
or a short story with dialogue. I like Shel
Silverstein’s poetry, because it is often accompanied
by pictures that serve as visual support
for learners (e.g., Silverstein 1996). Graded
readers (books divided into levels and written
with controlled vocabulary), limericks, and
simple speeches also work well.
Step 2: Break the text into chunks
Write the poem or story’s lines (on the
blackboard or on an overhead transparency)
in a narrow column with one sense group
per line. Three- to four-word phrases work
best; however, you can also break phrases into
longer or shorter chunks depending on the
skill level of your learners. Alternatively, you
can write each sense group on cue cards. You
can easily change the length of the chunk that
readers work with.
By breaking the text
into chunks
you help introduce your learners
to the notion of taking in
increasingly longer chunks
as they read.
Step 3: Model the reading of chunks
Show students how good readers cluster
portions of text together rather than saying
words individually. If you have arranged the
text into a column (as above), use a card
guide or cardboard mask about the same
width as the column to expose the text line
by line. You can also create and display
sentence strips and model reading the sense
groups one at a time.
Step 4: Practice reading the text to build
proficiency
To build confidence with the text, have
students read the lines together out loud as a
group. Hold the cardboard mask just above
the first line and then, as they read, move
it down the column at the desired speed.
Time and resources allowing, you can provide
students with an individual copy of the text
and their own cardboard mask. Once they
gain proficiency and confidence reading the
piece together, you can call on individual
students to read for the class. Assigning the
piece as homework the night before is one
way of guaranteeing success for this type of
task. Finally, you can reinforce the reading of
sense groups in guided reading activities by
using the same poem or story and pointing to
the lines that were previously read as an ORR
activity.
Technique 2: Paired Repeated Reading
The objectives of Paired Repeated Reading
(PRR) are similar to those of ORR. Both
focus on pronunciation and prosody (the
variation in loudness, pitch, and rhythm);
however, PRR includes a measure for selfand
peer-assessment. Research reports from
L1 teaching environments indicate significant
improvement in support of oral fluency
and comprehension when teachers incorporate
PRR regularly into their classrooms
(Fuchs and Fuchs 2005; Koskinen and
Blum 1986).
To use PRR, simply select an interesting
reading passage and have your students
work in pairs. I use novels serialized into
installments to maintain learner interest and
enthusiasm; however, short stories, poetry,
and fables work nicely too. If it is not possible
to give each student a copy, make an
overhead transparency or write the text where
all students can see it. You can also pass out
one handout per student pair to cut down on
copy costs and encourage more teamwork and
cooperation between learners.
Alternatively, you can ask students to
self-select materials. Be sure the content is
on their independent reading level and does
not contain too many unknown words or
difficult