English Language Development

building activities require students to attend to each sound and grapheme when they build and change
words. In other words, the activity prompts full alphabetic decoding, which research indicates “plays a
central role in the development of effective and efficient word recognition skills” (102).

Students’ skills vary, so word building activities are
conducted with small groups of children who have similar
skills. Over time, word building progressions target more
difficult letter-sound and letter-spelling combinations and
word forms, including words with inflectional endings and
derivational affixes. (See also Spear-Swerling 2011 for
a discussion and Cunningham and Hall [2001, 2008] for
variations on word building.)

Fluency

Connections should be made between children’s
growing insights into the nature of written English and
their application in meaningful text. Children need to have
opportunities to employ their developing phonics and word
recognition skills as they read and write. The more children
engage with the patterns and words they are learning, the
more quickly the patterns and words become recognized in print and used effortlessly in writing. The
goal is that children will not have to expend significant amounts of mental energy decoding or spelling
many words as they read and write, so their focus can be on meaning.

Fluency encompasses accuracy, appropriate rate (which demands automaticity), and prosody.
Data from an extensive study of oral reading fluency provides the mean words read per minute (that
is, the reading rate, which is a measure of automaticity) by students in grades one through eight in
unpracticed readings from grade-level materials (Hasbrouck and Tindal 2006). Figure 4.19 presents
the means for grade two. The researchers recommended that students scoring more than ten words
below the 50th percentile be provided more extensive instruction in fluency.

Figure 4.19. Mean Oral Reading Rate of Grade Two Students

Percentile Fall WCPM* Winter WCPM* Spring WCPM*

Avg. Weekly

Improvement**

90

75

106

79

125

100

142

117

1.1

1.2

50 51 72 89 1.2

25

10

25

11

42

18

61

31

1.1

.06

*WCPM = Words Correct Per Minute **Average words per week growth

Source

Hasbrouck, Jan, and Gerald A. Tindal. 2006. “Oral Reading Fluency Norms: A Valuable Assessment Tool for

Reading Teachers.” The Reading Teacher 57: 646-655.

Rate is essential in that reading at a sufficient pace supports comprehension. It is important to
note, however, that fluency instruction is not a matter of having students mindlessly race through
text. Pace is just one aspect of fluency; the ultimate goal is comprehension. In order to use context to
confirm or self-correct word recognition and understanding, as called for by the CA CCSS for
ELA/Literacy (RF.2–5.4c), children need to attend to meaning as they read.

Children need to have

opportunities to employ their

developing phonics and word

recognition skills as they read

and write. The more children

engage with the patterns and

words they are learning, the

more quickly the patterns and

words become recognized in

print and used effortlessly in

writing.

Grade 2 Chapter 4 | 329