Do you wish to learn strategies to improve reading fluency? Have you been finding it difficult to understand whatever you read? Or does it take you a lot of time before you comprehend what you read?
If yes, don’t be alarmed; your situation is more frequent than you might assume.
Poor reading comprehension can have a negative impact on your academic performance because it makes reading much more difficult and it makes it difficult to grasp and remember what you have read. And you can imagine how frustrating this can get.
The more you improve in your reading fluency, the less time you will spend studying because you will be able to derive knowledge from what you are reading, you understand it, and think about it afterwards.
In other words, you will learn more and perform better, which will undoubtedly show in your grades. Therefore In this article, I will be sharing with you 10 strategies to improve reading fluency. Let’s get right into it.
10 strategies to improve reading fluency.
1. Get better at reading
To become better at reading fluency, It’s crucial to read continually. The more you read, the better you become.
Constant practice is necessary if you want to gradually increase your comprehension.
Also, in order to avoid being bored and tired, we advise reading about subjects that you are interested in. Embrace a reading habit!
2. Read aloud and discuss
While reading aloud may appear noisy, it’s proven to help students fluency. When reading aloud, stop periodically to access comprehension. After reading aloud, have a conversation with a friend on that particular topic to make important communications.
3. Read slowly to understand
To become better at reading fluency, you should read each paragraph slowly. Don’t rush each sentence. This will compel you to stay on that paragraph until you understand it completely.
4. Have a dictionary close to you
Having a dictionary close to you when reading is very compulsory. Most times, when we don’t fully understand the meaning of a particular word, we tend to misinterpret the whole sentence, hereby making reading fluency difficult.
With the help of the dictionary, you can use it to discover new words while also understanding the meaning of existing ones.
5. Take notes as you read
Get a short note and pen with you when reading. Not all books can be easily understood, some books require a lot of mental effort to read because there are so many characters or because there are key details you need to keep in mind.
Therefore, it is advised that you take notes so that you may go over the information you have already read over and over again to aid fluency.
6. Use the PQ4R Formula
PQ4R is a formula and an acronym that stands for;
P – Preview: Before reading, you skim through the content you want to read, the content, the visuals and the length of what you want to read to acquire a quick summary and also grab the whole idea of the subject you want to read.
Q – Question: This encourages you to reflect on what you are reading. By asking yourself questions, the teacher asking you questions or questions from a friend aids reading fluency and improves interactions.
R – Read: This is where you read the content slowly to understand every bit of it.
R – Reflect: This is where you think about what you just read. This serves as a means of assisting students in realizing their own learning capacity.
R – Recite: This is where you recite orally what you’ve just learned either personally, with a group of friends, or as an oral class presentation. Following the reading and reflecting, this oral presentation helps to reinforce whatever you have just learned.
R – Review: After you have finished reading, this is the stage where you go back to what you’ve read from the beginning. Are you still able to remember all you’ve read and answer the previous questions? This review aids students in remembering the numerous things they have learned, thereby solidifying their understanding.
The PQ4R Formula is a proven reading technique that increases your fluency in all subjects and also aids in reading comprehension.
7. Summarize what you have read
To aid reading fluency, it is important for you to pause reading from time to time and revise what you have just read.
When writing a summary, you must incorporate the key ideas and draw conclusions from the main text information. And also separate the key ideas from the unnecessary or useless details.
Take a break after every paragraph before you continue reading. Summarize what you have just read to be sure you comprehended it.
8. Tell a friend to ask you questions
After reading, you should reflect on what you’ve just read by telling a friend to ask you questions. The reason for this is to be sure that you remembered what you’ve just read and also it will allow you to assess your comprehension of it.
9. Group study on a specific topic
To become better at reading fluency, a group of friends can discuss together to study a particular difficult topic which everyone will summarize the following day. This can be done in the class in the form of an oral presentation or seminar.
10. Increase your reading speed
After you might have tried out these techniques and you have started seeing improvements, it is important for you to increase your reading pace. By doing this, reading any book will be simple for you.
Conclusion
There are other additional activities you may take to improve reading fluency in addition to all of the above.
Some of these activities are; Test of language proficiency, inclusion and implication, synonyms, and antonyms and others. These kinds of activities are really enjoyable and will significantly increase your vocabulary.
Just as you know that, reading fluency plays a crucial role in helping you to accurately and thoroughly understand a book and, as a result, you’re learning.
Follow the 10 strategies to improve reading fluency mentioned in this article. Also, read a little bit each day, and use the dictionary as a guide. Also, you may have to invest some money initially, but with persistence and intensity, you will realize that you can improve your reading comprehension faster than you think.