I got a question yesterday: Does it really make sense to teach oral reading fluency to English learners or would it be better to have them working on oral language proficiency in English?
Oral reading fluency, which includes accuracy, speed, and expression is an important (skill or collection of skills) because instruction in oral reading fluency improves reading comprehension. As such, it is an important factor in reading. (Because it is an amalgamation of skills, activities such as repeated reading can improve several of them: including automaticity in word recognition and prosody--using the sound to show the meaningful relations among the words).
However, the relationship between fluency and comprehension changes a bit with second-language learners, and our educational practices have to change accordingly. Most important in this regard is that fluency instruction has been found to have a positive impact on the reading of English learners, however the effect size of this impact tends to be smaller (meaning that such teaching helps English learners, but not as much as it does native speakers). This doesn’t mean that I would not teach fluency to English learners, only that I would alter my criteria for success and I wouild teach it somewhat less and a little bit differently.
Certainly, fluency should not just be reduced to rate and accuracy (as is done in far too many classrooms), some consideration to the expression (especially as children get into the intermediate grades) is needed. ELLs should not spend inordinate amounts of time in discrete skills programs (but some instruction in discrete skills can be beneficial to these students). It is critical that the whole program be considered in such placements: most of their time these students should be in rich language settings with explicit English language instruction.
In assessing fluency, common ELL miscues that do not affect comprehension should not be counted (or these words should be counted as correct). Don't expect children from Mexico to pronounce words like children from Dubuque. No decisions on these children should just be made solely on the basis of a reading rate measure (consideration of comprehension is an important indicator and would help me decide what to do with the child). Oral language proficiency is especially important with English learners, so I definitely would not ignore that in terms of assessment or instruction.
A small amount of targeted skill instruction in decoding and/or fluency is not problematic with second language learners if they are struggling with those things (in fact, such teaching can be beneficial), but it is easy to mistake language differences for weaknesses in these basic skills, so care is needed. Also, if too much time is spent on such instruction, oral language proficiency will not be attained and the student will eventually struggle no matter how well he or she does on the basic skills.
NICHD supported a lot of research that identified young children with serious decoding deficiencies. They entered them into programs that successfully taught them to decode (though it took a long time and a lot of hard work). However, once these kids could decode they still underperformed their classmates in reading... their basic skills had improved, but they lacked the language and knowledge to take advantage of those now-proficient decoding skills.
The problem is that fluency or decoding are NECESSARY, but NOT SUFFICIENT skills. Without them, you won't be able to read with comprehension. With only these skills, you are also going to be unable to read with comprehension. The pendulum swings back and forth between too much skills work and too little skills work. We need to keep it in mind that kids need fluency and comprehension.
With second language kids, I would have them do something meaningful at the end of every fluency reading (like answering a question). I would spend extra time on the vocabulary of the passage as well (making sure they understood the word meanings); more than I would do if they came to the reading in English. I would ignore dialect pronunciations. I would give them every opportunity to ask questions about what they are reading. I would avoid have them read meaningless stuff, like "decodable text," as I would not want to get them used to the idea that reading doesn't make sense. I would do all of that, but I would also teach them to be fluent. It's a balancing act.
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