Margin Notes

Prosody, Pacing, and Situational Fluency (or Why Fluency Matters for Older Readers) by Melanie R. Kuhn and Paula J. Schwanenflugel (Journal of Adult & Adolescent Literacy, 2018)

“Rather than view fluency as comprised of accuracy and automaticity for its own sake, we consider it critical to take a more nuanced view, both in terms of fluency as a construct and its importance in the reading process—one that emphasizes pacing, understanding, and knowledge building rather than racing through a text (Kuhn et al., 2010). In the following sections, we discuss a broader definition of fluency and its implications for instruction, which includes exploring prosody, pacing, situational fluency, and the importance of wide reading in helping to close the achievement gap. In this way, we highlight how and why fluency plays a critical role for adolescent and adult readers.”

Summary

Over the past two decades, fluency has come into focus as an important factor in students’ ability to comprehend complex text. However, the predominant definition has become relatively narrow, resulting in a similar narrowing of fluency assessments and recommendations for instruction. Assessments and instructional practices that focus on reading rate have reflected and promoted this view of fluency.

An overreliance on reading rate as an indicator of overall reading success comes at the expense of other components of literacy learning.

Although accuracy and rate are two components of fluent reading, Kuhn and Schwanenflugel maintain that fluent readers also use appropriate phrasing. They define fluency as a combination of:

accuracy, automaticity, and oral reading prosody, which, when taken together, facilitate the reader’s construction of meaning. It is demonstrated during oral reading through ease of word recognition, appropriate phrasing, and intonation. It is a factor in both oral and silent reading that can limit or support comprehension.

Prosody plays a critical role in comprehension by contributing to the shades of meaning readers develop from texts through the application of elements such as intonation, stress, tempo, and appropriate phrasing. The feedback readers receive from prosody may better ensure their understanding of the text. Prosody assists readers with holding messages from text in working memory and supports comprehension processes such as inferencing and gist development

Accuracy, automaticity, and prosody continue to contribute to comprehension of text beyond the early grades when readers are expected engage with large amounts of material and increasingly complex text.

The authors caution that, while it is true that fluent readers are better prepared to meet the challenges of volume and complexity, “fluency is not an all-or-nothing trait.” For example, a reader may be more fluent when reading about familiar topics or in their preferred genre and form. Recent research also suggests that information texts are often read with less fluency than narrative texts.

Because fluency is situational, it is important for educators to consider this broader definition of fluency across the curriculum. For example, we cannot assume that a student who is fluent in narrative texts in ELA class will be fluent in content-area textbooks and vice versa. Readers need support to develop the fluency, stamina, and metacognition for the wide range of genres and text complexities they encounter both in and outside the classroom.

Kuhn and Schwanenflugel recommend four instructional strategies that provide scaffolded practice:

1. Listen-Read-Discuss: After students listen to the teacher introduce the key concepts and vocabulary of a section of the text being read, they independently read that section and discuss what they have read to solidify their understanding.
2. Laddering/Text Sets: Providing a series of texts with a range of difficulty levels on the same topic or theme helps students build the knowledge of concepts and vocabulary needed as they progress through increasingly complex texts.
3. Scaffolded Silent Reading: Students are supported with selecting and independently reading a range of texts through such scaffolds as text selection, comprehension strategies, and reading conferences.
4. Partner Reading: Partners take turns reading aloud and supporting one another with any challenges encountered in the text.

Conclusion

“If carefully scaffolded, fluency can be developed through, and contribute to, the successful reading of complex texts. Also, as students read more and more varied texts, they experience the kind of positive reading cycle that can contribute to the closing of the achievement gap (Stanovich, 1986). As such, we see time devoted to fluency development to be classroom time well-spent.”

Takeaways For the Classroom

• Expand your definition of fluency to include prosody.
• Encourage and provide support for wide, voluminous reading.
• Use fluency assessments that incorporate prosody, such as the Multi-Dimensional Fluency Scale and listening to students read during reading conferences.
• Provide explicit instruction on elements of prosody, including intonation, stress, tempo, and phrasing.
• Encourage students to be mindful of their fluency and its impact on their comprehension during silent reading.
• Plan with disciplinary colleagues to promote and support fluency across the school day.
• Incorporate routines such as Listen-Read-Discuss, Laddering, Supported Silent Reading, and partner Reading.

As 2024 draws to a close, we pause to reflect on the moments, stories, and learning that have defined our year in literacy. Together, we’ve explored new ideas, celebrated growth, and shared the joys of reading and writing with our students.

Wishing you a joyful holiday and a bright start to 2025!

With appreciation and holiday cheer,
Jane, Jill, Christie, Lauren, Melissa & Sonja

When Giving Is All We Have by Alberto Rios

If you are like me and are far into the trenches of your fantasy sports league and have searched the internet high and low to figure out how you are going to accomplish a win every week (and hopefully going to survive until playoffs), you may have stumbled across The Fantasy Footballers podcast, and listened to the advice of the guys through their Start ‘Em/Sit ‘Em segment.

Every week, the hosts give their opinions on which players are must starts for your lineup, and which are ones better left to your bench. This always includes a quick ranking, some stats, the team they are going against and some explanation of why they feel a certain way about these players and their weekly matchups. This got me thinking about this routine and all the ways we can use it to help our students enact the ELA contexts and concepts, and support skill descriptors in Interactions, Reading, & Representations.

Here’s my thinking!

Moves I notice the podcast making that connect to NB ELA Contexts & Concepts:

• Supporting and defending
• Communicating effectively and persuasively
• Developing thematic and technical vocabulary
• Referencing texts for verification
• Writing to influence and inform
• Conveying personal ideas, opinions, and commitments
• Analyzing critically

Possibilities for students may include:

• Choosing a topic important to them and contrasting/comparing elements of it based on their opinions. Ie). Books vs Movie Versions, Breeds of Dogs, Going to College or Getting a Job, TikTok or Instagram. Etc.
• Express and support ideas and opinions with evidence.
• Summarize and present content to communicate facts, ideas, and opinions.
• Ensuring they are using subject specific language to convey their opinions.
• Have them consider how their opinions may change in the future based on new information.

Struggle Is Not a Bad Word: Misconceptions and Recommendations About Readers Struggling with Difficult Texts by Sarah M. Lupo, John Z. Strong, and Kristin Conradi Smith (Journal of Adult & Adolescent Literacy, 2018)

“Instead of using the label ‘struggling reader,’ we focus on the conditions under which readers might be less successful and how to support them when reading difficult texts (Frankel & Brooks, 2010). It is important that teachers take time to assess their students’ strengths and needs in order to provide appropriate texts and supports. The types of texts that teachers use with their students is an issue of equity: Teachers must provide a text diet rich with difficult texts to adolescents, including those who may struggle when reading them, to ensure equitable literacy instruction for all. (Hiebert, 2017: Tatum, 1999).

Summary

In this article, Lupo, Strong, and Conradi Smith review research and professional literature to address the long-held belief that assigning readers easy texts that they can read fluently is the best way to facilitate growth in comprehension. Limiting readers to easier text—shorter texts with shorter sentences and fewer rare words—negatively impacts their vocabulary and comprehension development. Instead, readers need practice reading difficult texts, with support, to improve their comprehension.

The researchers identify four misconceptions about reading difficult texts and offer an evidence-based recommendation for each one:

Misconception 1: A High Lexile Ensures That a Text is Hard to Read

The Lexile Framework is commonly used as a measure of text difficulty despite questions about its validity. Readability measures often exclude important aspects of what makes a text difficult, including the readers’ familiarity with the topic and vocabulary, the concreteness of ideas, the cohesiveness of the text, and the formality of the language.

Recommendation 1: Consider What Makes a Text Difficult

Understanding how a text may challenge readers is essential for designing the supports necessary for all readers to comprehend the text. Consider:

1. the vocabulary difficulty
2. the knowledge demands
3. the difficulty of concepts or themes

Misconception 2: Readers Are More Engaged and Can Learn More from Easier Versions of Texts

Providing easier versions of texts has not been proven to improve learning and comprehension.

Recommendation 2: Motivate Readers Through Choice, Collaborative Learning, and Leveraging Knowledge

Increase motivation by:

1. allowing students to choose the texts they read
2. providing opportunities for talking about texts
3. connecting texts to students’ existing funds of knowledge and building new background knowledge

Misconception 3: Reading Easier Texts Leads to Greater Gains

When students experience a steady diet of easy texts, their comprehension growth is diminished by less exposure to rich vocabulary and syntax as well as fewer words overall.

Recommendation 3: Provide More Opportunities for Students to Read

Increase students’ volume of reading by:

1. providing a text diet that includes a variety of texts, both easier and more challenging
2. developing readers’ agency to persist through texts that challenge them
3. take a thematic approach with a focus on creating connections within and across texts

Misconception 4: Some Readers Cannot Read Complex Texts

As a result of this misconception, readers identified as struggling experience less comprehension instruction and less discussion about texts.

Recommendation 4: Scaffold Students’ Reading of Quality Texts

This requires a shift in thinking:

1. from differentiating text levels to differentiating instructional supports
2. from over-relying on reading aloud as a support for readers to providing time and scaffolds for them to read independently

Conclusion

Rather than assigning easier texts, teachers can consider the needs and motivations of readers and plan instruction that makes a wide range of interesting texts accessible to all readers.

Takeaways For the Classroom

• Use assessments to get to know readers—who they are, what they can do, and the next steps for them to grow.
• Instead of relying on Lexiles and other readability measures, examine texts to identify the aspects that will challenge readers: vocabulary, knowledge demands, and concepts or themes.
• Incorporate choice whenever possible.
• Engage readers in discussion about text to enhance their comprehension.
• Activate prior knowledge with strategies such as quickwrites and anticipation guides.
• Develop background knowledge with shorter multimodal texts on related topics (videos, images, songs, podcasts, TEDTalks, etc.).
• Create text sets to support engagement, comprehension, vocabulary, and knowledge. Use the combination of texts and instructional supports to scaffold students’ comprehension of challenging text.

A Thousand Sisters by Elizabeth Wein tells the story of the courageous and frequently forgotten airwomen of the Soviet Union in World War Two. It begins by following Marina Raskova, a Soviet pilot who spent much of her childhood in the time between the First and Second World Wars. She was one of many Soviet women who had grown up with the assumption that when the “Future War” began, she would take part in the fighting and serve her Motherland just as the men would. In her case, she would fight from the air. 

When the Second World War began, however, women’s ability to enroll in the fight did not play out as expected. They were encouraged to aid the fight in other ways, but not to directly engage in combat. That was not seen as the place for women. For many female pilots, they were instead put into the position of flight instructor; they were to train male pilots, who would then be able to fight. 

This book follows the women who did get into the fight as pilots, in many cases thanks to Marina Raskova. These women fought – and many died – for their Motherland, and their stories have been beautifully and emotionally recorded by Elizabeth Wein in A Thousand Sisters. 

This book would be excellent for anyone who has an interest in history, particularly the history of aviation, war, and women’s rights. It would be well suited to those who prefer to focus on the stories and lives of the people involved in historical events. This book is deeply informative while still being an engaging and interesting read. The author’s passion for the subject comes through clearly in her writing; Elizabeth Wein got her private pilot license in 2003, so she has both interest and knowledge in the field. The reader will not only learn, but will find themselves growing attached to the many pilots whose personalities and relationships are beautifully illustrated in this book – and will find themselves grieving as they learn of the tragic endings met by many of the women. 

Elizabeth Wein’s writing in A Thousand Sisters suits the topic of the book. It is always very clear what she is saying, so the reader will never have to decider what it is she means. There are points where she also adds her own feelings towards the historical events, giving extra layers of sorrow and humour, and humanizing the stories to another degree.  

Although not strictly necessary, the reader would benefit from at least basic information regarding the Second World War. Elizabeth Wein certainly provides enough information to give context, particularly when it comes to the Soviet Union before and during World War Two. But having even baseline knowledge of the war outside of the events in the book would allow for a deeper understanding of the events described within the book. 

Overall, A Thousand Sisters is a well written and fascinating book that I would certainly recommend to anyone with an interest in the subject. It is a fascinating window into the experiences of women in armed aerial military combat, which itself was exceedingly rare at the time of World War Two and still cannot be noted as commonplace today. It also allows the reader a glimpse into the connections and friendships these women developed, even under the constant stress and peril of war. 

Lindsay Brander-Wilkie enjoys drawing, painting, sculpting, and practically anything to do with being outdoors. One of her favorite pass-times is most certainly reading, her preferred genre being fantasy. She also has a deep interest in writings which are about the past, both those which are fictional and those which are purely educational. Lindsay’s writing tends to follow a similar path of subject matter as her reading choices: fiction and history. At some point (she can’t remember exactly when) she began writing small stories for herself outside of school and has continued to write for fun ever since. The learning process is one of the things she loves most about writing, and she frequently finds herself diving headfirst into rabbit holes she hadn’t known existed – but don’t worry, she always brings snacks on her travels. 

Few people are aware that the characters in Heartstopper existed long before Alice Oseman drew the first panel in the popular graphic novel series. In her debut novel, Solitaire, Oseman invented the beautifully complex universe that so many 21^st century teens have fallen in love with.

Tori Spring is tangled in a mess of fake friendships and family issues. With such a complicated life and everything only getting worse, Tori can only seem to find solace in her blog. The chemistry of Tori’s situation may seem toxic, but she manages–until a series of Post-Its leads her to Solitaire, an empty blog… and Michael Holden. In the beginning, Solitaire seems to be a harmless organization, but of course, the blog’s impact crescendos, and leads to damage beyond anything anyone could’ve anticipated. Tori is certain that Michael Holden is involved, but she simply cannot understand what his role is within Solitaire and what their goal could be… and as the story progresses, she realizes that Michael Holden may be her only reliable friend. All the while, Tori must deal with her own mental health struggles, but she is determined to keep it together for her brother, Charlie, whose anorexia has left him dependent on her support.

One thing I feel is important to mention about this book is that it deals with quite heavy topics, such as suicide, self-harm, eating disorders, bullying, physical violence, substance use, and depression. I would not recommend this book to those for whom that may be triggering.

This book was a page-turner, drawing the reader in with Tori’s quick, quiet, dark, and sassy humor, and keeping one immersed in the mysterious air of the story and social situations almost any 13- to 16-yearold can empathize with. With an amiable protagonist, and a heart-wrenching plot with a twist at the end, Oseman’s first book is an artful piece of YA literature. All in all, I loved every minute of Solitaire and would argue that it was better than its more popular companion, Heartstopper.  

Joanna Dinan is currently a student at George Street Middle School in Fredericton. She is a competitive singer and pianist who enjoys binging books and writing short stories. Someday, she hopes to be a professional timewaster, procrastinator, and daydreamer, but for now, she does this as an amateur. Her favourite authors include Naomi Novik, Lois Lowry, Rainbow Rowell, and Dr. Seuss.