Fluency Of Students Research Articles

Evaluating the Effectiveness of Combined Reading Interventions on Improving Oral Reading Fluency of Students with Reading Disabilities

Introduction. In recent years, brief experimental analysis (BEA) has emerged as an approach to identify the most effective instructional strategies needed to increase reading fluency before applying an intervention for extended periods of time. The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of adding performance feedback to skill-based interventions on improving oral reading fluency of Turkish students with reading difficulties.Method. Three different combined intervention packages were implemented in the study. Intervention packages included Listening Passage Preview and Repeated Reading (LPP+RR), Repeated Reading with Performance Feedback (RR+PF), and Listening Passage Preview and Repeated Reading with Performance Feedback (LPP+RR+PF). Brief experimental analysis was used to examine the effects of the intervention packages. Four elementary students were participated in the study. Participants were three fourth grade and one third grade students.Results. Results demonstrated that two participants’ reading fluency improved as a function of the LPP+RR+PF intervention and remaining two participants had the highest scores in the LPP+RR condition.Conclusion. The results of this study extend the previous research by examining the effects of the combined intervention packages in improving reading fluency in Turkish language. Findings from the study suggest that assessing relative contribution of the strategies by using brief analysis can help determine the effective intervention packages for students in improving their reading fluency.

Techniques for Improving Speaking Fluency of Students

This paper presents an action plan and its implementation for enhancing speaking fluency of the EFL learners of lower secondary level. It is based on an action research, which presents my students’ poor speaking fluency, my interventions and implementations. Similarly, it presents different techniques for developing English speaking proficiency, and their implication, effectiveness and ineffectiveness of them as well. It further shows the role of different techniques to help students for developing English speaking proficiency.Journal of NELTA, Vol. 21, No. 1-2, 2016, Page:113-120

The Effects of Repeated Reading on Reading Fluency for Students With Reading Disabilities

The purpose of this research was to systematically review the effects of repeated reading (RR) interventions on reading fluency to provide instructional strategies for students with reading disabilities (RD). Correct words per minute were coded as an outcome variable in a search that yielded 34 RR intervention studies from 1990 to 2014 for students with RD in K-12. The estimated overall Hedges’ g of the 39 independent effect sizes indicated the positive effects of RR on gains in reading fluency for students with RD, especially at the elementary grade level. The current findings also suggested that a combination of RR and a listening passage preview would be the most effective method for students with RD.

The Effects of Reading Fluency Interventions on the Reading Fluency and Reading Comprehension Performance of Elementary Students With Learning Disabilities: A Synthesis of the Research from 2001 to 2014

Fluent word reading is hypothesized to facilitate reading comprehension by improving automatic word reading, thus releasing a reader’s cognitive resources to focus on meaning. Many students with learning disabilities (LD) struggle to develop reading fluency, which affects reading comprehension. This synthesis extends Chard, Vaughn, and Tyler’s (2002) review, synthesizing fluency intervention research from 2001 to 2014. The search yielded 19 studies examining reading fluency and comprehension outcomes of reading fluency interventions for students with LD in kindergarten through 5th grade. Results showed repeated reading (RR), multicomponent interventions, and assisted reading with audiobooks produced gains in reading fluency and comprehension. Providing a model of fluent reading and performance feedback, using easier level text, setting a performance criterion, and practicing RR with peers also contributed to improved outcomes. Findings suggest that RR remains the most effective intervention for improving reading fluency for students with LD. Limitations include sample size, only three group design studies, and infrequent use of standardized measures.

Stereoscopic (3D) Visualization Improves Medical Student Comprehension of Head and Neck Vascular Anatomy

The use of 3D stereoscopic models (3DSM) of head and neck blood vessels in anatomy education has not been studied in detail. We investigated whether 3DSM created from a prior study (Cui et al. 2015) would improve student learning of head and neck vascular anatomy. Comparisons were made between the use of 3DSM and identical but 2D flat screen images extracted from the 3D models in a first year medical gross anatomy course. Anatomical knowledge was tested via pre‐ and post‐learning session anatomy knowledge tests. In addition student fluency with mental rotation (pre‐ and post‐session rotation tests.) Results were analyzed using a Wilcoxon rank‐sum test and linear regression analysis. A total of 39 first year medical students participated in the study. Baseline pre‐learning session test scores were equivalent, 5.85±2.37 and 5.03±1.93 for 3DSM and 2D groups respectively. Students who utilized the 3DSM (n=21) scored significantly higher on the post‐learning tests compared to those using 2D images (n = 18) (11.43±2.79 vs 8.75±2.81) (p =0.0033). There was no significant difference on the mental rotation test scores between 3DSM (17.29±5.36) and 2D groups (17.39±6.42) after learning sessions (p=0.6208). In summary, the use of virtual stereoscopic 3D models improved medical student performance on knowledge tests of head and neck vascular anatomy, suggest new avenues for the use of virtual models in medical education.Support or Funding InformationFaculty Scholarship Exchange Award

Use of Web‐logs (Blogs) to Promote Student Ownership

Blended or hybrid learning is a teaching approach in which some course elements—e.g., content delivery or discussions—occur online while other course elements occur face‐to‐face. Current best practices suggest that the digital environment can be used to guide instruction and to enhance student‐student exchange of ideas. We explore the benefits of online student interactions within an introductory science course as a means of enhancing face‐to‐face interaction and personalization of the learning experience. Weblogs (blogs) have the potential to increase contemplation, community, and collaboration within the classroom through an intimate online framework. In particular, we are interested in building student project ownership that is grounded in student interaction and builds natural learning development through “doing.” However, the effectiveness of blogs to promote ownership has not been fully examined.We investigated the potential of blogs to promote project ownership. Ownership was tested after the addition of two elements to the blog design: instructor curation of the blog and awarding a grade percentage based on student participation. We explored how these modifications alter student educational experience and project ownership. This was measured using de‐identified student data to quantitatively examined the amount of online student‐student interactions. Additionally, we qualitatively analyzed blog content, the quality of students’ final writing samples, and student perception of project ownership via a survey at the end of the semester. Our overall study goal is to develop student fluency in scientific discourse and science project ownership by constructing an online, student‐driven learning blog community. These findings will elucidate the potential for blogs to build student project ownership, driving learner engagement, and academic success.Support or Funding InformationBlended Online Learning Design Fellowship, Center for the Integration of Research, Teaching, and Learning, Center for Teaching

A Comprehensive Meta-analysis of Handwriting Instruction

While there are many ways to author text today, writing with paper and pen (or pencil) is still quite common at home and work, and predominates writing at school. Because handwriting can bias readers’ judgments about the ideas in a text and impact other writing processes, like planning and text generation, it is important to ensure students develop legible and fluent handwriting. This meta-analysis examined true- and quasi-experimental intervention studies conducted with K-12 students to determine if teaching handwriting enhanced legibility and fluency and resulted in better writing performance. When compared to no instruction or non-handwriting instructional conditions, teaching handwriting resulted in statistically greater legibility (ES = 0.59) and fluency (ES = 0.63). Motor instruction did not produce better handwriting skills (ES = 0.10 for legibility and −0.07 for fluency), but individualizing handwriting instruction (ES = 0.69) and teaching handwriting via technology (ES = 0.85) resulted in statistically significant improvements in legibility. Finally, handwriting instruction produced statistically significant gains in the quality (ES = 0.84), length (ES = 1.33), and fluency of students’ writing (ES = 0.48). The findings from this meta-analysis provide support for one of the assumptions underlying the Simple View of Writing (Berninger et al., Journal of Educational Psychology, 94, 291–304, 2002): text transcription skills are an important ingredient in writing and writing development.

Effects of the Mindfulness-Based Reading Intervention on the Attention Behavior and the Reading Fluency of Students with Learning Disabilities

Effects of the Mindfulness-Based Reading Intervention on the Attention Behavior and the Reading Fluency of Students with Learning Disabilities

What to Do About Canada's Declining Math Scores?

The declining performance of Canadian students on international math assessments should worry Canadians and their provincial governments. Strong mathematics knowledge is required for success in the workforce, and early achievement in math is one of the best predictors of later academic success and future career options. Between 2003 and 2012, all but two Canadian provinces showed statistically significant declines in math scores on international exams administered by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. In several provinces, the percentage of students performing at the lowest levels in math significantly increased while the percentage of students performing at the highest levels significantly decreased, suggesting that more students are struggling and fewer students are excelling in math. It should be a policy priority to halt these trends and to improve math achievement for Canadian children. In this Commentary, I examine domestic and international evidence regarding three areas of provincial education programs that could play an important role in halting the downward trend in math scores. I make three main recommendations regarding best teaching practices in math, the math curriculum, and the math knowledge of future teachers. Best teaching practices in math have been at the forefront of discussions regarding declining math scores in Canada. Discovery-based instruction – also called problem-based, inquiry, experiential, and constructivist learning – has become popular in North America in recent years, pushing aside direct instruction techniques, like times table memorization, explicit teacher instruction, pencil-and-paper practice, and mastery of standard mathematical procedures. Based on international and domestic evidence, this Commentary finds that studies consistently show direct instruction is much more effective than discovery-based instruction, which leads to straightforward recommendations on how to tilt the balance toward best instructional techniques. Student fluency with particular math concepts, such as fraction arithmetic, in early and middle years has been shown to predict future math success. This Commentary recommends that provincial math curricula be rewritten to remove ineffective pedagogical directives and to stress specific topics, at appropriate grade levels, that are known to lead to later success in math. Evidence shows that teachers who are most comfortable and knowledgeable with the content they are required to teach tend to transmit that knowledge best to students. This Commentary suggests that future early and middle-years teachers be required to pass a math-content licensure exam prior to receiving certification to teach mathematics.

The Effects of CCC Strategy Application on the Word Spelling and the Reading Fluency of Students with Intellectual Disabilities

The Effects of CCC Strategy Application on the Word Spelling and the Reading Fluency of Students with Intellectual Disabilities

Effects of an Assisted Repeated Reading Program on Student Fluency in a Large Class in Burkina Faso

Due to large class size and typically frontal teaching, learning to read is extremely difficult for elementary school students in Burkina Faso, who struggle to develop the fluency needed for comprehension. This study examined the effects of an assisted repeated reading program (ARR) on student fluency development in a large third grade class in Burkina Faso. The fluency of 94 students was assessed before and after the intervention. The results show that this program had a positive effect on the fluency development of poor and very poor readers.

Is a Good Teacher a Good Teacher for All? Comparing Value-Added of Teachers With Their English Learners and Non-English Learners

Districts, states, and researchers are using value-added models with increasing frequency to evaluate educational policies and programs, as well as teachers and other educators individually. Despite their prevalence, little research assesses whether value-added measures (VAM) are consistent across student subgroups. Are teachers who are effective with one group of students also effective with others? If they are not, then it may be worthwhile to develop separate measures of teacher effectiveness for different student groups; if they are, a single average measure will likely suffice. Our article uses data from a large urban district with a considerable English learner (EL) population to compare teachers’ VAM with ELs to the same teachers’ VAM with non-ELs. We find that teachers who are effective with ELs also tend to be effective with their non-ELs and vice versa. We also, however, find evidence that some teachers are relatively more effective with ELs than with non-ELs, and that this increased efficacy is predicted by a teacher’s fluency in students’ home language and whether he or she possesses a bilingual teaching certification.

The Effect of Reading Guidance through Smart Learning on Reading Fluency of Students with Intellectual Disability

The Effect of Reading Guidance through Smart Learning on Reading Fluency of Students with Intellectual Disability

Building Mathematical Fluency for Students with Disabilities or Students At-Risk for Mathematics Failure

It is incredibly important for students who are at-risk for mathematics failure or who have a disability which hinders mathematical performance to improve in their mathematical achievement. One way to improve mathematical achievement is through building fluency in mathematics. Fluency in mathematics is the ability to solve problems automatically and with accuracy. One method of building fluency for students who are at-risk or who have a disability includes the concrete-representational-abstract sequence of instruction that is paired with strategic instruction (CRA-SI). A brief overview is provided on CRA-SI instruction along with a review of the literature that shows CRA-SI instruction as effective instruction for students who are at-risk or who have a disability.

An Analysis of College English Teaching and Classroom Interaction in China

CET (College English Teaching) is a compulsory course for non-English majors in China. It has recently become a focus in higher education in China and abroad. Most research concentrates on ESL (English as Second Language) classroom interaction strategies, factors affecting classroom interaction and forms of classroom interaction. For decades, students who have been spending years studying English in China continue to have very limited communication ability due to antiquated teaching strategies of drills and memorization. Little research considers fundamental problems of CET and learning in China, let alone how to guide a Chinese college English teacher to consciously strengthen effective classroom interaction. Thus, this paper reviews China’s current college English classroom teaching situation that has been influenced by the confluence of China’s political history, past English education, and English teaching approaches in China. There are fundamental connections between CET approaches and Chinese college students’ learning efficiency. This paper proposes a new CET teacher-training program that is designed to CHASE (cultivate, help, activate, supply, and establish) protocol for CET in China. This program attempts to change the drill and memorization teaching common in China today and encourage teachers to become more effective by creating a more accessible interactive classroom that results in more fluency for students learning English in China.

Editorial

Editorial

The Use of Games to Foster Fluency among ESL Learners

This study focused on five particular Communication Strategies (CSs) namely: Paraphrase, approximation, hesitation, reduction, borrowed words and invented, or anglicised. The aim was to investigate the link between the use of approvable and positive CS-types and the impact of ESL students’ beliefs about CSs in a game-activity. It aims to promote students fluency based on positive CSs. The study used a series of videoed and transcribed task-observations based on ‘Spot the Differences’ information-gap activities. In addition, the views and beliefs of 6 teachers and 6 students were sampled using structured interviews. The results interestingly revealed that hesitation was one of the most approved and positive strategies. The teacher interviews revealed that the more experienced teachers focused attention on fluency and helping student to 'keep going', and using all types of CSs while less experienced tutors focused attention on both fluency and vocabulary learning in communication tasks. Less experienced teachers also uttered that hesitation and reduction strategies should not to be encouraged and it is better that teacher tell the word if student needs it or paraphrase them. The observation also highlighted that there is a relation between the teacher's inner beliefs and the student's fluency level. Data from the videoed observations revealed that body language was an important element in communicating meaning. The results also revealed what strategies these teachers encourage students to use in a communication activity. That are mostly avoided because of their misconception about a communication activity. Analysis of CSs also showed the link between teacher and students beliefs about approvable CSs and their level of achieved fluency.

Modeling in Engineering: The Role of Representational Fluency in Students' Conceptual Understanding

AbstractBackgroundModeling abilities play an important role in engineering. The creation and use of representations is a central aspect of modeling, and students who are learning to model often use a variety of representations to express, test, revise, and communicate their own thinking. Consequently, model development often depends on representational fluency and the ability to translate between and within different representational forms.PurposeThis study investigates the role that representations and representational fluency play in conceptual understanding during a complex modeling task related to heat transfer.Design/MethodThis study involved 16 teams of 3 or 4 college students in a first‐semester heat transfer course participating in a complex modeling task. The task of the student teams was to develop a model to predict the interface temperature and the sensation felt by human skin when touching a utensil made of a given material at a given temperature. Data sources included audio recordings of student teams, as well as student‐generated artifacts.ResultsThe results show teams thinking about their model through multiple representations and through translations within and among representations. Students' early ways of thinking used a variety of interacting representations but were often unstable and involved incomplete notions of the system to be modeled. Model development involved increasing representational fluency as well as parallel and interacting progress along a variety of dimensions.ConclusionsThis study furthers the understanding of representational fluency in undergraduate engineering students in a heat transfer setting and how representational fluency contributes to conceptual and application understanding.

Avaliação de um programa de intervenção na fluência de leitura

Esta pesquisa tem por objetivo avaliar as mudanças de desempenho ocorridas ao longo de um programa de intervenção com alunos do 5.º ano de escolaridade e orientado para o desenvolvimento da fluência em leitura. Foram realizadas 13 sessões, orientadas pelos professores de Língua Portuguesa, com a duração de 45 minutos e periodicidade quinzenal.
 Participaram no programa todos os alunos da escola onde o projeto decorreu (n = 270), mas, para efeitos de avaliação, foram selecionados, de modo aleatório, 54 alunos. Nesta avaliação foi usado um design de grupo único com três medidas repetidas no tempo. Recorreu-se à gravação vídeo da leitura de dois excertos de 100 palavras extraídos de duas obras recomendadas pelo Plano Nacional de Leitura de Português, a partir da qual foi calculado o tempo individual de leitura e o número de erros.
 Registaram-se diferenças estatisticamente significativas nos três momentos de avaliação, traduzidos na redução no tempo de leitura e no número de erros. Os resultados mostram que o programa teve efeito em todos os alunos, traduzido na redução do tempo de leitura e no número de erros de leitura. Apesar das mudanças observadas, o coeficiente de correlação intraclasse sugere que embora os alunos com piores desempenhos tenham melhorado, continuam a ter resultados inferiores ao dos seus pares com melhores desempenhos. Os resultados encontrados são semelhantes aos reportados em estudos que avaliaram o efeito de programas de intervenção dirigida para o desenvolvimento da fluência leitora, embora os mesmos tenham sido efetuados com alunos a frequentar anos escolares anteriores ao do presente estudo. Dado que os progressos na recuperação são menores à medida que a escolaridade aumenta, os resultados obtidos podem considerar-se relevantes.

Initial and Over-Time Effects of Fluency Interventions for Students With or At Risk for Disabilities

The authors sought to (a) identify interventions that immediately increased the oral reading fluency of students with or at risk for disabilities, (b) estimate to what extent these gains maintained over time, and (c) evaluate whether particular characteristics of students (e.g., gender, disability status) predicted their response to fluency interventions. We used multilevel modeling to meta-analyze results from 44 single-participant studies involving 290 students. Results indicated that goal setting immediately increased fluency, and this gain continued over time. Word-level training was largely ineffective. Students with some types of disabilities (i.e., those with behavioral disorders or autism) responded significantly less well to interventions targeting fluency than did students with other types of disabilities (i.e., those with learning disabilities or visual impairments) and so may require more intensive and individualized fluency interventions.