Should Fluency be Taught at Secondary Schools?

Are teachers of reading putting enough emphasis on reading fluency in classrooms? this is a pertinent question since it appears to me that in some classrooms in our country, it is a neglected reading goal. This aspect of reading is very important because it is directly related to comprehension. If children are not fluent in their reading then it affects their ability to understand the meaning of the author. McKenna and Stahl (2009) identifies three essential components of fluency. These are accuracy, automaticity and prosady. Accuracy deals with the child's reading rate and the number of errors that are made while reading. Once a child is making omissions, substitutions or insertions for words, then he will definitely misinterpret the meaning of the phrases and sentences in the reading passage. On the other hand, automaticity is the ability to read words without conscious effort as the reader engages in the reading process. Children may be able to read accurately, but, if they stumble with words, then comprehension will suffer. Prosady is the ability to read with some sort of inflection whereby appropriate emphasis is placed on expression, phrasing, smoothness and pace.

Most of the struggling readers in secondary schools are experiencing problems with fluency. However, there are some teachers who do not take the time to assess and diagnose these problems in an attempt to remediate them. There is the misconception that fluency should be dealt with at the primary school level, especially in the Infants and Lower Junior levels. Is research has shown that fluency affects reading comprehension, then it is incumbent on all teachers in the secondary schools to help their students to become fluent readers. Tompkin (2004), suggests that teachers employ instructional strategies such as echo reading, repeated reading, partnered reading, choral reading, readers' theater, oral recitation and paired reading to assist these students.