Focus on Fluency

Product Description
Practical Strategies for Teaching Reading to
Struggling Readers in Senior Primary and
Junior Cycle Post-primary Classes
As part of a broad range of actions to raise the achievement of all students, including
those who struggle to acquire adequate reading skills, the National Strategy to Improve
Literacy and Numeracy (DES 2011) affords a central role to primary and post-primary
teachersin supporting the development ofliteracy across allsubjects and areas oflearning
in the curriculum.
Focus on Fluency providesteacherswith awealth of practical,research-based strategies and
suggestions that can be used to help students to become more accurate, automatic and
expressive readers. These strategies, which have been shown to be effective in many
schools in Ireland, are intended for use in both mainstream classroom instruction and
supplementary reading lessons. When applied consistently and on a sustained basis, they
will bring positive benefitsto:
• students who are in receipt of supplementary teaching from a resource or learning
support teacher
• studentsfor whom English is an additional language
• students who have already obtained a reasonable degree of fluency but are beginning
to flounder when faced with more challenging texts.
This comprehensive text, which is clearly organised and written in a user-friendly style,
includes chapters on:
• Foundations of Effective Fluency Instruction
• Supported Reading Techniques
• Strategiesfor Developing Rapid Recognition of Individual Words
• Repeated Reading
• Attending to Punctuation and Phrase Boundaries
• Promoting Engagement in Independent Reading
• Approachesto Assessing Reader and Text.