NYSRA presentor: Tim Rasinski

As I mentioned in an earlier post Tim Rasinski was one of the presenters at the New York State Reading Conference I attended earlier in the week.  Well... I opened my email this afternoon, and who do you suppose emailed me... that's right Tim himself!!  Ok, I know he probably sent it to everyone... but I feel special. 

He attached some scripts, and song books and provided a link to his website to get word ladders, readers theater scripts, a nursery rhyme book, and other materials.

At his presentation he asked us to consider:

• What does it mean to be a fluent reader?
• How are reading fluency and comprehension connected?
• What strategies can you use to help students become more fluent?
• How can you measure fluency?
• How should data from fluency assessments be used? 

Luckily he addresses the answers to these questions in a book titled Essential Readings on Fluency, written for the International Reading Association.  

"The 16 articles, published originally in IRA’s influential journal The Reading Teacher, provide a clear definition of fluency, describe its importance, suggest research-based strategies for instruction to support fluency development, tackle how it should be measured, and emphasize the appropriate use of assessment data."

You can read excerpts from the book on fluency he edited here.  I found the article on "Teaching Reading with Talking Books"  (page 46) very interesting because I use this strategy often with my 6th graders (one of the great uses for iPods in the classroom!) .  

You can listen to a Podcast introducing the book, and outlining a few lessons, one of which is the Fluency Development Lesson.

Check it all out, my friend Tim would love to share.