Engaging Children to be Readers — Focus and Stamina— Part 7a

“Focus on progress not perfection” — Bill Phillips

I have spent the majority of my career learning and thinking about literacy, specifically as it relates to struggling readers. Why do some readers struggle? Why does it come so easily for others? I am not a researcher, I am a practitioner. Practitioner is defined as a person actively engaged in an art, discipline, or profession. Throughout this series on Engaging Children to be Readers, I have been focused on how to build a solid foundation as a reader. What are the necessary components that need to be in place for a reader to be successful? For children that reading comes easily to, they do not need focused instruction on these components. They need to learn how to continue growing as a reader specifically as it relates to fluency and comprehension.

Focus and Stamina

Let’s take a look at focus and stamina. The two components of focus and stamina are necessary for high level literacy engagement to occur. Students, specifically beginning readers need to learn about these components. Focus is necessary for students to be able to stay engaged and actively reading. A student needs to build up their stamina to sustain involvement in reading for an extended period of time. I have described it to teachers using the analogy of learning a sport or musical instrument. Focus and stamina equate to practice. A child can have the ability to play the piano or to run, but if they don’t practice they will not maximize their ability. A person will only improve through sustained and repeated practice. The amount of improvement is directly related to the amount of practice. In order to achieve sustained focus and stamina an element of joy needs to be present. The more we enjoy what we are doing, the more focus and stamina we will have.

With improved focus and stamina students will then be able to work on fluency and expression. What I have observed is that teachers often put a lot of emphasis on the skill of fluency. What is often forgotten is that fluency is a function of experience not necessarily ability. The more you are immersed in an activity the more your skill will increase. For example, learning a foreign language. If you spend a couple hours a week in a classroom setting learning French, your experience with the language is limited and doesn’t necessarily speak to your ability. But if you go to France for an extended period of time and interact with people speaking the language you will begin to assimilate the language quicker. You became more fluent in French because you had more experience. Students become fluent readers the more they practice and hear what good reading sounds like. Remember, students need to practice fluency on familiar text not a new text. When it is a familiar text, they are freed up from the process of word solving to focus on the smoothness and how their reading sounds.

Fluency is necessary for comprehension. A child needs to be able to read at a rate that allows the brain to comprehend the message. When you do an internet search for fluency checklists, these are the components that are listed: accuracy, rate, expression and punctuation. Do you recognize that something very important is missing? Comprehension is not listed. With extreme emphasis focused on fluency without attention to comprehension, children will become beautiful sounding readers that do not understand the message. Another way to think of this is they will only be word callers, not readers. We know the ultimate goal of reading is comprehension or reading for meaning.

Focus and stamina are foundational skills or components that allow children the time to experience and practice other necessary skills to become good readers such as fluency and comprehension.

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“Once you learn to read, you will be forever free.”

― Frederick Douglass

The joy is in the journey!

Blessings and Peace,,

Mary