Reading Fluency Practice: Echo Reading

Purpose: To model and practice fluent reading.

Prep Time: 5-15 minutes

Prep: Find and make copies of a reading passage. Choose a passage with familiar content that is slightly more difficult than the student could read independently.

Procedure:

1. Explain that being able to read fluently is important because it leads to greater comprehension. Note that it is especially important to read in phrases or chunks, rather than word-by-word.
2. Explain that you are going to read a sentence (or part of a sentence) out loud. The student should then repeat what you have read.
3. Read the first sentence of the passage out loud. Have the student repeat what you have just read. If he/she isn’t able to handle a whole sentence, break the sentence into phrases or chunks and have them repeat those rather than the entire sentence. Continue through the entire passage.
4. For additional fluency practice, go back and repeat the activity, giving the students larger chunks to repeat. Ideally have the students echo back sentence by sentence and finally paragraph by paragraph.
5. End the activity by checking comprehension with brief who, what, when, where, why, how questions.

Watch Penny doing echo reading with an ABE student.