In the Deeney article, she talks about the many aspects that are involved in fluency. One topic she discusses in depth is the ability of prosody. Prosody is defined in the article as the ability to read smoothly with appropriate phasing and expression. This is an incredibly valuable characteristic of fluency and one that doesn't seem to be discussed as much as rate and accuracy are.
A child with a low ability of prosody will obviously have more of a difficult time comprehending reading. It usually exists in people with damaged Broca's area and people who have Asperger syndrome. In order to improve the prosody of a child, it is important to focus on coarticulation. By teaching them the difference between the spaces in text and that there are not spaces in the phrases or sentences we say, helps to give speech natural flow and will assist in the development of appropriate stress and intonation.
With the focus being on accuracy and rate, it would seem we are missing a very important aspect of learning to comprehend what is being read. If we can learn to focus and teach all three components of becoming a fluent reader, the benefits to our students will be great.
ReplyDeleteI think you brought up a good point. Prosody is a vital part of learning to read and I think sometimes it is not discussed as much as other important literacy factors are. I think prosody is so important because it is an important factor to being able to comprehend the words being read. If children are not taught to pause in between words and do not know when it is necessary to use expression, they are not going to be interested in reading because the words will contain no meaning to them.
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