In my earlier Storypie blogs (link), I wrote about the nature of prosody in reading, its importance in the overall view of fluent and proficient meaningful reading, and ways in which parents, caregivers, and teachers can nurture and develop prosody in children. By simply reading aloud to children with expressive, well-phrased, and meaningful textual language and then talking about how prosodic language improves comprehension will help students develop a better metacognitive sense of the nature and importance of prosody. Additionally, as students begin to emerge into conventional reading, we can help children develop prosody (and overall fluency) by having them read a text while simultaneously hearing a fluent reading of the same text. We call that assisted reading.
In this blog entry, I’ll explore how prosody can be assessed in students and, in doing so, help students develop their own sense of what constitutes prosodic reading. So just how can we assess something so subjective as reading that is appropriately expressive and with appropriate tone, emphasis, volume, and phrasing – all the things that make up prosody? Perhaps the easiest is to rely on our own sense of prosody in reading. Teachers especially have, through their work, developed a good sense of what is and what is not appropriately prosodic reading. Parents and others who read to children regularly also have a good handle of expression and phrasing in reading.
Given that we already have a mechanism for assessing prosody (ourselves), all we need is a guide to allowing teachers, parents, and others to actually rate students’ prosodic reading. Years ago, my colleague Dr. Jerry Zutell and I developed and subsequently refined such a guide we call the Multidimensional Fluency Rubric (MDFR; see below). For this rubric, we identified 4 key components of prosodic reading: expression and volume, phrasing, smoothness, and pace.
To use the MDFR a rater simply listens to a student orally read a grade-appropriate text for a minute or so. Knowing what an appropriately prosodic reading should sound like, the rater simply assigns a score of 1 through 4 for each of the components. The highest total score is 16, while the lowest possible score is 4. In our own work with students, we have found that total scores of 10 or higher indicate adequate development of prosody. Total scores of 9 or below may indicate inadequate prosodic development in reading and may suggest further assessment and instruction and support in prosodic reading. One relevant feature of the MDFR is that by categorizing key elements of prosodic reading, teachers and others can identify specific elements of prosody that may need specific attention.
The MDFR, as well as other fluency rubrics that rely on a rater’s assessment of fluency, has been found to be a reliable and valid tool for measuring prosody (Science of Reading). Readers who score higher on the rubric tend to better comprehend and, overall, are more proficient readers.
I often hear the message from teachers and others I work with on the MDFR that they do not feel qualified to make such judgements on students’ reading. To that fear, I simply say, ‘give it a try’. You may not have done this kind of assessment before, but through your own work of reading to children and hearing children read to you, you have developed your own intuitive and valid sense of prosodic and meaningful reading. You may be surprised to find how closely your own ratings match those of others, as well as other more formal assessments of reading proficiency, and all it takes is simply listening to children read for a short period of time. Talk about time efficiency!
NAME ________________________________________________________
MULTI-DIMENSIONAL FLUENCY RUBRIC
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | |
| Expression and Volume | Reads in a quiet voice as if to get words out. The reading does not sound natural like talking to a friend. | Reads in a quiet voice. The reading sounds natural in part of the text, but the reader does not always sound like they are talking to a friend. | Reads with volume and expression. However, sometimes the reader slips into expressionless reading and does not sound like they are talking to a friend. | Reads with varied volume and expression. The reader sounds like they are talking to a friend with their voice matching the interpretation of the passage. |
| Phrasing | Reads word-by-word in a monotone voice. | Reads in two or three word phrases, not adhering to punctuation, stress and intonation. | Reads with a mixture of run-ons, mid sentence pauses for breath, and some choppiness. There is reasonable stress and intonation. | Reads with good phrasing; adhering to punctuation, stress and intonation. |
| Smoothness | Frequently hesitates while reading, sounds out words, and repeats words or phrases. The reader makes multiple attempts to read the same passage. | Reads with extended pauses or hesitations. The reader has many “rough spots.” | Reads with occasional breaks in rhythm. The reader has difficulty with specific words and/or sentence structures. | Reads smoothly with some breaks, but self-corrects with difficult words and/ or sentence structures. |
| Pace | Reads slowly and laboriously. | Reads moderately slowly. | Reads generally at an appropriate rate throughout reading. | Reads at an appropriate conversational pace throughout the reading. |
Scores of 10 or more indicate that the student is making good progress in fluency.
Score _________________
Adapted from Zutell, J. & Rasinski, T. V. Training teachers to attend to their students’ oral reading fluency in. Theory to Practice, 30, 211-217.
