Phonics and Fluency

According to Dictionary.com, “Phonics is a method of teaching people to read by correlating sounds with letters or groups of letters in an alphabetic writing system.” We often associate phonics with children and don’t realize its importance for adult learners. Understanding the science of reading and teaching adult ESL students phonetic skills will help not only their reading but also their spelling skills. 

For more information on phonics for adults, check out this website.

Fluency is another critical issue for adult readers and may particularly affect college ESL students’ chances of success. As students progress through their educational careers, the reading load typically becomes heavier and heavier. If a student is a dysfluent reader, he or she will often feel overwhelmed and may give up altogether. This issue can be combated by teaching students reading fluency skills.

Common ways of improving reading fluency include:

• developing students’ decoding skills
• repeated readings
• reader’s theater
• poetry
• read alouds
• reading with a partner
• recorded readings
• echo reading

For more information about reading fluency development for adult learners, visit this website.