Better Teaching: Only Stuff That Works

Supporting Reading Fluency and Literacy Beyond the Early Grades with Doug Lemov

10 snips
Dec 3, 2025
Doug Lemov, an educator and author renowned for the Teach Like a Champion series, dives deep into the importance of reading fluency beyond early grades. He highlights the alarming levels of disfluency in older students and advocates for effective read-aloud techniques to model prosody and enhance comprehension. Comparing building reading stamina to athletic training, he emphasizes gradual increases in sustained reading time. Additionally, Doug shares insights from his work with sports teams, revealing parallels between teaching strategies and coaching methods.
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INSIGHT

Silent Reading Is Not Always Fluent

  • Fluency means recognizing words instantly so working memory is free for comprehension.
  • Doug Lemov warns disfluency is likely widespread in middle and high school, impairing understanding.
ADVICE

Use Read-Alouds To Build Fluency

  • Make students read aloud regularly to build automaticity, prosody, and internal vocal models.
  • Use teacher read-alouds to model expression, then have students mimic short sections for practice.
ADVICE

Prepare And Perform Read-Alouds

  • Treat teacher read-aloud as explicit instruction and prepare chosen lines and pacing in advance.
  • Read with slowed pace and amplified expression, then assign short partner or solo reading tasks.
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