Rethink Reading Fluency

A Practical, Research-Backed Approach

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Some students make reading look effortless. They glide through the words, their voices rising and falling with expression, their understanding obvious. But for others, reading is a grind. The words sit stubbornly on the page. Each sentence is a struggle. By the time they reach the end, the meaning has slipped away.

For these students, the usual advice is well-meaning but flawed: read more, practise quietly, keep going. But reading more does not help if the reading itself is laboured and confusing. Silent reading, while valuable for fluent readers, often leaves struggling students stuck in a loop of frustration.

What they need is not just more time with books, but more time with support. More opportunities to experience what fluent, expressive reading sounds like. More structured practice that builds confidence, accuracy and understanding. In the ideal world a teacher or adult could fill this role. But in reality, it isn’t feasible to give that much time to individual students or small groups. Unless you want to resort to an excessive amount of unguided literacy rotations or ‘busy work’. I won’t open the literacy rotations can of worms in this article. We can unpack that another day.

This is where dyad reading comes in. A simple, research-backed strategy that turns reading into a shared, supported experience, Dyad reading gives students exactly what they need to develop fluency.

Dyad Reading: A simple tool with powerful results

Dyad reading is an uncommon and under appreciated, research-backed way to build fluency. At its core, it is a straightforward strategy. Two students sit side by side, reading aloud together in unison from the same text. The more fluent student sets the pace, providing a natural model for accuracy, automaticity and prosody. The less fluent student reads along, supported in real time by their partner.

This approach provides much more than shared reading. It offers immediate exposure to correct pronunciation, pacing and expression. The more fluent student effectively becomes a reading coach, helping their partner experience what fluent reading sounds and feels like, while reducing the anxiety of reading alone.

In 2017, Brown, Mohr, Wilcox & Barrett published ‘The effects of dyad reading and text difficulty on third-graders’ reading achievement’. The results were intriguing. Students in the dyad reading group made approximately three times the fluency gains of peers who read independently. Comprehension also improved, suggesting fluency development transferred to broader reading skills.

Interestingly, the more fluent students also benefited. Acting as a coach reinforced their own understanding of what fluent, expressive reading entails, improving their skills in the process.

The Brown et al. study paired less proficient readers with more proficient peers. The dyads read together for 15 minutes daily across 95 sessions. The critical feature was that texts were pitched about two reading levels above the learner’s independent level. This approach falls within the assisted reading family of interventions. It draws on principles from the Neurological Impress Method and research on oral reading fluency. The key is structured, scaffolded support rather than unmonitored partner reading.

This fits neatly with a large body of research showing that oral reading, when supported and structured, improves not only word recognition but also comprehension. Hearing fluent models, practising aloud, and receiving immediate support help students internalise the essential components of fluency: accuracy, automaticity and prosody. Dyad reading brings these elements together in a way that is practical, effective and easy to implement.

Blending Dyad Reading with Paired Fluency Practice

While Dyad reading is powerful, it does not need to stand alone. Paired fluency activities, where students take turns reading aloud and providing feedback, can also play an important role in building fluent, confident readers.

Keith Topping’s 1987 research on paired reading demonstrated significant improvements in reading accuracy, fluency and comprehension. More recent studies have reinforced these findings, confirming that structured, peer-supported reading practice helps students at all ability levels.

The key is structure and clarity. Simply asking students to read together is unlikely to deliver meaningful improvement. But when teachers model fluent reading, establish clear routines, and set expectations for peer coaching and feedback, paired fluency practice becomes a valuable tool.

A blended approach works well in practice. Dyad reading offers shared, supported reading with an emphasis on pacing and accuracy. Paired reading introduces turn-taking and provides opportunities to focus on expression, phrasing and comprehension. Both strategies provide repeated, structured exposure to fluent reading models, and both help students develop the confidence and skill to read independently.

Importantly, these activities allow students to practise all three components of fluency. They work on accuracy through peer support and correction. They build automaticity through repeated exposure to familiar words. And they develop prosody by hearing and practising natural expression and phrasing.

Some educators are quick to shut down dyad reading, typically due to concerns that the reading coach doesn’t benefit, or that it’s inequitable. Even though the research says the opposite, it is reasonable to include paired fluency to hush the naysayers. Additionally, there is a lot more research around paired fluency’s benefits. Hopefully we see more research comparing it to dyad reading in the future. Until then, a healthy blend of both fits into ‘best practice’ and I don’t think any reasonable educator could say otherwise.

Why silent reading falls short for struggling readers

Despite the strong research supporting oral fluency practice, many classrooms rely heavily on silent reading to develop reading skills. While independent reading can be valuable for confident, fluent readers, it is often ineffective for those who are still struggling.

In the dyad reading study (Brown et al. 2017), the control group were silent readers. The dyad readers had triple the growth in reading fluency compared to the students who were left to their own devices reading silently.

The poor outcomes from silent reading should be obvious. I’m sure all teachers have seen students just sitting quietly pretending to read. Or even just staring out the window. How can we expect poor or reluctant readers to improve when we just tell them to sit down, don’t make a noise and read that book?

For students who lack fluency, silent reading can reinforce poor habits. Without feedback, errors go unnoticed. Without modelling, students have no clear sense of how fluent, expressive reading should sound. For some, silent reading becomes little more than quiet confusion.

Silent reading may have a place in building reading stamina and engagement for fluent readers, but it cannot substitute for structured, supported fluency practice. Students improve when they receive regular, explicit opportunities to hear fluent reading, practise aloud and receive feedback. Dyad reading and paired fluency activities deliver precisely that, giving students the tools they need to develop fluency and, with it, comprehension.

The path forward

Reading fluency is not a skill that develops reliably through hope or exposure alone. It is built deliberately, through structured, supported practice that targets accuracy, automaticity and prosody.

Dyad reading and paired fluency activities offer practical, research-backed strategies to make this happen. They provide struggling readers with the modelling, guidance and confidence they need to move beyond decoding and into meaningful reading. They help fluent readers refine their skills and develop greater comprehension. And they give teachers simple, effective tools to teach reading fluency, not just hope for it.

If we want all students to read with understanding, expression and confidence, the strategies are simple and easy to implement. It is time to use them.