Repeated reading: how to do it at home

The best-evidenced way to build reading fluency is also the plainest — the same short passage, read aloud a few times, with somebody listening. Here is how to do it so it actually works.

For parents and teachers · Grades 1 to 3

The repeated reading strategy is exactly what it sounds like: a child reads the same short passage out loud several times — usually three — with an adult listening and helping, until it sounds like talking. Then they move on to a new passage and do it again.

That is the whole method. It works because each read costs the child less effort than the one before, and the effort they save goes into phrasing, expression and meaning. If you want to know how to do repeated reading at home, the short answer is: a passage of about 100 to 150 words that is a little hard for them, read to them once, then read by them three times across a day or two, with the first and last read timed and written down.

Where repeated reading comes from

The method was set out by S. Jay Samuels in 1979, in an article in The Reading Teacher called "The method of repeated readings". His students reread short passages — roughly 50 to 200 words, shorter for the weakest readers — until they reached a target speed with good accuracy, then moved to the next passage. The point was never speed for its own sake: while a child's attention is all spent on working out words, there is none left for understanding them, and practice that makes the words automatic frees it up.

Twenty years later the US National Reading Panel reviewed the research on fluency. Its report (2000) concluded that guided repeated oral reading — reading aloud repeatedly with guidance from a teacher, parent or peer — had a significant and positive effect on word recognition, fluency and comprehension, across a range of grade levels. The same report found too little evidence to say that simply encouraging more independent silent reading improved fluency.

Why repeated reading builds fluency

Three things happen across the reads:

• The words get cheaper. On the first read a child may sound out "stomped". By the third it is recognized on sight. That is the beginning of automatic word reading, and it carries into other texts that use the same words.
• The phrasing appears. Once the words stop being obstacles, the child starts grouping them — "the big dog / ran / to the gate" instead of seven separate efforts. Most children who read word by word do it less on a third read without being told to.
• They hear themselves improve. Few other kinds of practice let a six-year-old hear their own progress inside ten minutes.

Later reviews broadly agree. Therrien's 2004 meta-analysis found average gains in both fluency and comprehension, and his follow-up work names reading aloud to a competent adult as an essential part of the method.

One honest qualification. Kuhn and Stahl's 2003 review of fluency instruction found that assisted practice — with a model and feedback — worked better than children rereading alone, but that repetition itself showed no clear advantage over reading plenty of different text with the same support. What matters most is a lot of supported reading out loud. Repetition is simply the easiest way to get that at home from a small amount of text.

How to do repeated reading at home

1. Choose a short passage. About 100 to 150 words; less for a beginning reader. A page or two of a book they have not read is fine.
2. Check it is the right difficulty. On the first read they should get roughly 90 to 95 words in every 100 right. Below about 90%, the text is too hard to practice on. If they read it perfectly first time, there is nothing to gain from rereading it.
3. Read it to them first. Fluent reading has to be heard before it can be copied. Read at a natural pace, with expression, pointing under the lines rather than tapping each word.
4. First read: theirs, timed. Start a stopwatch. Do not correct them while they read. If they stick on a word for about three seconds, say it and let them carry on. Note the words they missed.
5. Go over the tricky words. Afterwards, not during. Sound them out together, then read the sentence each one sits in.
6. Second read. Straight away, or later that day.
7. Third read: timed again. Same day or the next. Work out words correct per minute for the first and third reads and write both down.
8. Ask one question about it. What happened, or why somebody did something. It keeps the reading pointed at meaning rather than at the clock.

Ten minutes is enough.

How many times should a child reread?

Usually three, sometimes four. The reading researcher Timothy Shanahan, who has written extensively on the method, suggests three readings should be enough before moving to a new text. Samuels himself used a target rather than a fixed count: keep going until the passage reaches a set speed and accuracy, then move on.

At home, a sensible rule combines the two. Stop after three reads, or sooner once it sounds like talking — smooth, accurate, pausing at full stops. Going to a sixth or seventh read mostly teaches a child that reading is boring. Spreading the reads over two days is fine.

How to chart repeated reading progress

Chart two different things, because they answer two different questions.

The practiced passage, read by read. This goes up every time, and that is the point — it is motivating, and children like seeing the bar grow. Here is what a typical week's entry looks like (an invented example, not a benchmark):

The cold read, once a week. This is the number that tells you whether anything is really changing: the first read of a passage they have never seen before. Practiced passages always look good. If repeated reading is working, the cold-read score creeps up over weeks as well. Compare it with the oral reading fluency norms for their grade and time of year, and look at the direction over six to eight weeks rather than at any single week. The fluency chart on our printables page is a handy way to keep the benchmark next to your notes.

Common repeated reading mistakes

• Text that is too hard. If they are missing more than about one word in ten, every reread is a struggle and nothing becomes automatic. Drop a level. Our guide to decodable books explains how to find text that matches what they can decode.
• Text that is too easy. A passage they read perfectly first time is a performance, not practice.
• Skipping the model. A child who has never heard the passage read well will repeat the same flat, choppy version three times, faster.
• Correcting mid-sentence. It breaks the sentence and the confidence. Note the word, deal with it afterwards.
• Turning it into a race. If the only thing you praise is the stopwatch, you will get a fast, flat reader who ignores full stops. Praise smoothness and expression as much as speed.
• Rereading silently. The research is on reading aloud to somebody. Silent rereading on its own has much weaker support.

"Isn't my child just memorizing it?"

Partly, and that is fine. A bit of memory is a scaffold — it frees a child to concentrate on phrasing and expression. The weekly cold read is your check: if it rises over the weeks, the skill is transferring, not just the passage.

Who repeated reading suits

It suits children who can decode but do it slowly: most of Grade 1 from the middle of the year, Grade 2, and Grade 3 readers who are behind. It is a mainstay of fluency work for struggling first graders and 2nd graders who read slowly.

It is not the answer for a child who cannot yet blend sounds into words. Rereading cannot make automatic what a child cannot do at all. Start with phonics at home instead. And if rereading is making a child miserable, read what to do when a child hates reading before you push on.

For more ways to vary the routine — echo reading, paired reading, readers theater — see our list of reading fluency activities and how to improve reading fluency.

The hard part is the listener

The method is simple. What is hard is having somebody sit and listen, every day, without correcting every word. That is the gap our reading fluency app for kids was built for: it reads each line first, listens while your child reads it back, helps after about three seconds on a stuck word, and has them read it again. Each whole-story read is scored for words correct per minute, accuracy and expression, and the recordings are kept so you can hear the change yourself.

Sources

• Samuels, S. J. (1979). The method of repeated readings. The Reading Teacher, 32.
• National Reading Panel (2000). Teaching Children to Read: An Evidence-Based Assessment of the Scientific Research Literature on Reading and Its Implications for Reading Instruction. National Institute of Child Health and Human Development.
• Kuhn, M. R. & Stahl, S. A. (2003). Fluency: A review of developmental and remedial practices. Journal of Educational Psychology, 95(1), 3–21.
• Therrien, W. J. (2004). Fluency and comprehension gains as a result of repeated reading: A meta-analysis. Remedial and Special Education, 25(4), 252–261.
• Hasbrouck, J. & Tindal, G. (2017). An update to compiled ORF norms (Technical Report No. 1702). Behavioral Research and Teaching, University of Oregon.

Free chart from myfluentreader.com — reading fluency benchmarks, a words-per-minute calculator and the full sight-word lists, free and without signing up.