Punctuation & Fluency

Punctuation is a big deal for readers.

Really, it is.

Really?

Yes, really!

When kids understand how each punctuation mark works, they learn how to change way their voice sounds at each mark. And this makes them more expressive readers, which is part of being a fluent reader.

I remember going through a horrible period of teaching several years back when fluency was being overly boiled down to “words-per-minute.” Teachers everywhere, including myself, were holding timers as kids visibly shook with anxiety  while they tried to read as quickly as they could. Of course the children didn’t understand a thing they were reading because they were concentrating so hard on speeding through the pages of the book in a race to beat the clock.

Obviously, reading at a snail’s pace isn’t productive (or even enjoyable), but reading like a hyped-up auctioneer is equally ineffective. I’m so glad to see more and more children understanding that reading should be as smooth and as natural as talking.

IMPROVING EXPRESSION

Expression is a component of fluency that is sometimes overlooked in reading instruction. Many features of a text impact expression, such as:

• punctuation marks
• bold, underlined, and/or italicized words
• understanding how the characters feel
• clues in the illustrations (setting details, facial expressions, etc.)
• inferring suspense

Punctuation is a tricky one. First, there’s the very basic understanding that readers need to notice punctuation in the text. But you know they don’t. New readers just keep going as if it were never typed on the page.

Once they become aware of the punctuation marks, they have to know what to do with them. If you’re a primary teacher, you know this is no easy task. It takes a lot of teacher modeling and student practice.

TEACHING TEXTS

One way I help my students learn this expressive quality is to share books about punctuation. There are several choices out there, but my two favorites are Yo! Yes? by Chris Raschka and Exclamation Mark by Amy Krouse Rosenthal. Yo! Yes? has been a favorite of my first grade students for years. They ask to read it out loud with me, over and over. If you’re not familiar with it, here are a few sample pages.👇

It only has two characters… a shy, timid boy and another boy who has enough confidence and courage to fill the whole school. At first glance, it looks like a really easy book to read, but the author is intentional about so many things in this story, including the size of the words, the punctuation marks, the color of some words, and the facial expressions.

Because the words are easy to read or learn, the children can really practice the way their voice should sound with each changing punctuation mark. As a side note, read the shy boy’s part softly and ask the kids to explain why they think you’er reading his words more quietly than the other character’s. Most will infer from the illustrations that the boy is shy and they’ll notice his words are smaller.

I love the page with the words well. It’s a great way to show the children power a punctuation mark has. They have fun hearing how the same exact word can sound differently depending on the mark that follows it. The first boy is asking. The second boy is thinking.

EXCLAMATION MARK!

This next book by Amy Krouse Rosenthal is about a little exclamation mark trying to find his voice. At first, he’s surrounded by periods, but heh knows he’s different and that he stands out. And then he meets a question mark who asks SO MANY questions, he instinctively yells, “STOP!” and finds his loud, exclamation-marky sound.

CLASSROOM FLUENCY ACTIVITY

If you need a fun fluency activity, your kids may enjoy this BUMP game. My students LOVE it! It’s a simple set of slides, but randomly placed throughout the slides are active verbs that keep the kids kinesthetically engaged as they stomp, clap, snap, wiggle, and BUMP! The set helps improve rate, smoothness, and expression and includes practice slides for:

• 2-word, 3-word, and 4-word phrases
• punctuation
• underlined words
• understanding a character’s feelings

Happy teaching!