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The Power of Repeated Reading
Anne Hauth • September 23, 2025
Reading fluency is a crucial skill that bridges the gap between decoding words and understanding their meaning. One effective strategy to build fluency is repeated reading—a technique where a student reads the same text multiple times until they achieve a level of fluency that feels natural and confident.
What Is Repeated Reading?
Repeated reading involves selecting a short passage at an appropriate reading level--ideally at or slightly above the student's instructional level. The student reads this passage several times, focusing on improving speed, accuracy, and expression with each reading. This practice allows for mastery of the text, leading to fluent and confident reading. Fluent reading should sound like conversational speaking--natural and expressive.
Why Does It Work?
Research shows* that repeated reading can lead to significant improvements in reading performance. The benefits include:
- Improved Word Recognition: By encountering the same words repeatedly, students become more familiar with them, leading to quicker and more accurate recognition. When these words become automatic, the students no longer need to put effort into decoding them.
- Increased Reading Fluency: Reading the same passage multiple times allows students to build fluency--each time reading it more smoothly and with greater expression.
- Enhanced Comprehension: As fluency improves, students can focus more on understanding the text, leading to better comprehension. This improvement in comprehension extends to unpracticed passages as well.
- Increased Confidence: Repeated reading is a form of mastery learning. Many beginning or struggling readers don't often get the opportunity to hear themselves sounding like fluent readers. After reading a passage multiple times, they've mastered it--and they sound great! This is a huge confidence boost that motivates them to keep reading.
Repeated Reading at Home
Incorporating the repeated reading strategy into your child's home reading routine doesn't have to be complicated or boring. In fact, many kids already do it! You've probably noticed that they often want to read the same book over and over. Don't discourage this--as long as they haven't totally memorized the entire text, they're building skills each time they read it.
To work on repeated reading with your child at home, here's a simple strategy:
- Use an Appropriate Passage: Have your child choose a new short text that is slightly challenging but still within their level.
- Listen to Your Child Read: Have your child read the passage aloud to you. Note any words that are difficult for them to decode.
- Read Aloud Together: Read the passage aloud with your child, modeling fluent reading. Do this one to three times. Identify the difficult words together, and provide definitions.
- Independent Practice: Encourage your child to read the passage independently a few more times, focusing on improving their expression with each reading.
- Celebrate Progress: Affirm how much your child improved from the first reading to the final reading. Acknowledge their hard work and progress to build confidence and motivation.
Additional Tips
- Keep Sessions Short: Aim for 10- to 15-minute sessions at first, to maintain focus and prevent frustration.
- Consider Using a Timer: If your child is open to the idea, set a timer each time they read the passage. Note their improvement in time, and celebrate their fluency growth. Make the timing element a fun challenge, but emphasize that this exercise isn't about speed reading--it's about building fluency.
Repeated reading is a powerful strategy that can significantly enhance your child's reading ability. If you're looking for an easy-to-use program that incorporates this research-proven strategy, check out One Minute Reader. This program uses repeated reading and gamified learning to help kids at various reading levels build fluency, vocabulary, comprehension, and confidence.
* Dowhower, S. L. (1987). Effects of repeated reading on second-grade transitional readers’ fluency
and comprehension. Reading Research Quarterly, 22(4), 389–405.
Kuhn, M. R., & Stahl, S. A. (2003). Fluency: A review of developmental and remedial practices.
Journal of Educational Psychology, 95(1), 3–21.
LaBerge, D., & Samuels, S. J. (1974). Toward a theory of automatic information processing in
reading. Cognitive Psychology, 6(2), 292–323.
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