Moving Away from One-to-One Tracking
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Using a finger to follow along under words while reading is an important skill for new and struggling readers. Tracking in this kinesthetic way establishes the left-to-right motion required for reading English. It helps students raise their level of accuracy by helping them pay attention to the individual sounds in words. It may help with fluency by helping readers keep their place. We often insist that our emerging readers use this strategy to aid their focus.
We want students to track with their fingers until they are no longer making tracking errors. If they are able to track the print with their eyes, they don’t need to use their fingers to read, and most students give it up naturally. However, if a student continues to use their finger when they don’t need to, it can inhibit their fluency.
I was conferring with a second-grade student as he read Captain Underpants by Dav Pilkey. He carefully tracked each word of the text with his finger, to the detriment of his fluency. I suspected that he was ready to move away from using his finger but might need the support of a bookmark before tracking with his eyes only.
I introduced an Eye Lighter, and what a difference! Eye Lighters are tinted, transparent bookmarks. They are wonderful because they underline the sentence being read, but don’t mask the next line. This is especially helpful when developing fluency since students are able to track more than one line at a time. When he moved to using this simple tool, my student immediately began reading in phrases instead of word by word, and the look of pride on his face was priceless.
If your students are ready to move away from tracking, you can purchase Eye Lighters or cut colored acetate sheets into bookmark strips. They just might provide the transitional support to help your students move from one-on-one tracking to smooth and fluent phrasing.
