Fluency instruction is something I talk A LOT about. I talk about it so much because not only is it a meaningful, functional, and effective way to work on skill development it also isn’t all that complicated. It’s also the PERFECT paraprofessional run station. It doesn’t require a ton of training (ie. you teach your para how to run a fluency program and they can utilize the same procedure for most skills) and it doesn’t require a ton of materials either. 

Fluency is accuracy plus speed. We want our learners to have skills that can be produced quickly and correctly. A fluency program looks at the rate of performance – how many responses can the student produce within a specific amount of time.

Data from fluency instruction gives us the MOST information. You know how many they got correct and in how long. Percentage, consecutive opportunities, etc, doesn’t tell us all that. If we say a student can identify letters with 90% accuracy – we still don’t know a lot. 

Fluency is all about being functional. We want the skills we teach our students to be second nature. Fluency builds that. Fluency is all about getting our students ready for more complex skills. Need that strong foundation before you move on!

It’s ALL about the fluency center. On my busiest day, my fluency center is still chugging along and my para is collecting data. It’s literally the best thing ever. When I am up to my eyeballs in a new behavior plan and feel like I have completely forgotten about the rest of my plan (because safety first…), I know my little loves are still maintaining the skills they’ve learned and I’ve got data to prove it. Read more here on how to set this up. 

The better question might be what skills CAN’T you use fluency instruction for. From the traditional academics based skills like sight words and math facts to more complex concepts like adding coins and answering wh- questions, to basic skills like motor imitation and fine motor skills – fluency pretty much works for any skill we are teaching. Check out some of my favs: 

Receptive Language:

Fine Motor Skills:

Identify Items by Function:

Wh- Questions: 

Imitation: 

Vowel and Consonant: