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Fluency

 

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Fluency



 
 
fluency (also called volubility and loquaciousness) is the property of a person
Person

The term person in common usage means an individual human being. In the fields of law, philosophy, medicine, and others, the term also has specialised context-specific meanings....
 or of a system
System

System is a set of interacting or interdependent entities, real or abstract, forming an integrated whole.The concept of an "integrated whole" can also be stated in terms of a system embodying a set of relationships which are differentiated from relationships of the set to other elements, and from relationships between an element of the se...
 that delivers information
Information

Information as a Conveyed concept has a diversity of meanings, from everyday usage to technical settings. Generally speaking, the concept of information is closely related to notions of constraint, communication, control system, data, form, instruction, knowledge, Meaning , stimulation, pattern, perception, and knowledge representation....
 quickly and with expertise.
ncy disorders are most often complex in nature and they tend to occur more often in boys than in girls.

Language fluency
Language fluency is used informally to denote broadly a high level of language proficiency
Language proficiency

Language proficiency or linguistic proficiency is the ability of an individual to speak or perform in an acquired language. As theories vary among pedagogues as to what constitutes proficiency , there is little consistency as to how different organizations classify it....
, most typically foreign language
Foreign language

A foreign language is a language not spoken by the people of a certain place: for example, not only English language but also Late Old Japanese is a foreign language in Japan....
 or another learned language, and more narrowly to denote fluid language use, as opposed to slow, halting use.






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fluency (also called volubility and loquaciousness) is the property of a person
Person

The term person in common usage means an individual human being. In the fields of law, philosophy, medicine, and others, the term also has specialised context-specific meanings....
 or of a system
System

System is a set of interacting or interdependent entities, real or abstract, forming an integrated whole.The concept of an "integrated whole" can also be stated in terms of a system embodying a set of relationships which are differentiated from relationships of the set to other elements, and from relationships between an element of the se...
 that delivers information
Information

Information as a Conveyed concept has a diversity of meanings, from everyday usage to technical settings. Generally speaking, the concept of information is closely related to notions of constraint, communication, control system, data, form, instruction, knowledge, Meaning , stimulation, pattern, perception, and knowledge representation....
 quickly and with expertise.

Speech


Fluency is a speech and language pathology
Speech and language pathology

Speech-language pathology is the study of disorders that affect a person's speech, language, cognition, voice, swallowing and the Physical medicine and rehabilitation or corrective treatment of physical and/or cognition deficits/Speech disorder resulting in difficulty with communication and/or swallowing....
 term that means the smoothness or flow with which sounds, syllables, words and phrases are joined together when speaking quickly. . Fluency disorders is used as a collective term for cluttering
Cluttering

Cluttering is a speech disorder and a communication disorder characterized by speech that is difficult for listeners to understand due to rapid speaking rate, erratic rhythm, poor syntax or grammar, and words or groups of words unrelated to the sentence....
 and stuttering
Stuttering

Stuttering, also known as stammering in the United Kingdom, is a speech disorder in which the flow of Speech communication is disrupted by involuntary repetitions and prolongations of sounds, syllables, words or phrases, and involuntary silent pauses or blocks in which the stutterer is unable to produce sounds....
. Both disorders have breaks in the fluidity of speech, and both have the fluency breakdown of repetition of parts of speech. Fluency disorders are most often complex in nature and they tend to occur more often in boys than in girls.

Language fluency


Language fluency is used informally to denote broadly a high level of language proficiency
Language proficiency

Language proficiency or linguistic proficiency is the ability of an individual to speak or perform in an acquired language. As theories vary among pedagogues as to what constitutes proficiency , there is little consistency as to how different organizations classify it....
, most typically foreign language
Foreign language

A foreign language is a language not spoken by the people of a certain place: for example, not only English language but also Late Old Japanese is a foreign language in Japan....
 or another learned language, and more narrowly to denote fluid language use, as opposed to slow, halting use. In this narrow sense, fluency is necessary but not sufficient for language proficiency: fluent language users (particularly uneducated native speakers) may have narrow vocabularies, limited discourse strategies, and inaccurate word use, and may be illiterate.

In the sense of proficiency, "fluency" encompasses a number of related but separable skills:

  • Reading: the ability to easily read and understand texts written in the language;
  • Writing
    Writing

    Writing is the representation of language in a textual Media through the use of a set of signs or symbols . It is distinguished from illustration, such as cave drawing and painting, and the recording of language via a non-textual medium such as Magnetic tape sound recording....
    : the ability to formulate written texts in the language;
  • Comprehension: the ability to follow and understand speech in the language;
  • Speaking: the ability to speak in the language and be understood by its speakers.


To some extent, these skills can be separately acquired. Generally, the later in life a learner approaches the study of a foreign language, the harder it is to acquire auditory
Auditory

Auditory means of or relating to the process of hearing:* Auditory system, the neurological structures and pathways of sound perception.* Sound, the physical signal perceived by the auditory system....
 comprehension and fluent speaking skills – however, the Critical Period Hypothesis
Critical Period Hypothesis

The Critical Period Hypothesis refers to a long-standing debate in linguistics and language acquisition over the extent to which the ability to acquire language is biologically linked to age....
 is hotly debated. Reading and writing a foreign language are skills that can be acquired more easily after the primary language acquisition
Language acquisition

Language acquisition is the study of the processes through which learners acquire language. By itself, language acquisition refers to first language acquisition, which studies infants' acquisition of their native language, whereas second language acquisition deals with acquisition of additional languages in both children and adults....
 period of youth is over, however.

Reading fluency


Reading fluency is often confused with fluency with a language (see above). Reading fluency is the ability to read text accurately and quickly. Fluency bridges word decoding
Decoding

Decoding is the reverse of encoding, which is the process of transforming information from one format into another. Information about decoding can be found in the following:...
 and comprehension
Reading comprehension

Reading comprehension is defined as the level of understanding of a writing.Proficient reading depends on the ability to recognize words quickly and effortlessly....
. Comprehension is understanding
Understanding

Understanding is a psychology process related to an abstract or physical object, such as a person, situation, or message whereby one is able to think about it and use concepts to deal adequately with that object....
 what has been read. Fluency is a set of skills that allows readers to rapidly decode text while maintaining high comprehension (National Reading Panel, 2001).

A first benchmark for fluency is being able to "sight read" some words. The idea is that children will recognize at sight the most common words in the written form of their native language and that instant reading of these words will allow them to read and understand text more quickly.

As children learn to read, the speed at which they read becomes an important measure.

(National Reading Panel
National Reading Panel

The National Reading Panel was a United States government body. Formed in 1997 at the request of Congress, it was a national panel with the stated aim of assessing the effectiveness of different approaches used to teach children to read....
, Teaching Children to Read: An Evidence-Based Assessment of the Scientific Research Literature on Reading and Its Implications for Reading Instruction--Reports of the Subgroups. A complete copy of the NRP report can be read, downloaded, or ordered at no cost from the NRP website at www.nationalreadingpanel.org.)

See also

  • Linguistics
    Linguistics

    Linguistics is the science study of natural language. Linguistics encompasses a number of sub-fields. An important topical division is between the study of language structure and the study of Meaning ....
  • Precision teaching
    Precision teaching

    Precision teaching is a precise and systematic method of evaluating instructional tactics and curricula. It is one of the few quantitative analyses of behavior forms of applied behavior analysis....
  • Speech disfluencies
    Speech disfluencies

    Speech disfluencies are any of various breaks, irregularities, or utterances that are often not consistent with any specific grammatical construction and occur within the flow of otherwise fluent speech....
  • Speech and language pathology
    Speech and language pathology

    Speech-language pathology is the study of disorders that affect a person's speech, language, cognition, voice, swallowing and the Physical medicine and rehabilitation or corrective treatment of physical and/or cognition deficits/Speech disorder resulting in difficulty with communication and/or swallowing....