In a Year 6 classroom an English lesson is underway. Pupils are completing a reading comprehension task as a small group.
But if you listen carefully, you would notice eight different accents as they read out loud to each other. The children can clearly decode fluently, yet their rhythm, phrasing and understanding vary widely - shaped by the sounds and patterns of French, Spanish, Mandarin, Arabic and Russian.
Reading fluency, as recently discussed on Tes, is the bridge between decoding and comprehension, but in international schools that bridge often spans multiple languages, and teachers must learn to strengthen it in unique ways
Reading fluency for EAL learners
English fluency is far more complex in learners with English as an additional language (EAL). If you work in an international school, the vast majority of students are EAL.
Yet these learners will be assessed in English and, as they get older, prepare for international assessments such as the IGCSE, International A level or International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme.
The multilingual challenge with EAL learners is about navigating how multiple languages overlap and interfere with each other.
Phoneme-grapheme mismatches
Many students come from languages with highly regular spelling systems, such as Spanish or Italian, where one letter equals one sound.
English, by contrast, breaks its own rules constantly: the “ough” in through, though and thought behaves three different ways. For a multilingual learner, that inconsistency undermines both accuracy and automaticity.
Different rhythmic systems
English is a stress-timed language, and it is built around stressed syllables and a musical cadence. For example, “the cat sat on the mat”. Languages with Latin roots, such as Spanish and French, are syllable-timed, giving equal weight to each syllable.
Therefore, teaching prosody in these situations would require the teacher to use explicit modelling. This could be clapping beats in a Key Stage 1 classroom or highlighting stress patterns in poems.
Limited exposure to English idioms, punctuation and text conventions
It is easy to confuse conversation fluency with academic fluency.
Jim Cummins reminds us that Basic Interpersonal Communicative Skills (BICS), the ability for a student to chat with you comfortably in English, develop far more quickly than Cognitive Academic Language Proficiency (CALP), which underpins comprehension in learning.
Students may sound fluent in conversation or when verbally answering, but struggle when answering an IGCSE extended answer that requires reading dense texts with abstract language and subject-specific vocabulary.
Five strategies to boost reading fluency
Given this, there are some strategies that international teachers can employ when working with mixed-language classrooms to try to boost pupils’ reading fluency.
- Echo reading
- Pair native and non-native speakers; model English rhythm and stress.
- Focus not just on accuracy but on intonation and confidence.
- Example: use dual-language texts (English and students’ home language) to reinforce meaning.
- Repeated reading
- Combine with pre-teaching key vocabulary so that comprehension grows alongside fluency.
- Record students’ reading over time because hearing their own progress increases their motivation.
- Performance reading
- Let students perform in pairs or groups. Use plays, poetry or subject-based texts.
- Invite students to include bilingual lines or translations to celebrate language diversity.
- Text marking
- Teach punctuation as a “map for meaning”.
- Model how phrasing changes when commas or full stops are misread.
- Let students compare how punctuation works differently in their own languages.
- Modelled expert prosody
- Encourage all staff to model fluent English reading - in assemblies, across subjects, in daily routines.
- Use multilingual staff to demonstrate how prosody shifts between languages, helping students to “hear” the difference.
Fluency isn’t just about smooth reading - it’s about access. Without it, multilingual learners can decode words but miss meaning, nuance and tone.
Teaching fluency in international schools ensures that every student, regardless of their language background, can truly participate in learning.
English fluency is a key enabler of comprehension but the Education Endowment Foundation guidance report Improving Literacy in Key Stage 2 makes a crucial point: fluency alone is not enough to guarantee understanding.
Students also need adequate language skills (vocabuluary, syntax, background knowledge, etc) to truly grasp texts and dissect them. In multilingual classrooms, that gateway can be harder to unlock.
When learners are still grappling with English phonemes, rhythms and idioms, the mental load of decoding leaves little capacity for meaning-making.
That’s why fluency work in international schools is about more than pace or pronunciation, it’s about equity.
By explicitly teaching rhythm, phrasing and expression, and by pairing this with rich oral language and vocabulary development, we give every learner access to the same curriculum thinking, regardless of their linguistic starting point.
Danny Steadman is deputy head at St George’s British International School, Bilbao
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