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Prosody Chart

By W.D. Bursuck|M. Damer
Pearson Allyn Bacon Prentice Hall

The ability to read text orally using appropriate phrasing, intonation, and attention to punctuation is termed prosody. The table below lists reading behaviors for students who read fluently and with expression compared to those who do not.

  Expressive Readers Nonexpressive Readers
Stress (loudness)
  • Use weak stresses throughout reading.
  • Stress increases at end of exclamatory sentences.
  • Often stress every word.
  • Sometimes use more than one stress per word.
Variations in pitch (intonation)
  • Have greater variations in pitch - rise and fall in voice pitch.
  • Use a rising pitch at the end of a sentence that asks a question or that exclaims.
  • Use a downward pitch for a sentence making a statement.
  • Have inappropriate pitch changes. Either sustain the same pitch for longer periods or use a rising pitch where a falling one is appropriate.
Duration (how long word is pronounced)
  • Lengthen the word/vowel that precedes a comma. Lengthen the last word of a sentence.
  • Often lengthen other unexpected words in a sentence.
  • Often do not lengthen word/vowels preceding commas or at the end of a sentence.
Chunk words into appropriate phrases
  • Use few pauses within sentences.
  • Use shorter pauses between sentences; shorter pauses after page turn.
  • Pause at commas.
  • Use punctuation to group words into natural units.
  • Often pause at end of clauses.
  • Pause between words and within words more frequently; pauses can last longer; often pause after every word; awkward word groups.
  • Are vulnerable to disruptions in text such as page turns.
  • Chunk words with little attention to punctuation or clauses within the sentence.

 

Source: Based on information from Cowie et al., (2000) and Dowhower (1991).

Excerpted From:

Reading Instruction for Students Who Are at Risk or Have Disabilities
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Excerpt from Reading Instruction for Students Who Are at Risk or Have Disabilities, by W.D. Bursuck, M. Damer, 2007 edition, p. 178.

© ______ 2007, Merrill, an imprint of Pearson Education Inc. Used by permission.  All rights reserved. The reproduction, duplication, or distribution of this material by any means including but not limited to email and blogs is strictly prohibited without the explicit permission of the publisher.

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