HIGHLAND | Fluency is critical to becoming an effective reader.

Timothy Rasinski, a professor of literacy education at Kent State University who has written more than 150 articles and co-authored or edited books on reading education, recently brought that message to the Northwest Indiana Education Service Center in Highland.

He spoke to dozens of teachers from Northwest Indiana on the importance of fluency in reading.

Educators have focused on phonics and decoding for many years, and fluency has taken a back seat, he said.

But fluency helps children pay attention to the meaning of words.

"Kids need teachers," he said, adding that teachers have to be re-taught to focus on fluency.

Primary teachers Catherine Rusin and Theresa Zarndt, both from St. Michael in Schererville, thought Rasinski had plenty of good things to say.

"It's nice to know that what we're doing at school is what he's talking about," said Zarndt, who teaches first grade.