Fluency

Fluency

Fuchs, L., Fuchs, D., & Hosp, M. (2001). Oral reading fluency as an indicator of reading competence: A theoretical, empirical, and historical analysis. Scientific Studies in Reading, 5 (3), 239-256.

Definition of process:

•  Oral reading fluency is defined as the oral translation of written text into speech; it includes the characteristics of rate of speech, accuracy, and prosody.
•  To be a fluent reader, one must coordinate a series of cognitive processes including transforming letters into sounds, sounds into words, and words into meanings.
• Oral reading fluency can be used as an indicator of reading competence. 
•  Studies by Fuchs, Fuchs, and Maxwell and Fuchs, Fuchs, Eaton and Hamlett found that comprehension correlated more highly with oral reading fluency than with question answering, cloze reading, passage recall, and silent reading fluency (as cited by Fuchs et al., 2001).
• The rationale behind this correlation lies in cognitive resources; the more automatic the process of oral reading becomes, as quantified by oral reading fluency, the more cognitive resources are available for higher level comprehension.  More advanced processes include constructing meaning, making connections within the text and with real life, and forming inferences.
• The authors assert that using oral fluency as a means of gauging comprehension should be used more widely within the educational system, as long as issues such the accurate representation of development levels and the influence of narrative structure are considered.

 Developmental information of process: (Fuchs et al, 2001)

•  Oral reading fluency develops gradually over the elementary school years (Biemiller, as cited by Fuchs et al., 2001)
•   Typical developmental trajectory of oral reading fluency involves greatest growth in the primary grades 
• Begins to have a negative accelerating curve through intermediate grades that carries into junior high 
•  After junior high, the nature of reading development changes to reflect analysis of narratives and/or processing of expository text
• Relationship between oral reading fluency and comprehension should be stronger in the elementary and junior high grades than one would find in older individuals
• Oral reading fluency can be indexed as words read correctly by minute in order to detect incremental changes
• Reading fluency may serve as an indicator of basic reading competence; not necessarily the capacity to analyze literature or learn new information from complex expository text
• Future research is needed to further understanding the developmental process of oral reading fluency

Stage of reading impacted: 

(Fuchs et al, 2001)

Bear, D. R., Invernizzi, M., Templeton, S., & Johnston, F.  (2012).  Words their way: Word study

     for phonics, vocabulary, and spelling instruction.  Boston: Pearson.

• Children approach oral reading fluency during the transitional stage.  They can read fluently at their instructional level.  Reading speed greatly increases as children integrate the knowledge and skills acquired in previous stages. 
•  ~58-80 words per minute 
• Some expression in oral reading, which may indicate comprehension abilities
• Intermediate and advanced readers use their relatively automatic word recognition skills to free up their mind to focus on comprehending the text.  This development leads to increases in their word fund.  These readers are fluent and expressive. 
• Their reading accuracy and speed increases 
• Words that are stored in memory are automatically retrieved during reading. 
• Children use syllabic and morphemic chunks to quickly and accurately figure out unfamiliar words.

Connections to oral language: (Fuchs et al., 2001) (Tunmer, W. & Hoover, W., 1993)

Oral reading fluency has a direct and reciprocal relationship with oral language. The most obvious relationship is the requisite and necessity for oral language or output to initiate oral fluency. Additionally, the theoretical basis of the relationship between oral reading fluency and reading competence relies heavily on aspects of language development, and thus, oral language. To begin, oral fluency is a measure of phonological segmentation and recoding skills as well as word recognition. Phonological segmentation is the ability to break orthographic words into sounds. Research has found aptitude in phonological segmentation can be predicted from phonological awareness, an oral language skill. 

Furthermore, recoding relates to the ability to translate letters and letter patterns into phonological forms. Therefore skill in converting grapheme representations into phonological representations (and then, competence or meaning) is dependent upon an intact phonological representation, which is firstly dependent upon adequate oral language (i.e., a child with a phonological disorder would have deficits in recoding as a result of this underlying theoretical relationship).

 

Taking this a step further, word recognition, or the correct identification of written words without much effort, is a higher level ability and is dependent on all of these aforementioned skills (e.g., phonological segmentation and recoding). Thus, it too is influenced by and connected to oral language. Semantic context also affects word recognition via two processes. The first process in particular relates to oral language. It is the activation of memories from the stimuli (i.e., the word). If the network of memories is not built in oral language constructs firstly (i.e., the child does not have the word or semantic networks), then activation of the memories for reading and reading fluency is impaired. This demonstrates how oral language relates to reading fluency via word recognition processes. 

To sum, oral fluency is an important element of competent reading. Because an underlying relationship exists between oral language, oral fluency, and reading competence, treatment on any of one of these skills may influence and enhance other skills (e.g., treatment of recoding may influence word recognition as well as oral language skills). All of this demonstrates that oral language serves as an essential foundation for aptitude in higher level skills (ultimately, oral reading fluency and reading competence).

Tunmer, W. & Hoover, W. (1993). Phonological recoding skills and beginning reading. Reading and Writing: An Interdisciplinary Journal. 5(2), 161-79.

Connections to bilingual or culturally/linguistically diverse:

• Children’s abilities and experiences in their L1 and L2 will impact oral reading fluency
• Fluency characteristics (prosody, rate of speech)  may differ depending on the language spoken, affecting speed of reading aloud
• How much exposure/pre-literacy skills the child demonstrates in one or both languages will affect oral reading fluency 
• Cultural expectations are not standardized across languages – literacy may not be expected or praised in all cultures 
• The composition of the normative sample for standardized measures of fluency must be considered 
• Every child is different; strategies for intervention must differ on a case by case basis taking into account cultural factors 
• Fluency can be used as a measure of comprehension; however, asking children to demonstrate their knowledge of a text in  their non-dominant language may misconstrue their true comprehension abilities

Video Resource:

The following link directs you to a video showing the usage of DIBELS, a common oral reading fluency assessment.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M2N5-IBkt4o

Sarah Herendeen

Cindy Halfman

Joseph Higgins

Talli Hoersten