Relations Among Oral Reading Fluency,Silent Reading Fluency,and Reading Comprehension: A Latent Variable Study of First-Grade Readers

In the present study, we examined oral and silent reading fluency and their relations with reading comprehension. In a series of structural equation models with latent variables using data from 316 first-grade students, (a) silent and oral reading fluency were found to be related yet distinct forms of reading fluency, (b) silent reading fluency predicted reading comprehension better for skilled readers than for average readers, (c) list reading fluency predicted reading comprehension better for average readers than for skilled readers, and (d) listening comprehension predicted reading comprehension better for skilled readers than for average readers.     

Measuring Gains in Reading Ability with Passage Reading Fluency

This study examined several aspects of Passage Reading Fluency (PRF) including performance variability across passages alternative designs for measuring PRF gain, and effects on PRF level from retesting with the same passages. Participants were 33 students from grades 2 to 10 attending a school for students with learning disabilities. PRF was measured at three test points. Time‐2 tests occurred 10 weeks after time‐1 tests, and time‐3 tests occurred 5 weeks after the time‐2 tests. At Test points 2 and 3, students read old passages (same‐passage design) and new passages (different‐passage design). Results showed substantial individual variation on concurrent PRF measures, smaller variation in gains measured with the same‐passage design, and no passage memory effects (i.e., from retested passages). Results are discussed in relation to measuring reading gains in Response to Intervention models.     

流畅阅读与大学英语阅读障碍克服

英语阅读能力是大学生应该具有的主要的大学英语综合运用能力,是打好语言基础,获取信息的重要手段。文章探讨了流畅阅读的特点,以及大学英语阅读存在的障碍,并提出克服大学阅读障碍的方法。     

Text Display Effects on the Fluency of Young Readers

The aim of this research was to investigate one of the features of text display in books printed for young readers. The feature chosen as the focus for this study was the position of the line-break with respect to the phrase structure of the sentence. When reading aloud, children tend to equate line length with a complete sentence, thus disrupting their fluency and, possibly, comprehension. This research was specifically designed to investigate the effect of a line-break after each word in the sentence pattern: subject-verb-object-adverbial. In an associated experiment, positioning effects of the word were investigated in coordinating positions between clauses, phrases and words occurring at the end of one line or at the beginning of the next. These experimental line-breaks were embedded in a story which had an identical parallel form in which none of the sentences was violated by line-breaks. In total, 254 five- to eight-year-old children were tape-recorded reading pairs of texts aloud, with a three-week break between recordings. These tapes were analysed for disruptions of fluency and comprehension. A hierarchy of difficulty in relation to the occurrence of the line-breaks for these sentence patterns has been identified.     

Children’s Reading Comprehension and Oral Reading Fluency in Easy Text

This study explored third-graders’ oral reading fluency (ORF) in easy text in relation to their third- and fourth-grade reading comprehension. It also examined the children’s performance on two different measures of text exposure, a self-report questionnaire and a title-recognition test. Although third-graders’ ORF related significantly to their reading comprehension, oral language comprehension accounted for most of the variance in reading comprehension, whereas single word reading speed accounted for most of the variance in ORF. Third-grade reading comprehension and ORF each predicted unique variance in children’s scores on a fourth-grade state-mandated reading comprehension assessment. Scores on the self-report questionnaire correlated significantly with third-grade ORF and fourth-grade reading; the self-report accounted for reliable variance in ORF even with all of the other reading ability variables entered first. Results are consistent with the viewpoint that text exposure affects reading fluency. They also demonstrate that ORF is a valuable predictor of middle-elementary children’s reading comprehension, even when the ORF measure employs very easy text in which children achieve near-perfect word accuracy.     

Supplemental Fluency Intervention and Determinants of Reading Outcomes

This study replicates research on the efficacy of a repeated reading intervention with word-level instruction for students in Grades 2 and 3 with low to moderate fluency skills, examines differences between treatment implementers, and tests unique contributions of treatment-related variables on outcomes. Students from 13 schools were randomly assigned to dyads; dyads were randomly assigned to treatment or control conditions. Schools were matched into treatment implementer groups (teachers or paraeducators) at study onset. Tutoring occurred during school hours for 15 weeks (M = 25.5 hr). Multilevel model results showed treatment students (n = 98) gained more than controls (n = 104) on measures of letter-sound knowledge (d = .41), fluency (d = .37–.38), and comprehension (d = .30–.31); students tutored by teachers gained more than their paraeducator-tutored peers on word reading and fluency. Finally, dyads tutored with greater fidelity gained more in word reading and fluency; dyads that read more complex words in their texts gained less on letter-sounds, fluency, and comprehension.     

Word Reading Fluency as a Serial Naming Task

Word list reading fluency is theoretically expected to depend on single word reading speed. Yet the correlation between the two diminishes with increasing fluency, while fluency remains strongly correlated to serial digit naming. We hypothesized that multi-element sequence processing is an important component of fluency. We used confirmatory factor analyses with serial and discrete naming tasks with matched items, including digits, dice, objects, number words, and words, performed by about 100 Greek children in each of Grades 1, 3, and 5. Separable serial and discrete factors emerged across grades, consistent with distinct skill dimensions. Loadings were greater for serial than discrete, suggesting that discrete processing does not fully determine serial processing. Average serial performance differed more than discrete between grades, consistent with improvement beyond single-item speed. Serial word reading aligned increasingly with the serial factor at higher grades. Thus, word reading fluency is gradually dominated by skill in simultaneously processing multiple successive items through different stages (termed “cascading”), beyond automatization of individual words.     

Using Peer Coaches to Build Oral Reading Fluency

Fluent oral reading is essential for success in elementary school. In this study, we investigated the effectiveness of enhanced reading fluency instruction for struggling readers. The intervention was provided to small groups of students at risk for reading difficulties. Students were assessed on key early literacy skills. Second-grade students who were at risk for reading failure and who received supplemental intervention scored higher on measures of fluency than students who received only typical classroom instruction; the effects of enhanced fluency instruction were evident across different dosages for many children at risk for reading failure. In addition, statistically significant improvements and relationships were evident for oral reading fluency and comprehension. We discuss guidelines for developing and using the intervention in other classrooms.     

Cognitive Correlates of the Covariance in Reading and Arithmetic Fluency: Importance of Serial Retrieval Fluency

This study examines the core predictors of the covariance in reading and arithmetic fluency and the domain-general cognitive skills that explain the core predictors and covariance. Seven-year-old Finnish children (N = 200) were assessed on rapid automatized naming (RAN), phonological awareness, letter knowledge, verbal counting, number writing, number comparison, memory skills, and processing and articulation speed in the spring of Grade 1 and on reading and arithmetic fluency in the fall of Grade 2. RAN and verbal counting were strongly associated, and a constructed latent factor, serial retrieval fluency (SRF), was the strongest unique predictor of the shared variance. Other unique predictors were phonological awareness, number comparison, and processing speed. Findings highlight the importance of SRF in clarifying the relation between reading and arithmetic fluency.     

Multilevel Analysis of Multiple-baseline Data Evaluating Precision Teaching as an Intervention for Improving Fluency in Foundational Reading Skills for at Risk Readers

In this article, multiple-baseline across participants designs were used to evaluate the impact of a precision teaching (PT) program, within a Tier 2 Response to Intervention framework, targeting fluency in foundational reading skills with at risk kindergarten readers. Thirteen multiple-baseline design experiments that included participation from 35 kindergarten students were included in the current analysis. By combining data from a series of multiple-baseline studies using a multilevel model, we analyzed outcomes to determine an estimated treatment effect. The results indicate that across participants and across studies, PT showed an average increase of 15 correct responses in foundational reading skills per minute. This immediate influence on rates of core reading skills was statistically significant. Moreover, the treatment had a significant positive effect on the time trend indicating that rates in foundational reading skills increased more across time during the treatment phase compared to the baseline phase. The study provides evidence that the obtained rates in foundational reading skills at the end of the intervention were retained after removing the intervention. From the outcomes of the multilevel model, PT can be considered as a promising Tier 2 intervention to increase reading fluency with individuals who are at risk of reading failure.     

Fluency Has a Role in the Simple View of Reading

The Simple View of Reading (SVR) suggests that the components of reading comprehension are decoding and linguistic comprehension. Given research that suggests that fluency is a separate construct from decoding and linguistic comprehension in fourth grade, the aim of this study was to examine the role of fluency in the SVR model. Analyses of data from 248 fourth-grade children explored whether the influence of fluency on reading comprehension is direct or whether fluency plays an indirect role on reading comprehension as a mediator or moderator of decoding. Structural equation modeling and latent regression analyses revealed that reading fluency plays a mediating role in explaining the relation between decoding and reading comprehension. This novel finding is placed in the context of studies that reported either a direct effect or no effect of reading fluency in SVR.     

Development of an Early Hebrew Oral Reading Fluency Measure

Currently, there are no Hebrew (L2) reading assessments that have been tested to obtain evidence for reliability and validity on which to base decisions about Hebrew instruction. The authors developed a Hebrew benchmark assessment tool for first grade students modeled after Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills, a standardized test of accuracy and fluency used to identify at-risk students and to monitor student progress. Results of pilot data collection (N=53) provide evidence for strong alternate form reliability for this measure, as well as evidence for content, face and criterion-related validity. Future directions for research and development are discussed.     

论文学阅读的时代性

文学阅读是随着社会的变迁、生活的发展而变化,具有很强的时代性。文学阅读这种现象是由文学阅读的时代性所决定的。文学阅读的时代性主要表现为：文学作品内容的时代性;读者思想意识的时代性;文学审美风尚的时代性。     

Using Word Identification Fluency to Monitor First-Grade Reading Development

This study assessed the effects of sampling breadth on technical features of word identification fluency (WIF), a tool for screening and monitoring the reading development of first graders. From a potential pool of 704 first-grade students, the authors measured both a representative sample (n = 284) and 2 other subgroups: those with low reading achievement (n = 202) and those with high/average achievement (n = 213). Data were collected weekly on broadly and narrowly sampled WIF lists for 15 weeks and on criterion measures in the fall and spring. Broad lists were developed by sampling words from 500 high-frequency words, whereas narrow lists were created by sampling from the 133 words from Dolch preprimer, primer, and first-grade word lists. Overall, predictive validity for performance level, predictive validity for growth, and commonality analysis showed narrow sampling was better for screening the representative group and the high/average subgroup. Broad sampling was superior for screening the low-achieving subgroup and for progress monitoring across groups.     

Correlates of Reading Fluency in Arabic: Diglossic and Orthographic Factors

Arabic native speaking children are born into a unique linguistic context called diglossia (Ferguson, word, 14, 47–56, [1959]). In this context, children grow up speaking a Spoken Arabic Vernacular (SAV), which is an exclusively spoken language, but later learn to read another linguistically related form, Modern Standard Arabic (MSA). Forty-two first-grade Arabic native speaking children were given five measures of basic reading processes: two cognitive (rapid automatized naming and short-term working memory), two phonological (phoneme discrimination and phoneme isolation), and one orthographic (letter recoding speed). In addition, the study produced independent measures of phonological processing for MSA phonemes (phonemes that are not within the spoken vernacular of children) and SAV phonemes (phonemes that are familiar to children from their oral vernacular). The relevance of these skills to MSA pseudoword reading fluency (words correct per minute) in vowelized Arabic was tested. The results showed that all predictor measures, except phoneme discrimination, correlated with pseudoword reading fluency. Although phonological processing (phoneme isolation and discrimination) for MSA phonemes was more challenging than that for SAV phonemes, phonological skills were not found to affect reading fluency directly. Stepwise regression analysis showed that the strongest predictor of reading fluency in vowelized Arabic was letter recoding speed. Letter recoding speed was predicted by memory, rapid naming, and phoneme isolation. The results are discussed in light of Arabic diglossia and the shallow orthography of vowelized Arabic.     

Modeling the Relationship Between Oral Reading Fluency and Performance on a Statewide Reading Test

This study examined the relationship between oral reading fluency and performance on a statewide reading test across Grades 3, 4, and 5. A curriculum-based measure of oral reading fluency was administered to 3rd, 4th, and 5th graders who participated in the reading test from the Colorado Student Assessment Program (CSAP). A cross-sectional design with individuals nested within classrooms and classrooms nested within grade levels was used. Hierarchical linear modeling was employed to analyze the relationships. Significant correlations were found between oral reading fluency and the CSAP for all 3 grades. The measure of oral reading fluency added unique information to predicting CSAP performance over and above the predictability of previous year CSAP testing. There was significant variation at the individual classroom level in the relationship between oral reading fluency and CSAP performance. Diagnostic efficiency statistics were used with cut scores to predict whether students would pass or fail the CSAP.