automatically translating letters into coherent sound representations, unitizing thosesound components into recognizable wholes and automatically accessing lexicalrepresentations, processing meaningful connections within and between sentences,relating text meaning to prior information, and making inferences to supply missinginformation. That is, as an individual translates text into spoken language, he or shequickly coordinates these skills in an obligatory and seemingly effortless manner,and because oral reading fluency reflects this complex orchestration, it can be usedin an elegant and reliable way to characterize reading expertise.Several operational reasons explain how oral reading fluency may serve to rep-resent this complicated process. Oral reading fluency develops gradually over theelementary school years (e.g., Biemiller, 1977–1978; L. S. Fuchs & Deno, 1991).To reflect incremental differences or change, oral reading fluency can be indexed(or counted) as words read correctly per minute so that scores reflect small,roughly equal interval units (L. S. Fuchs & Fuchs, 1999), which permits practitio-ners and researchers to use oral reading fluency in two ways. First, within a norma-tive framework, performance levels can be compared between individuals.Second, gains or performance slopes can track the development of reading compe-tence within an individual. These strategies for characterizing reading competenceand improvement have been shown to be more sensitive to inter- andintraindividual differences than those offered by other well-accepted, morebroadly conceptualized reading tasks (e.g., Marston, Fuchs, & Deno, 1985). Forexample, as Frederiksen (1981) demonstrated, the number of word reading errorsin context does not as a rule distinguish groups of high- and low-ability readers aswell as the chronometric aspect of processing, as reflected in oral reading rate,which consistently provides a basis for distinguishing levels of reading expertise.We begin this article by examining theoretical arguments for supposing thatoral reading fluency reflects overall reading competence. We then summarize sev-eral studies substantiating this claim. Next, we provide an historical analysis of theextent to which oral reading fluency has been incorporated into measurement ap-proaches during the past century. We conclude with recommendations about theassessment of oral reading fluency for research and practice.Before beginning this discussion, we offer one caveat. Research (e.g., L. S.Fuchs, Fuchs, Hamlett, Walz, & Germann, 1993) suggests that the typical devel-opmental trajectory of oral reading fluency involves greatest growth in the primarygrades, with a negatively accelerating curve through the intermediate grades andperhaps into junior high school. Consequently, after the intermediate grades or thejunior high school years, the nature of reading development may change to reflectliterary analysis of narratives and processing of expository text. This suggests thatthe relation between oral reading fluency and comprehension should be stronger inthe elementary and junior high grades than in older individuals, a pattern borne outin the literature (e.g., Gray, 1925; Jenkins & Jewell, 1993; Sassenrath, 1972). Italso suggests that oral reading fluency may serve as an indicator of basic reading240 FUCHS ET AL.
competence rather than an individual’s capacity to analyze literature or to learnnew information from complicated expository text. Future research should explorethese issues.THEORETICAL BASES FOR ORAL READING FLUENCYAS A MEASURE OF READING CAPACITYOn its face, from a behavioral perspective, oral reading fluency is a direct measureof phonological segmentation and recoding skill as well as rapid word recognition.What is the theoretical basis for presuming that this behavior, in which the individ-ual quickly and accurately translates written language into its oral form, may alsoreflect the reader’s ability to derive meaning from text? Theoretical frameworks forunderstanding the reading process do provide a basis for conceptualizing oral read-ing fluency in this way—as a performance indicator of overall reading competence,which includes comprehension. We briefly discuss two perspectives that offer suchsupport.LaBerge and Samuels’ (1974) automaticity model of reading is probably mostfrequently invoked as a framework for conceptualizing oral reading fluency as anindicator of overall reading competence (see, e.g., Potter & Wamre, 1990).LaBerge and Samuels described how the execution of a complex skill necessitatesthe coordination of many component processes within a short time frame. If eachcomponent required attention, the performance of the complex skill would exceedattentional capacity and therefore be impossible. By contrast, if enough compo-nents are executed automatically, then attentional load would be within tolerablelimits, permitting successful performance. In this way, automaticity became a keyexplanatory construct in reading. LaBerge and Samuels assumed, however, thatcomprehension processes demand attention and therefore are not strong candi-dates for the development of automaticity; they considered lexical processes, suchas orthographic segmentation and phonological coding, to be better targets forautomaticity. In essence, LaBerge and Samuels promoted the view that skilledreading involves the reallocation of attentional capacity from lower level wordidentification processing to resource-demanding comprehension functions.Of course, LaBerge and Samuels’ (1974) bottom-up serial-stage model of read-ing requires that higher level processes await the completion of lower ones. Morerecent conceptualizations of reading instead pose an interactive process, in whichthe initiation of a higher level process does not await the completion of all lowerones. In fact, studies (e.g., Leu, DeGroff, & Simons, 1986; Stanovich & Stanovich,1995; West, Stanovich, Feeman, & Cunningham, 1983) document that althoughgood and poor readers both experience contextual facilitation, the effect is greaterfor poor readers. This phenomenon is hard to rectify against a bottom-up se-rial-stage model of reading. Fortunately, Posner and Snyder’s (1975a, 1975b) the-ORAL READING FLUENCY 241
ory of expectancy provides a framework for posing alternative processes by whichcontext facilitation accrues for good and poor readers and lends support to an inter-active model of reading.According to Posner and Snyder (1975a, 1975b), semantic context affects wordrecognition via two independently acting processes. With the automatic-activationprocess, stimulus information activates a memory location and spreads automati-cally to semantically related memory locations that are nearby in the network. Thisprocess is obligatory, is fast acting, and requires no attentional capacity. The secondprocess, a conscious-attention mechanism, relies on context to formulate a predic-tion about the upcoming word and directs the limited capacity processor to the mem-ory location of the expected stimulus. This slow-acting process is optional, it utilizesattentional capacity, and it inhibits the retrieval of information from unexpected lo-cations. For good readers, rapid word recognition short-circuits the conscious-atten-tion mechanism; the automatic spreading-activation component of contextualprocessing dominates. By contrast, for poor readers, contextual facilitation resultsfrom the combined effect of the conscious-attention and the automatic-activationmechanisms. Unfortunately, as poor readers rely on the conscious-attention mecha-nism, they expend their capacity in prediction processes to aid word recognition. Lit-tle is left over for integrative comprehension processes, which happens for readerswith strong word recognition skills, whereby new knowledge is constructed or newmaterial is integrated into existing knowledge structures.Consequently, the model from LaBerge and Samuels (1974) and more recent,interactive models of reading (Stanovich, 2000) differ in terms of what type of pro-cessing occurs as individuals engage with text at the word recognition level andwhat occurs when word recognition is inefficient. With LaBerge and Samuels,word recognition does not rely on contextual facilitation; with an interactivemodel, prior contextual knowledge aids in word identification to compensate forpoor word-level skill.Both perspectives, nevertheless, do share the assumption that efficientlow-level word recognition frees up capacity for higher level, integrative compre-hension processing of text; this is the key point in framing a theoretical argumentthat fluent oral reading from text serves as a performance indicator of overall read-ing competence, which includes the reader’s capacity, for example, to processmeaningful connections within and between sentences, to infer the macrostructureof a passage, to relate text meaning by checking consistencies with prior informa-tion, and to make inferences to supply missing information. Within both theoreti-cal perspectives, reading development presumes increasing word recognitionspeed, which is associated with enhanced capacity to allocate attention to integra-tive comprehension processing when engaging with text. In this way, the fluencywith which an individual translates text into spoken words should function as anindicator not only of word recognition skill but also of an individual’s comprehen-sion of that text.242 FUCHS ET AL.
EMPIRICAL EVIDENCE FOR ORAL READING FLUENCYAS AN INDICATOR OF READING COMPETENCETheoretical frameworks, therefore, provide a basis for hypothesizing that oral read-ing fluency may serve as an indicator of overall reading competence. It is interest-ing to note that a persuasive database empirically demonstrates how word recogni-tion skill, in general, relates strongly to text comprehension (e.g., Gough, Hoover,& Peterson, 1996). Of course, word recognition skill may relate less well to textcomprehension than do more “direct” measures of comprehension. Moreover, oralreading fluency can be assessed via isolated word lists or text. In addition, it may betested under oral or silent reading conditions.In this section, we address a set of questions that parallel these issues. First, wedescribe research examining how oral reading fluency compares to more directmeasures of reading comprehension as an indicator of reading competence. Sec-ond, we report findings of a study exploring how text reading fluency compares toisolated word reading fluency. Third, we summarize a database comparing silentreading fluency and oral reading fluency as correlates of reading comprehensionperformance. It is important to note that in the studies we describe, criterion mea-surement of overall reading competence was operationalized as performance ontraditional, commercial, widely used tests of reading comprehension. Thisoperationalization reflects the widely held assumption that meaning constructionis the goal of reading. It does not, however, address questions about whether tradi-tional commercial achievement tests, designed for large-scale assessment, opti-mally reflect the capacity to construct meaning from text.Oral Reading Fluency Versus Direct Measuresof Reading ComprehensionTo contrast the criterion validity of several reading measures, L. S. Fuchs, Fuchs,and Maxwell (1988) used the Reading Comprehension subtest of the StanfordAchievement Test (Gardner, Rudman, Karlsen, & Merwin, 1982) as the criterionmeasure, with which to correlate four alternative measures. Three of these alterna-tive measures were deemed to be direct measures of reading comprehension; oralreading fluency was the fourth measure.Question answering was one of the direct reading comprehension measures.Question answering is the most commonly employed reading comprehension as-sessment in classrooms, and it is incorporated frequently within commercial stan-dardized tests. As operationalized by L. S. Fuchs et al. (1988), question answeringrequired students to read two 400-word passages, each for 5 min. For each pas-sage, students provided oral answers to 10 short-answer questions, which wereposed orally. The questions required recall of information contained in idea unitsORAL READING FLUENCY 243
of high thematic importance. A response was scored correct if it matched or para-phrased information in the idea unit. Number correct was averaged across the twopassages.Another direct reading comprehension measure was passage recall. Recall is awell-established method for assessing students’ comprehension of text; it is em-ployed frequently in reading comprehension research. L. S. Fuchs et al. (1988)used the same 400-word passages. Pupils read one passage for 5 min and had 10min to retell the passage. If students completed the recall before the time limit, ex-aminers delivered a maximum of four controlled prompts, with 30 sec of no re-sponse between prompts, before terminating the recall. Recalls were scored astotal number of words retold, percentage of content words retold, and percentageof idea units retold.Cloze was a third direct measure of reading comprehension. We created acloze for each 400-word passage by deleting every 7th word from the passageand replacing each deleted word with a blank. Cloze is considered a measure ofreading comprehension because correct replacements are generated by means ofreasoning processes that constitute comprehension; these include accessingbackground information, understanding the pertinent textual information, rely-ing on linguistic properties, and using reasoning skills. In this study, studentswrote replacements to restore blanks for one passage; restorations were scored asexact matches, as synonymous matches, and as syntactic matches with deletedwords.In addition to measuring students on the criterion variable (i.e., the ReadingComprehension subtest of the Stanford Achievement Test) and these three directreading comprehension measures, L. S. Fuchs et al. (1988) also assessed oral read-ing fluency. Students read two of the 400-word passages aloud, each for 5 min,while the examiner scored omissions, repetitions, substitutions, and mispronunci-ations as errors. Performance was reported as words read correctly per minute av-eraged across the two passages.Seventy middle school and junior high school students participated; all had areading disability. Stanfords were administered in small groups. Each pupil com-pleted the four alternative measures (question answering, recall, cloze, oral read-ing fluency), with the order of administration and the passages assigned to eachmeasure counterbalanced.Results were as follows. Criterion validity coefficients (average correlationsacross the different scoring methods) for the question answering, the recall, andthe cloze measures were .82, .70, and .72, respectively. The coefficient for oralreading fluency was .91. Tests for differences between these correlations demon-strated that the correlation for oral reading fluency was significantly higher thanthe correlation for each of the three direct measures of reading comprehension.Consequently, although each measure correlated respectably well with the cri-terion measure, it is notable that students’ oral reading fluency was most strongly244 FUCHS ET AL.
associated with capacity to read passages and answer questions about those pas-sages on a widely used, commercial achievement test of reading comprehension.In part, these findings reflect difficulties associated with the direct forms of read-ing comprehension assessment. Such difficulties include producing good sets ofquestions that cannot be answered from information contained in the set of ques-tions, identifying tenable methods for scoring recalls, or the tendency for clozemeasures to reflect textual redundancy. A correlation between oral reading fluencyand performance on the Reading Comprehension subtest of the Stanford Achieve-ment Tests of .91 is nonetheless impressive because oral reading fluency, on itsface, does not require students to understand what they read. The high correlationfor oral reading fluency, however, does corroborate theoretically driven hypothe-ses about the potential of oral reading fluency as an indicator of overall readingcompetence.Of course, these results are based on a sample of students with reading disabili-ties, for whom individual differences in word reading processes are likely to have astronger effect on comprehension outcomes than among more skilled readers.Nevertheless, high correlations have also been documented for nondisabled ele-mentary school age children within a variety of studies that (a) incorporated differ-ent criterion measures of reading accomplishment, (b) examined within-grade aswell as across-grade coefficients, and (c) used instructional level as well as a fixedlevel of text across students (for reviews, see Hosp & Fuchs, 2000; Marston,1989). These findings are consistent with the idea that oral reading fluency appearsto reflect individual differences in overall reading competence.Reading Words in Context Versus Words in IsolationOf course, demonstrating that oral reading fluency is a better proxy for traditionalmeasures of reading comprehension than more direct measures of reading compre-hension does not eliminate the possibility that reading isolated word lists may rep-resent a similarly good—or better—indicator of reading competence. To examinethis possibility, Jenkins, Fuchs, Espin, van den Broek, and Deno (2000) examinedthe criterion validity of fluency scores when students read words in isolation or incontext.Jenkins et al.’s (2000) sample comprised 113 fourth-grade students: 85 skilledreaders (performing at or above the 50th percentile on the Reading Comprehen-sion test of the Iowa Test of Basic Skills; Riverside, 1994), 21 students without dis-abilities who read below the 50th percentile, and 7 students with readingdisabilities (randomly selected from a larger pool of students with reading disabili-ties). Jenkins et al. sampled in this way to approximate a normal distribution offourth graders. Students read from two measures, each for 1 min. The first measurewas an intact, 400-word folktale; the second was a word list comprising randomlyORAL READING FLUENCY 245
ordered words from the folktale. Performance for each measure was scored aswords read correctly per minute. Also, in groups, students completed a criterionmeasure, the Reading Comprehension portion of the Iowa Test of Basic Skills, un-der standard conditions (i.e., with a time limit that permitted most students to com-plete the test without pressure).The criterion validity coefficient (i.e., with reading comprehension) for text flu-ency was .83; for list fluency, it was .53. The difference between these correlationswas statistically significant. Pairs of regressions were also computed, with the or-der of the predictors varied within pairs so that the unique contribution of each pre-dictor could be estimated after controlling for the paired predictor. Text fluencyand list fluency together accounted for 70% of the variance in the Iowa test scores.Text fluency uniquely explained 42% of the variance in the Iowa scores, whereaslist fluency uniquely explained only 1%. When comparing text fluency to list flu-ency, text fluency accounted for substantial variance in reading comprehension,with little additional variance accounted for by list fluency.Perhaps of even greater interest, Jenkins et al. (2000) also used text fluency asthe criterion variable, entering the Iowa test and list fluency as the predictors toshed light on how comprehension and isolated word reading fluency contribute totext fluency performance. Of course, the observed behaviors in list fluency andtext fluency are virtually identical; by contrast, the nature of reading text aloud flu-ently versus the behavior required for the Iowa test (reading text silently and thenanswering multiple-choice questions) is strikingly different. On this basis, onemight hypothesize that list fluency would account for more (and perhaps almostall) of the unique variance in text fluency. Interestingly, however, comprehensionand list fluency did make unique and substantive contributions to the prediction oftext fluency. Even more surprising, after the Iowa test was entered into the regres-sion, list fluency accounted for only 11% of the variance in text fluency; by con-trast, after list fluency had been entered, the Iowa test still accounted for 28% of thevariance in text fluency. So, the unique contribution of comprehension was morethan twice that of list fluency, indicating that text fluency appears to have more incommon with reading comprehension than with reading word lists fluently.This finding leads us to expand on our earlier discussion of the theoretical basisof oral reading fluency as a measure of reading competence. Whereas LaBerge andSamuels’ (1974) automaticity theory and Stanovich’s (1980) interactive–compen-satory model described how development of individual differences in word recog-nition efficiency affects attentional resources, Perfetti (1995) proposed that otherreading subcomponents (e.g., identifying anaphoric referents, integrating proposi-tions within text and with background knowledge, inferencing) can also becomeautomatized. Moreover, as these reading subcomponents become efficient, addi-tional attentional resources (beyond those freed by word-level skills) are releasedfor constructing a more in-depth text model. Jenkins et al.’s (2000) finding thatoral reading fluency and comprehension share unique variance (after controlling246 FUCHS ET AL.
for list rate) suggests that oral reading fluency taps individual differences in verbalefficiency for reading subcomponents beyond those at the word level. As Thurlowand van den Broek (1997) illustrated, fluency may reflect readers’ capacity to au-tomatically formulate inferences while reading. In a similar way, Nathan andStanovich (1991) proposed that reading fluency is intertwined critically with read-ing comprehension. These possibilities find support in Jenkins et al.’s result that,after the contribution of students’ word recognition skill (as indexed by list readingfluency) has been removed, oral reading fluency from text serves to predict read-ing comprehension, and comprehension in turn serves to predict oral reading textfluency. Thus, measurement of oral reading fluency may serve as a strong indica-tor of overall reading competence because it captures individual differences in anumber of reading subcomponents at lower and higher levels of processing.Silent Reading Fluency Versus Oral Reading Fluency asCorrelates of Reading Comprehension PerformanceOf course, none of these studies speaks to the issue of whether text fluency shouldbe assessed via oral or silent reading. To address this issue, L. S. Fuchs, Fuchs,Eaton, and Hamlett (2000) assessed the concurrent validity of fluency with readingcomprehension, when text fluency was assessed via silent versus oral reading. Weasked 365 fourth-grade students to read a passage for 2 min and then to answer eightquestions assessing recall of literal (six questions) and inferential (two questions)contentofthepassage.Studentsreadandansweredquestionsfortwopassages.Onewas read orally, the other silently. The order of administration was counterbal-anced. For oral reading, an examiner circled the last word read at 2 min; for silentreading, the student circled the last word read when time was called. Students alsocompleted the Reading Comprehension portion of the Iowa Test of Basic Skills inlarge-group sessions.We computed correlations for the total words read scores (for silent and oralreading) with two criterion measures: the number of questions answered correctlyon the passages that had been read and the raw score on the Iowa test. For silentreading, the correlation with the questions answered on the passage was .38, andwith the Iowa test, it was .47. For oral reading, the correlation with the passagequestions was .84, and with the Iowa test, it was .80. So, correlations for the oralreading fluency score were substantially and statistically significantly higher thanfor the silent reading fluency scores.Several reasons might explain this differential relation for silent and oral read-ing fluency, but the most obvious candidate is inaccurate student reports about thelast word read during silent reading. Of course, this limitation applies to all assess-ments of silent reading fluency, which provide no objective opportunity for exam-iners to ascertain accurate estimates of how many words were read.ORAL READING FLUENCY 247
HISTORY OF ORAL READING FLUENCY IN THEMEASUREMENT OF READING COMPETENCEThese studies together provide converging evidence regarding oral reading flu-ency’s potential as an indicator of reading competence. L. S. Fuchs et al. (1988)showed how oral reading fluency corresponds better with performance on commer-cial, standardized tests of reading comprehension than do more direct measures ofreading comprehension. Jenkins et al. (2000) extended that finding to demonstratehow text fluency compares favorably to list fluency as an indicator of reading com-petence. L. S. Fuchs et al. (2000) demonstrated how oral reading fluency functionsas a better correlate of reading comprehension than does silent reading fluency.These studies thereby corroborate theoretically driven hypotheses about the valueof oral reading fluency in the measurement of overall reading competence.How do theoretical conceptualizations along with empirical evidence on oralreading fluency correspond with actual practice in the measurement of students’reading competence? We attempted to answer this question by analyzing the read-ing measurement tools widely available to the public. Toward that end, we exam-ined reading measures critiqued within the Mental Measurements Yearbook(MMY), from the first published issue through the present. We tallied the numberof reading tests reviewed for each decade, counting a test only once, during the de-cade when it first appeared in the MMY (occasionally again, if a substantive revi-sion occurred). We kept track of tools that incorporated an assessment of fluencyand those that specifically measured oral reading fluency. We report our findingsin Table 1.A pattern emerged whereby a stronger focus on fluency was evident in the ear-lier part of the century. From before 1929 through the 1960s, approximately 20%of the reviewed tests assessed fluency in some format, about 10% via oral reading.Beginning in the 1970s, however, the percentage of tests that focused on fluency insome format dropped to 6% from 11% per decade; for oral reading fluency, specif-ically, the corresponding percentages fell to 0% from 5%. We cannot provide a de-finitive reason for this pattern. One possible explanation is that the emphasis in the1970s on language experience and whole language approaches to reading instruc-tion gradually began to take hold; this movement oriented measurement towardthe assessment of comprehension and oral miscues.In any case, across decades, 59 of 372 (16%) commercially available tests as-sessed fluency; 28, or 8%, measured oral reading fluency. This latter percentageseems low. Of course, commercial tests are developed with an eye toward minimalcosts and maximal feasibility; group administration and multiple-choice responseformats, therefore, are strong priorities.What of classroom-based tests, where practitioners might focus morestrongly on individual assessment and diagnosis? According to Nathan andStanovich (1991), although obtaining a clear picture of a child’s decoding ability248 FUCHS ET AL.
requires a combined focus on speed and accuracy, teachers are traditionally con-cerned only with word recognition accuracy. This impression is corroborated bydescriptions of informal reading inventories, which typically direct teachers toplace students in instructional-level text according to accuracy, rather than flu-ency, criteria (e.g., Woods & Moe, 1985). Moreover, as described by Rasinski(1989) and Zutell and Rasinski (1991), analyses of reading textbooks for teach-ers reveal little in-depth focus on fluency. In fact, Dowhower (1991) reportedthat only 3 of 13 textbooks addressed fluency at all, and in those texts, fluencywas mentioned only briefly.In a similar way, oral reading fluency has not traditionally been a strong focusfor assessing the effects of treatments in the reading research literature. For exam-ple, in recent years, researchers have made strides in developing and testing treat-ments to improve outcomes for young children at risk for reading failure(Berninger et al., in press; Blachman, Tangel, Ball, Black, & McGraw, 1999;Foorman, Francis, Fletcher, Schatschneider, & Mehta, 1998; D. Fuchs et al., inpress; Mathes, Howard, Allen, & Fuchs, 1998; Torgesen, Wagner, & Rashotte,1997; Torgesen et al., 1999; Vadasy, Jenkins, & Pool, in press; Wise & Olson,1995). However, this literature has focused largely on the development of isolatedword reading accuracy rather than text fluency; the expectation that improveddecontextualized decoding skill automatically will translate into improved perfor-mance on text has not always materialized. Several studies have reported stronggrowth in decontextualized word reading but found smaller or nonsignificant ef-ORAL READING FLUENCY 249TABLE 1Reading Tests Reviewed in Buros Mental Measurements Yearbooks by DecadeOralFluency YesDecade na n % n % No n DK nBefore 1929 28 6 21 2 7 2 21930–1939 57 13 23 6 10 5 21940–1949 31 6 19 3 10 0 31950–1959 46 8 17 4 9 0 41960–1969 53 13 25 7 13 3 31970–1979 80 5 6 3 4 1 11980–1989 61 7 11 3 5 1 31990–1999 16 1 6 0 0 1 0Across 372 59 16 28 8 13 18Note. DK = Don’t know because insufficient information was provided in Buros to make thisdiscrimination.aNumber of reading tests reviewed in Mental Measurements Yearbooks for the first time during thatdecade.
fects on text (Fleisher, Jenkins, & Pany, 1979; Foorman et al., 1998; Mathes et al.,1998; Torgesen, in press; Vadasy et al., in press). In a related way, remedial in-struction sometimes affects reading accuracy and fluency differently. Describinghis remedial work with 8- to 11-year-old children with reading disabilities,Torgesen (in press) wrote, “The relative changes in fluency of both nonword andreal word reading is about half of what has been observed for improvements in ac-curacy.” The point here is that an explicit focus on the measurement of oral readingfluency, as an outcome of reading intervention, seems necessary both in researchand practice.Teachers and researchers, for the most part, have ignored not only theoreticaland empirical accounts of the importance of fluency as an indicator of readingcompetence but also recent calls for a stronger focus on the assessment of oralreading fluency. For example, the Committee for Appropriate Literacy Evaluationof the American Reading Council recommended portfolios that regularly recordstudents’ oral reading fluency (Stayter & Allington, 1991), the Center for Learningand Literacy at the University of Nevada in Reno underscored the importance ofreading rate in the measurement of reading ability (Bear, 1991), and the NationalAssessment of Educational Progress used oral reading fluency as a major strategyfor indexing reading competence among fourth-grade children in this country(Pinnell et al., 1995).RECOMMENDATIONS FOR RESEARCH AND PRACTICEResearch provides empirical corroboration for theory-based hypotheses that oralreading fluency may function as an overall indicator of reading expertise and devel-opment. Meanwhile, current research and practice have not incorporated measure-ment of oral reading fluency for understanding the reading process and reading de-velopment, for evaluating the effects of treatments, for placing students withininstructional materials, for distinguishing between levels of reading developmentso that children may be identified for special attention, or for indexing students’ ac-quisition of reading competence over time. We therefore conclude this article witha set of recommendations for teachers and researchers to include measures of oralreading fluency and for researchers to extend the knowledge base on reading flu-ency as an indicator of reading competence.Incorporating Oral Reading Fluency WithinReading AssessmentTextbooks on reading assessment and pre- and in-service teacher preparation pro-grams should provide teachers with information about how to incorporate reading250 FUCHS ET AL.
fluency into classroom-based assessment so that this datum is taken into account informulating educational decisions. These decisions include placing students in in-structional text, monitoring students’ responsiveness to reading instruction, andidentifying children for special intervention. At the same time, researchers need toconsider incorporating reading fluency measures in an effort to understand betterreading development and the effects of reading treatments.Of course, oral reading fluency can be assessed in a variety of ways. Somemethods, which emphasize prosody, require examiners to describe the pitch,stress, and duration with which children express text. Although reading with ex-pression is a well-acknowledged aspect of reading fluency, these rhythmic andtonal features of speech can be difficult to index in reliable and efficient ways(Dowhower, 1991).Other approaches are simpler. For example, one long-standing research pro-gram conducted by Deno and colleagues (see Deno, 1985; L. S. Fuchs & Fuchs,1998; Shinn, 1989) has examined the psychometric and edumetric features ofcounting the number of correct words while a student reads aloud from text for 1min; this method is known as curriculum-based measurement (CBM). Decades ofresearch show how this simple method for collecting oral reading fluency data pro-duces a broad dispersion of scores across individuals of the same age, with rank or-derings that correspond well to important external criteria, and that represent anindividual’s global level of reading competence (see Fuchs, 1995, for a summary).Teachers can use these scores to identify discrepancies in performance levels be-tween an individual and the individual’s peer group to help inform decisions aboutthe need for special services or the point at which decertification and reintegrationof students might occur.At the same time, CBM provides many alternate test forms, which permit re-peated performance sampling over time. Time–series data are displayed graphi-cally. This allows slope estimates to be derived for different periods and createsthe necessary database for testing the effects of contrasting treatments for a givenstudent (or across many students). Research indicates that these time–series dis-plays result in better instruction and learning: With CBM-graphed displays, teach-ers raise goals more often and develop higher expectations (e.g., L. S. Fuchs,Fuchs, & Hamlett, 1989a), introduce more adaptations to their instructional pro-grams (e.g., L. S. Fuchs, Fuchs, & Hamlett, 1989b), and effect better student learn-ing (e.g., L. S. Fuchs, Deno, & Mirkin, 1984; L. S. Fuchs, Fuchs, Hamlett, &Ferguson, 1992).In addition to generating quantitative scores, CBM can be used to gather quali-tative, diagnostically useful descriptions of performance. As teachers count thenumber of words read correctly in 1 min, they can note the types of decoding errorsstudents make; the kinds of decoding strategies students use to decipher unknownwords; how miscues reflect students’ reliance on graphic, semantic, or syntacticlanguage features; and how self-corrections, pacing, and scanning reveal strategicORAL READING FLUENCY 251
reading processes, along with the prosodic features of the performance. These on-line data can supplement the overall indicator of competence in ways that can fur-ther strengthen instructional planning.Extending the Research Base on Oral Reading Fluencyas an Indicator of Reading CompetenceA wealth of research supports the value of oral reading fluency as an indicator ofoverall reading competence and its utility for helping teachers plan better instruc-tion and effect superior student outcomes. Nevertheless, many questions remainunanswered about CBM specifically and oral reading fluency more generally.These questions provide fertile territory for productive study. In our closing sec-tion, we illustrate this potential by identifying a handful of research issues.In terms of a normative framework, additional work is required to identify ac-ceptable reading rates by grade or developmental level. Such a database could beexpanded to determine incremental increases that correspond to qualitative shiftsin reading expertise. For example, research could identify the number of wordsstudents must increase before independent listeners would deem performance tohave qualitatively improved, or studies might be designed to specify reading ratesthat correspond to productive teaching strategies or to alternative ways by whichstudents process text. In addition, information about performance levels, by grade,that predict success on graduation tests would serve an important practical func-tion for determining which students require special intervention.On another level, research is needed to examine how the nature of text affectsoral reading fluency and its utility as an indicator of overall reading competence.Three issues seem important here. The first concerns the level of text difficulty atwhich measurement should occur: instructional, independent, or frustration level.Although some work (e.g., Hosp & Fuchs, 2000; Mirkin & Deno, 1979) has ad-dressed this issue, additional research is warranted. Second and relatedly, whenmonitoring student growth across years, the use of a fixed level of difficulty acrossthe elementary grades (e.g., third-grade passages for all students regardless of theirinstructional level) is desirable to maintain the constancy of the measurementacross time. Some research (e.g., Deno, Fuchs, & Marston, 1995) suggests the po-tential for a fixed level of difficulty, but additional work is needed. A third issueconcerning the nature of text involves text type: Studies are required to examinehow narrative as opposed to expository material affects oral reading fluency’s ca-pacity to serve as an indicator of overall reading competence.With respect to edumetric questions, research is needed to determine what kindsof qualitative information can be derived during oral reading fluency assessment tohelp teachers generate diagnostically useful performance profiles. For example, howmight the collection and production of diagnostic profiles be systematized to ensure252 FUCHS ET AL.
reliable data and sound decisions? How might different kinds of diagnostic informa-tion be linked to useful instructional recommendations? Which types of diagnosticinformation effect which types of reading outcomes?In a related way, work needs to be conducted on issues surrounding the as-sessment of prosodic features of fluency. Reading with expression, although awell-acknowledged dimension of oral reading fluency, can be difficult to indexin reliable and efficient ways (Dowhower, 1991). Reliability problems may ex-plain low correlations between prosody and criterion measures of reading com-petence (e.g., .02 for stress, .13 for pause, and .17 for pitch, as reported by Rice,1981). Moreover, some evidence suggests that oral reading fluency, without con-sideration of prosody, may explain the relevant variance in reading comprehen-sion. For example, in reanalyzing Marston and Tindal’s (1996) database of 100students without disabilities at each grade (e.g., Grades 1 through 8), Marston(personal communication, November 10, 2000) found that the number of wordsread correctly in 1 min accounted for 65% to 85% of the variance on a maze com-prehension task (correlations ranged between .80 and .92). Only at fourth gradedid prosody explain a significant, but small, amount (i.e., less than 1%) of thevariance in comprehension beyond that accounted for by oral reading fluency.Research examining the relation of prosodic features with criterion reading mea-sures as well as with more actuarial accounts of fluency should be extended.Such extensions, which might incorporate technological advances for quantify-ing prosodic features of oral expression, would help practitioners and research-ers alike determine whether the logistical challenges inherent in prosodymeasurement are needed to complement rates of words read correctly. In addi-tion, studies should explore the extent to which prosody gains robustly reflect in-creases in overall reading competence or correspond to increases in competenceon a more specific set of reading skills.SUMMARYA decade ago, Adams (1990) reminded the field that oral reading fluency is themost salient characteristic of skillful reading. Theoretical perspectives on the de-velopment of reading capacity and empirical databases support Adams’ claim. Yet,its use by teachers and researchers appears limited. Future research may extend thefield’s knowledge about the assessment of oral reading fluency in ways that makeits measurement more compelling and useful for teachers and researchers. Never-theless, reliable, valid, efficient methods for assessing oral reading fluency alreadyexist, and the field should systematically incorporate its assessment in its quest tounderstandreadingdevelopment,toformulatesoundinstructionaldecisions,andtoassess the potential value of reading treatments.ORAL READING FLUENCY 253
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