This conceptual paper addresses fluency instruction and assessment for students with or at risk for reading disabilities. Although a multidimensional construct, fluency tests more often have been limited to measuring students' reading rate and accuracy. The reasons for this are explained as well as how fluency tests have influenced classroom…

Previous studies have found that phonological processing and vocabulary predict word reading. However, their predictive powers may vary according to reading experience and across scripts with different levels of transparency. In this study, the relationship between phonological processing, decoding, vocabulary and word reading was explored in two…

All native speakers of Arabic read in a language variety that is remarkably distant from the one they use in everyday speech. The study tested the impact of this distance on reading accuracy and fluency by comparing reading of Standard Arabic (StA) words, used in StA only, versus Spoken Arabic (SpA) words, used in SpA too, among Arabic native…

Cross-language effects on reading skills are of particular interest in the context of foreign language immersion programs. Although there is an extensive literature on cross-language effects on reading in general, research focusing on immersion students and including different dimensions of reading acquisition such as reading fluency and reading…

Assessing silent reading fluency in classroom environments is challenging. This article reports on a method of assessing silent reading using underlining, an approach that solves many problems other silent reading fluency assessment measures face. This method computationally monitors readers' silent reading fluency by the speed they underline…

This study examined whether a one-to-one laptop program had an effect on the reading-fluency and comprehension scores of fourth- and fifth-grade students over a half-year period. Pre- and post-test scores on the AIMSweb R-CBM fluency and Maze-CBM comprehension tests were collected for 1,048 students attending six diverse, high-poverty elementary…

With the onset of No Child left behind legislation, the English Language Learner (ELL) subgroup gained new attention. Schools and districts failing to meet accountability targets began to seek out programs and strategies that would better ensure the academic progress of those students who were learning grade-level content while learning English.…

This study was undertaken as an attempt to assess the effects of storytelling and reading aloud on fourth and fifth grade children's comprehension and oral reading fluency of both narrative and expository texts. The independent variable involved two strategies for introducing stories to children (storytelling and story reading) and a comparison…

This study investigated multiple models for assessing oral reading fluency, including 1-minute oral reading measures that produce scores reported as words correct per minute (wcpm). We compared a measure of wcpm with measures of the individual and combined indicators of oral reading fluency (rate, accuracy, prosody, and comprehension) to examine…

Two struggling fourth-grade readers with learning disabilities who have severe deficits in word recognition, comprehension, and reading fluency improve their reading skills using a method that combines intensive word study with the timed repeated reading of poetry. The direct instruction included semantics, morphology, orthography, and…

The purpose of this study was to examine the simple view of reading (SVR) and contributions of verbal proficiency and reading fluency to reading comprehension for fourth-, seventh- and ninth-grade readers (N = 271). The SVR explained a significant proportion of variance in reading comprehension for all grades with decreasing explained variance in…

Selecting appropriate measures to make decisions about child response to intervention is a key concern. The most commonly used assessment tool in response to intervention (RTI) models is curriculum-based measurement (CBM). However, an issue related to the use of CBM is the identification of measures that are of similar difficulty. To the degree…

Over a quarter of 8th-grade students and more than one-third of 4th graders do not read well enough to understand important concepts and acquire new knowledge from grade-level text. For students with learning disabilities, the numbers are more troubling. This article describes features of evidence-based instruction for students who continue to…

This study tested the hypothesis whether older dyslexic children may obtain fewer gains on fluency and accuracy with respect to their younger peers after specific remediation. Changes in accuracy and fluency of a group of children with a diagnosis of dyslexia attending third and fourth grades were compared with those obtained by a group of…

According to the National Assessment of Educational Progress, nearly 4 in 10 fourth graders read below the basic level. These literacy problems get worse as students advance through school and are exposed to progressively more complex concepts and courses. The purpose of this study was to assess the effectiveness of four remedial reading programs…