This article explores the relationship between federal and state educational policymaking and classroom reading instruction. The past 50 years of federal literacy education policy is summarized, particularly emphasizing the connections of these policies to reading curriculum and classroom assessment. The paper concludes with a discussion of the…

If reading fluency contributes to reading comprehension, then highly fluent readers should be expected to perform well in comprehension when reading materials are at their current grade level. The authors identified 171 elementary, middle, and secondary students who had been labeled by parents and teachers as strong readers and assessed as highly…