The body of knowledge on critical components of reading instruction is broad and deep with phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension serving as building blocks for literacy. The importance of fluent reading (i.e., with speed, accuracy, and proper expression, as well as comprehension) in the formula for success is widely…

The purpose of this study was to examine oral reading fluency (ORF) in the context of a large-scale federal reading initiative conducted in low performing, high poverty schools. The objectives were to (a) investigate the relation between ORF and comprehensive reading tests, (b) examine whether slope of performance over time on ORF predicted…

On the ground that reading fluency entails appropriate phrasing or prosody as well as facile word recognition, we investigated the effectiveness of text-based and word-based repeated readings procedures for promoting fluency of reading aloud and comprehension in second-grade children. Repeated readings of text printed with spaces between phrases…

The authors report 1-year follow-up data from 215 English language learners with reading difficulties who received a supplemental first grade reading intervention in the language of their core reading instruction. The researchers provided no intervention or boosters in second grade. The Spanish study revealed significant differences favoring…

"Fluency Formula"[TM] is a supplemental curriculum designed to promote reading fluency for first- through sixth-grade students. The program emphasizes automatic recognition of words, decoding accuracy, and oral expressiveness as the foundation for building reading fluency. A daily 10- to 15-minute lesson is delivered in the classroom.…

Parents and caregivers can play an important role in helping their at-risk children improve their reading skills. Parents generally want to be part of their children's academic achievement, but may not always know the most appropriate or effective way to contribute. Teachers encourage at-risk students to read consistently at home and supportive…

In this study, response to intervention and stability of reading performance of 41 kindergarten children identified as at risk of reading difficulty were evaluated from kindergarten through third grade. All students were assessed in the fall of each academic year to evaluate need for intervention, and students who fell below the 30th percentile on…

This 2-year longitudinal study examined initial evidence of progress in reading for 1,512 children with and without identified speech-language and/or learning disabilities (LD-SLD) in the context of the explicit literacy instruction provided in Michigan's Reading First (RF)schools. The findings suggested that children with LD-SLD labels…

The authors investigated whether practice in reading fluency had a causal influence on the relationship between working memory (WM) and text comprehension for 155 students in Grades 2 and 4 who were poor or average readers. Dysfluent readers were randomly assigned to repeated reading or continuous reading practice conditions and compared with…

This study examined effects of a repeated reading intervention, Quick Reads, with incidental word-level scaffolding instruction. Second- and third-grade students with passage-reading fluency performance between the 10th and 60th percentiles were randomly assigned to dyads, which were in turn randomly assigned to treatment (paired tutoring, n = 82)…

Research suggests that development of the alphabetic principle is a critical factor in learning to recognize words and becoming a successful reader. The alphabetic principle encompasses both the understanding that relationships exist between letters and sounds and the application of these relationships to reading words. This study investigated the…

Very few studies have directly compared reading acquisition across different orthographies. The authors examined the concurrent and longitudinal predictors of word decoding and reading fluency in children learning to read in an orthographically inconsistent language (English) and in an orthographically consistent language (Greek). One hundred ten…

In this research we evaluated two methods to improve the reading fluency of struggling readers. Poor readers in Grades 2 and 4 with (n = 17) and without (n = 20) learning disabilities were randomly assigned to one of two fluency practice variations or to a control group. Students in the treatments practiced reading aloud under repeated or…

This research project investigated the effect of kindergarten time schedule on the reading achievement of an intact sample (n = 156), and three stratified sub-samples of high-risk (n = 53), mid-risk (n = 59), and low-risk learners (n = 44). Students entering kindergarten at five Reading First schools in September 2004 (n = 435) were randomly…

The authors examined second grade reading accuracy and fluency and their associations via letter knowledge to phonological and language predictors assessed at 3.5, 4.5, and 5.5 years in children in the Jyvaskyla Longitudinal Study of Dyslexia. Structural equation modeling showed that a developmentally highly stable factor (early phonological and…