As someone who is interested in tutoring, you may have gotten to hear students read aloud. To get us thinking about fluency, let's take a moment to think of two students you've read with recently.

First, consider a student who read with appropriate speed and accuracy - a student we might consider as fluent. Then, think of a student who read with a choppy manner, mispronouncing several words - a student we might consider dysfluent.

When you consider each of these students, what impact does their fluency have on their ready ability? What about on their attitude towards reading?

Defining Fluency

As you thought about these students, you likely considered how they pronounced words, the cadence in which they read sentences, and the speed of their reading. These are exactly the components that define fluency: Accurate reading of a text at an appropriate rate with appropriate expression (also known as prosody). The acronym A.R.E. (accuracy, rate, expression) can help you remember the three aspects of fluency.

Fluency is an integral part of reading. Tim Rasinksi, a national reading expert who has been studying fluency for decades, identifies fluency as "a bridge from decoding skills to comprehension." This is because when we read, we have to focus our attention on two activities: 1) unlocking the words on the page (or decoding the words) and 2) understanding what they mean. In a fluent reader, the first activity, decoding the words on the page, needs to effortless so that they can focus their attention on understanding the meaning of the words and putting the words together to understand the sentences. However, in a dysfluent reader, the process is inefficient, labored, and can break down. In this scenario, the reader is devoting too much time and energy to decoding the words and has little energy left over to focus on the meaning.

A Word About Reading Speed

To deepen our understanding of the role of automaticity, you will listen to a click of Tim Rasinski, a national fluency expert, discussing the difference between speed and automaticity. As you listen, consider the relationship between these two terms.

Click here to check your response.

Optional: Want to hear more from Rasinski? Click here to be directed to Amplify's Science of Reading podcast.

What does fluent reading sound like?

To further demonstrate this concept, listen to the audio recording below which showcases both fluent and dysfluent reading using the first paragraph of a text called "The Story of Prometheus," also included below.

Excerpt used in model: In those old, old times, there lived two brothers who were not like other men, nor yet like those Mighty Ones who lived upon the mountain top. They were the sons of one of those Titans who had fought against Jupiter and been sent in chains to the strong prison-house of the Lower World. (1)

How important is fluency?

Reading with fluency enables a person to make meaning, or understand, what they read. Having the skills to effortlessly read the words and read them with enough speed and accuracy allows a reader to focus their attention on the meaning of the passage. However, reading fluency is often one of the last aspects of reading that is discussed because it's often forgotten due to the focus on either decoding (sounding out the words on the page) or comprehension (understanding the text). To think about the impact fluency has on our students, let's read the research.

As you read each snapshot below, consider how fluency acts as a bridge between decoding (reading the words on the page) and comprehension (understanding what the words and paragraphs say) and choose one that resonates with you.

Snapshot #1: The National Reading Panel examined 51 studies of oral-reading fluency instruction and found a substantial pattern of evidence supporting the idea that teaching oral fluency improves reading achievement (NICHD, 2000). Fluency instruction improved reading no matter how it was measured. Of course, fluency instruction improved oral reading fluency itself, but it also had a positive impact on children’s decoding, word recognition, silent-reading comprehension, and overall reading achievement as measured by group-administered standardized tests.
– Shanahan, 2005 50% of the variance in reading comprehension was accounted for by fluency measures (Paige, 2011).

Snapshot #2: Because fluent readers do not have to slow down in order to concentrate on decoding the individual words in a text, they can focus their attention on the text’s meaning. In this way, fluency acts as a bridge between word recognition and comprehension, and this relationship is reciprocal. That is, when a student understands the meaning of the text he/she is reading, it is much easier to read that text with expression. – Ford, 2015

Snapshot #3: Fluency activities support ELLs because as students practice reading English texts fluently, they are “gaining valuable information about the sounds and cadences of spoken English, and they are also developing vocabulary skills.” – Ford, 2015

Snapshot #4: The most compelling reason to focus instructional efforts on students becoming fluent readers is the strong correlation between reading fluency and reading comprehension.
– Allington, 1983; Samuels, 1988

Now that you've read a bit more about the research, pause and reflect on the snapshot that resonated with you. Where have you seen this play out in your work with students?

Cognitive Process of Reading

In order to understand what you are reading, you must two do things simultaneously: First, you must decode the words on the page and second, you must make meaning of the words and sentences you are reading.

A fluent reader, or one who can automatically decode words when they are first seen, is able to devote those cognitive processes to focus on comprehending the passage. On the other hand, a dysfluent reader who spends precious cognitive resources decoding the words has very few, if any, cognitive energy left to make meaning of the text. Therefore, this process is disrupted and typically results in a labored, plodding reading pace and diminished comprehension.

Read the following sentence below and put this in your own words.

Fluency does not guarantee comprehension...

...but a lack of fluency guarantees a lack of comprehension.

So, what do we mean by this?

For a student to become an efficient reader (and offer an opportunity for the student to grow to love reading), building fluent reading with accuracy, strong rate, and expression is a must!

^{Allington, R. L. (1983). Fluency: The neglected reading goal. The Reading Teacher, 36, 556-561}

^{Amplify Education. (2021). Science of Reading podcast. Retrieved from https://www.buzzsprout.com/612361/1963366}

^{Baldwin, J. (n.d.) The Story of Prometheus. Public Domain.}

^{Ford, K. (2015). ELLs and reading fluency in English. Color in Colorado. Retrieved from https://www.colorincolorado.org/article/ells-and-reading-fluency-english}

^{Paige, D. D. (2011). Engaging struggling readers through situational interest: A model proposing the relationships among extrinsic motivation, oral reading fluency, comprehension, and academic achievement. Reading Psychology, 32(5), 395-425.}

^{Rasinski, T. V. (2004). Assessing reading fluency. Honolulu, HI: Pacific Resources for Education and Learning.}

^{Schreiber, P. A. (1980). On the acquisition of reading fluency. Journal of Reading Behavior, 12, 177-186.}