Reading Fluency

1. Reading Fluency • According to The American Heritage Dictionary of English Language (2006) fluent reading is reading in which words are recognized automatically.

2. Decoding Skills • Researchers are stating that most children have two engines that drive the development of fluent decoding skills (Balanced Reading, 2005). These two engines are phonological processing skills and rapid automatic naming. Phonological processing skills have to do with the child’s ability to identify and manipulate sounds within speech. Rapid Automatic Naming is the process of translating visual information into a phonological code quickly and easily. This is new in the field of reading research.

3. Assessments for Reading Fluency • One way to assess students in phonological processing skills, is a test of phoneme awareness which measures the child’s ability to segment and manipulate phonemes in speech (Balanced Reading, 2005). For example, a child may be asked to add a “SSS” sound to the beginning of the word “TICK” (“STICK”) (Balanced Reading, 2005).

4. Importance of Reading Fluency • Author Louise Spear-Swerling (2006) states that reading fluency is nearly universal among children with learning disabilities in reading. Spear-Swerling (2006) claims that there are three main reasons why reading fluency is important. First, if students need to apply much effort into reading individual words, they will lose comprehension. Second, if students find reading difficult, they lose motivation to read. Lastly, students with poor fluency have a hard time keeping up once in higher grades where reading is given in high volume.

5. Factors in Fluency Deficits • One important factor in fluency deficits involves a cumulative lack of exposure to printed words (Spear-Swerling, 2006). Skilled readers are getting more exposure to printed words than struggling readers do. If struggling readers’ difficulties are not remediated early, this cumulative deficit in exposure to words may be extremely difficult to overcome (Spear-Swerling, 2006).

6. Reading Fluency Act of 2004 • Students who do not develop reading fluency will remain poor readers for the rest of their lives (Specific Learning Disability Assessment and Decision-Making, 2008). The reading fluency act of 2004 was passed to allow students with poor reading fluency to be considered to have a reading disability. There are different types of assessments available for students with poor reading fluency.

7. REFERENCES • Balanced Reading. (2005, January 5). The Double-Deficit Hypothesis for Decoding Fluency. RetrievedJanuary 23, 2009, from http://www.balancedreading.com/doubledeficit.html • Houghton Mifflin Company. (2006). The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language. Retrieved January 26, 2009, from http://www.dictionary.com • LD Online. (2006, May). Preventing and Remediating Difficulties with Reading Fluency. Retrieved January 23, 2009, from http://www.ldonline.org/spearswerling/8811 • Specific Learning Disability Assessment and Decision-Making. (2008, August 28). A Guide to Reading Fluency and the Assessment of Specific Learning Disabilities in the Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act of 2004. Retrieved January 23, 2009, from http://www.dpi.wi.gov/sped/pdf/reading-fluency-draft.pdf