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C Fluency
Current Practice Alerts

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www.TeachingLD.org Instruction
Sponsored by: Division for Learning Disabilities (DLD) and
Division for Research (DR) of the Council for Exceptional Children GO FOR IT 15 Issue 15
Fall 2007

What Is It?
Oral reading fluency occurs when a GO FOR IT As will be seen later in this document, empirical studies
person reads accurately, at an appropriate rate, and with examining the outcomes of fluency interventions have further
prosody (Hudson, Lane, & Pullen, 2005). That is, the solidified the relationship between fluency and comprehension.
reader is capable of decoding or recognizing words Additional support of this relationship has come from a
rapidly, effortlessly and with appropriate expression. (Kuhn different direction in the form of studies investigating
& Stahl, 2003). Reading fluency has been identified by the whether oral reading fluency is a reliable and valid measure
Report of the National Reading Panel as one of five critical of comprehension (Fuchs, Fuchs, Hosp, & Jenkins, 2001;
areas of reading instruction and assessment. Over the last Fuchs, Fuchs, & Maxwell, 1988). These studies indicate strong
decade, researchers have concluded that many struggling relationships between oral reading fluency and performance on
readers, especially those with learning disabilities, are in need more traditional measures of reading comprehension.
of direct and explicit instruction in how to read fluently. It has
been noted that many students, even when they become Many students with learning disabilities have additional
accurate decoders, do not automatically become fluent readers sources of difficulty when it comes to reading fluently. In
and must be taught to do so by providing meaningful practice addition to frequent problems with decoding, phonological
through repeated exposure to text. processing difficulties related to rapid naming tasks can
also slow down the reading process for these students
(Chard, Vaughn, & Tyler, 2002) thus making fluency building

Why Is It Important? even more of an instructional issue for these students.

Some reading researchers (e.g., Chall, 1996;

Laberge & Samuels, 1974; Stanovich, 1991) suggest an
important relationship exists between reading fluency and What Interventions Have
comprehension: Slow word processing or decoding results in Been Used To Improve
decreased comprehension. This relationship is based on the
premise that if students are expending all or most of their
Reading Fluency?
energy and attention in decoding text they will not have much The present research base contains a number of
left over for constructing meaning. Conversely, if reading is strategies teachers can use to promote reading fluency. The
automatic they have more capacity to think about what they following interventions have come from studies that
are reading and the authors intentions. demonstrated a positive effect when used with students
with learning disabilities.
Kuhn and Stahl (2003) explain it thus:
Repeated reading. As a skills-based procedure,
Without such automatic processing, students will continue repeated reading represents the most widely studied
to expend a disproportionately large percentage of their method for developing reading fluency. Repeated readings
attention on decoding, which in turn leaves them with an main steps derive from its name; the repetitious reading of
inadequate amount for comprehension (Adams, 1990; a selected passage. Originally described by Samuels
LeBerge & Samuels, 1974; Stanovich, 1980, 1984). In (1979), repeated reading (RR) requires the student to read
other words, fluency is a prerequisite if learners are to a selected passage until meeting a fluency criterion.
succeed at the primary purpose of reading, the construction Samuels observed that the continued practice of decoding
of meaning from text (Allington, 1983; Samuels, 1988, new passages resulted in progressively higher decoding
Schreiber, 1980). frequencies during subsequent readings of text.
Additionally, the number of repetitions required to meet the The performance goal typically involves reading a passage
fluency criterion decreased when reading new passages. within a certain time period. The self-selected goal often
includes the number of acceptable errors along with words
Taken from the research literature, typical steps or read correctly.
procedures for conducting an RR session include: (1) the
teacher determines if a student has the required prerequisite The second part of the intervention, feedback,
skills, namely they can read text, (2) the teacher gathers requires the teacher to provide information on the students
needed materials including the reading passageteacher performance. Feedback can take the form of telling the student
and student copy, forms for recording performance and a how many words she read correctly, how many errors she
timing device, (3) the teacher then prompts the student to made, and how fast she read the passage. This information
read the passage, (4) as the student reads, the teacher is often graphed and becomes part of the feedback process.
records errors, and (5), the student re-reads the passage a
specified number of times or to a preset fluency criterion Goal setting plus feedback and contingent reinforcement.
(Therrien & Kubina, 2006). Similar to the contingent reinforcement procedure described
above, goal setting plus feedback and contingent reinforcement
Variations of repeated reading. Researchers have has the additional component of delivering contingent
examined a number of variations of the RR method for students reinforcement based on teacher-determined criteria. Thus,
with learning disabilities. For example, students have in addition to the student setting her goal for correct and
engaged in repeated reading with a model and without a incorrect words, providing feedback (both verbal and visual)
model. Reading with a model requires the adult or more about the students performance, the student has the opportunity
proficient peer to read the passage out loud while the student to receive contingent reinforcement for meeting or exceeding
listens. After listening to the model, the student repeatedly the goal
reads the passage. Additionally, modeling may also involve
providing feedback for the incorrect words (e.g., omissions, Previewing. When previewing text, a student listens to
substitutions, insertions, mispronunciations). The source of a story before he reads it. The listening condition can take the
the model has also been varied and include the use of an form of a student to listening to an audiotape with a selected
audio taped model or computer-generated model. passage or another person reading the passage. Sometimes,
words from the passage are presented in a word list and then
Still other variations include use of peers, providing previewed. As an example of previewing, a student will read
cues or prompts to the student to read for fluency and/or a 155 word passage. Before he reads the passage he plays an
comprehension, and providing corrective feedback when the audiotape that has a recording of teacher reading the passage
student makes errors. Other studies have added comprehension in a normal speaking rate. After the student finishes listening
strategies to RR. For example, Therrien, Wickstrom, and to the audiotape he then reads the passage.
Jones (2006) combined repeated reading with a question
generation intervention (e.g., students are prompted to ask
themselves questions about the structure of the story they are
reading).
How Effective Are
Fluency Interventions?
Contingent reinforcement. Contingent reinforcement Several systematic literature reviews examining the
requires a teacher to determine what functions as a reinforcer effectiveness of fluency interventions with students with
for a student and then set a criterion the student must meet in learning disabilities have been conducted (Chard, Vaughn, &
order to earn the reinforcer. For example, the teacher may set Tyler, 2002; Mastropieri & Scruggs, 1997; Morgan &
a reading criterion for 250 words read correctly with 3 Sideridis, 2006; Therrien, 2004) and form the basis of this
errors or less in 2 minutes. If the student reaches this goal discussion.
the reinforcer is provided.
Repeated reading. Overall, research has shown
Goal setting plus feedback. Goal setting plus feed- repeated readings increase fluency, accuracy and, to a lesser
back has two parts. The first part, goal setting, requires the degree, improves comprehension. A closer analysis of this
student to set a performance goal or criterion for herself. literature base indicates that certain aspects of the RR
process can enhance outcomes and that some variations interventions (using different analysis procedures than the two
appear to be more effective than others. For example, Chard previously mentioned literature reviews) and concluded that goal
et al. looked at studies that used repeated reading with and setting appears to hold much promise as a means for increasing
without models and concluded that having the passage read reading fluency. The results of their meta-analysis show that goal
out loud while the student listened prior to RR was more setting had very positive effects for both boys and girls especially
effective for both fluency and comprehension than not using when combined with feedback and/or contingent reinforcement.
a model. The authors also mentioned that this increased The authors suggested that goal setting interventions function well
effect was more pronounced for students with low reading because they involve well-conceived plans geared towards a specific
fluency. Additionally, they note that having an adult provide skill deficit. Also, the act of setting a goal and the subsequent
the model is more effective than other sources such as reinforcement of achieving that goal bolsters active student
peers, computer generated or audiotape. There is also some responding and participation. The feedback and error correction
evidence that using peers may be the least effective of all also serve as a means to shape correct responding.
sources of models. Relatedly, Therrien notes that reading to
an adult during the RR process appears to be up to three Previewing. Previewing studies looked at the effects of
times more effective than reading to a peer. exposing the student to selected words in a passage or hearing the
entire passage read before asking the student to read it once.
Both Chard et al. and Therriens (2004) reviews While preliminary, results indicate improved accuracy with little
considered the effects of the number of repeated readings. effect on fluency.
It appears that 3 to 4 readings are optimal: more than that
does not result in appreciable gains in fluency. However,
Therriens analysis showed that reading to a preset performance
criterion (reading until a preset number of correct words per
What questions remain?
minute is reached or until the passage is read within a pre- While teachers should feel confident about using most of
determined time period) is more effective than reading the the above interventions to improve the reading fluency and to
passage a preset number of times. Corrective feedback in the some extent, comprehension, questions remain. Some of these
form of telling the student the correct pronunciation of a questions involve how the severity of a reading problem or the
word also appears to be a critical component of RR as does difficulty level of reading material used may impact effectiveness
cuing the student to read for fluency (telling them to read of the interventions. More investigation into how to establish
faster) and/or comprehension. optimal goals and fluency aims also needs to be addressed. Too,
how can we structure these or some new interventions to assist in
One question often asked about RR is whether fluency the transfer of fluency to novel text? Possibly more research on
gains on one passage translate into better fluency on other making RR more effective when peers are involved would be
passages. While still tentative, the answer appears to be yes. useful in terms of freeing up teacher time. And what types of
Therrien found that some RR studies looked at whether results comprehension strategies might be used in conjunction with
transferred to new reading material. He found that transfer fluency interventions to increase comprehension, the ultimate
results, while lower than results for the originally read passage, reading intervention goal.
still had significant effect sizes for both fluency and compre-
hension, especially if adults were involved in the RR procedure
and if there were shared words between the passages. References
Chall, J. S. (1996). Learning to read: The great debate (3rd ed.).
Contingent reinforcement. Contingent reinforcement Orlando, FL: Harcourt Brace.
appears to be a more powerful methods for boys when
compared to girls (Morgan & Sideridis, 2006). When Chard, D. J., Vaughn, S., & Tyler, B. J. (2002). A GO FOR IT
comparing a number of interventions that effected reading synthesis on effective interventions for building reading
fluency, contingent reinforcement was the third most powerful fluency with elementary students with learning disabilities.
Journal of Learning Disabilities, 35, 386-406.
result for girls.
Fuchs, L. S., Fuchs, D., Hosp, M., & Jenkins, J. R. (2001). Oral
Goal setting, Feedback, and Contingent Reinforcement. reading fluency as an indicator of reading competence: A
Morgan and Sideridis looked at a variety of fluency building theoretical, empirical, and historical analysis. Scientific
Studies of Reading, 5, 239-256.
 A
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References About the Authors

Fuchs, L. S., Fuchs, D., & Maxwell, L. (1988). The validity Richard M. Kubina Jr. is an Associate Professor in
of informal reading comprehension measures. Special Education at The Pennsylvania State University.
Remedial and Special Education, 9(2), 20-29. Kubinas research activities focus on examining explicit
instruction and how fluency interventions impact students
Hudson, R. F., Lane, H. B., & Pullen, P. C. (2005). Reading with disabilities.
fluency assessment and instruction: What, why, and
how? The Reading Teacher, 58, 702-714. Charles A. Hughes is Professor of Special Education
at the Pennsylvania State University. His research focuses
Kuhn, M. R., & Stahl, S. A. (2003). Fluency: A review of on the development and validation of self-instructional
developmental and remedial practices. Journal of strategies designed to help adolescents with LD improve
Educational Psychology, 95, 3-21. their academic and academically related skills. He is
currently Editor of Learning Disabilities Research and
LaBerge, D., & Samuels, S. J. (1974). Toward a theory of Practice.
automatic information processing in reading.
Cognitive Psychology, 6, 293-323.

Mastropieri, M. A., & Scruggs, T. E., (1997). Best

practices in promoting reading comprehension in
About the Alert Series
2007 Division for Learning Disabilities and the
students with learning disabilities: 1976 to 1996. Division for Research. The copyright holders grant per-
Remedial and Special Education, 18, 197-213. mission to copy for personal and educational purposes,
provided that any and all copies provide the entire docu-
Morgan, P. L., & Sideridis, G. D. (2006). Contrasting the ment without modification.
effectiveness of fluency interventions for students
with learning disabilities: A multilevel random Contact [email protected] regarding
coefficient modeling meta-analysis. Learning copying for resale, including inclusion within other products
Disabilities: Research and Practice, 21, 191-210. that are to be sold.
Samuels, S. J. (1979). The method of repeated readings. The
Current Practice Alerts is a joint publication of the
Reading Teacher, 32, 403- 408.
Division for Learning Disabilities and the Division for
Research within the Council for Exceptional Children. The
Stanovich, K. E. (1991). Word recognition: Changing
series is intended to provide an authoritative resource
perspectives. In R. Barr, M. L. Kamil, P. B.
concerning the effectiveness of current practices intended
Mosenthal, & P. D. Pearson (Eds.), Handbook of
for individuals with specific learning disabilities.
reading research (Vol. 2, pp. 418-452). New York:
Longman.
Each Alerts issue focuses on a single practice or
Therrien, W. J. (2004). Fluency and comprehension gains as family of practices that is widely used or discussed in the
a result of repeated reading. Remedial and Special LD field. The Alert describes the target practice and provides
Education, 24, 252-261. a critical overview of the existing data regarding its effective-
ness for individuals with learning disabilities. Practices
Therrien, W. J., & Kubina, R. M. (2006). Developing reading judged by the Alerts Editorial Committee to be well validated
fluency with repeated reading. Intervention in School and reliably used are featured under the rubric of Go For It.
and Clinic, 41, 156-160. Those practices judged to have insufficient evidence of
effectiveness are featured as Use Caution.
Therrien, W. J., Wickstrom, K., & Jones, K. (2006). Effect of
a combined repeated reading and question generation For more information about the Alerts series and a
intervention on reading achievement. Learning cumulative list of past Alerts topics, visit the Alerts page on
Disability Research & Practice, 21, 89-97. the CEC/DLD website: www.TeachingLD.org/