Fluent oral reading is essential for success in elementary school. In this study, we investigated the effectiveness of enhanced reading fluency instruction for struggling readers. The intervention was provided to small groups of students at risk for reading difficulties. Students were assessed on key early literacy skills. Second-grade students…

Earobics[R] is interactive software that provides students in pre-K through third grade with individual, systematic instruction in early literacy skills as students interact with animated characters. Earobics[R] Foundations is the version for pre-kindergarten, kindergarten, and first grade. Earobics[R] Connections is for second and third graders…

Reading fluency has taken a front seat in discussions about student reading success and effective instruction in reading. The dimensions of reading fluency is discussed, which indicates that it is an important factor in reading education.

This paper explores the specificity of the relationship between rapid automatic naming and reading fluency. Reading accuracy, rate, and fluency was measured among a sample of 67 children, the majority of whom were very poor readers. Regression analyses revealed that phonological processing tasks predicted reading accuracy and comprehension whereas…

Can fluency in oral reading be facilitated by formatting text to preserve major syntactic boundaries? Seven-, 8-, and 9-year-old children read aloud passages under two text format conditions. In the structure-preserving condition, the ends of lines coincided with ends of clauses; in the phrase-disrupting condition, line breaks always interrupted a…

Comprehensive, authoritative, and designed for practical utility, this handbook presents evidence-based approaches for helping struggling readers and those at risk for literacy difficulties or delays. Leading experts explain how current research on all aspects of literacy translates into innovative classroom practices. Chapters include clear…

Curriculum-based measurement of oral reading fluency (CBM-R) procedures have been developed to screen and evaluate student performance in reference to local norms and/or benchmarks. Recent changes in federal law have set the stage to use CBM-R data within a response to intervention model to guide high-stakes educational decisions (e.g.,…

This measurement study examined the construct validity of the retell component of the Texas Middle School Fluency Assessment (Texas Education Agency, University of Houston, & The University of Texas System, 2008a) within a confirmatory factor analysis framework. The role of retell, provided after a one-minute oral reading fluency measure, was…

When discussing issues relating to students in General Educational Development (GED) Option and pre-GED programs with educators, the contention exists that it is possible to make reasonably accurate predictions on the success or failure of a student by observing a number of items. Looking at their cumulative records shows their academic and…

Based on a mixed methods research design that included an examination of the impact of summer, case study analyses, and survey findings, English learners appear to have an advantage over their non-English learner peers in resisting summer loss and developing social competence. This study examined the effect of summer vacation on the oral reading…

This book is a wonderful blending of methodologies. This juxtaposition of art and literature serves as an instrument for teachers to inspire their students to create, critique, compare and predict, all higher-level intellectual behaviors, while composing across symbol systems. The work contains detailed classroom transcripts of strategies that…

Schools across the nation are responding to reading assessment mandates by turning to DIBELS (Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills), a program endorsed by the Federal Reading First Grant Office, to assess fluency on a range of reading-related tasks. DIBELS makes strong claims regarding its usefulness in documenting reading progress…

The purpose of this review was to explore the effectiveness of teaching basic reading skills to adolescents. Studies that were published in the past 20 years from 1986 to 2006 were selected and reviewed on the basis of specific criteria for inclusion. Results indicated that there were 23 studies that met the criteria. Findings revealed that…

We evaluated the validity of DIBELS ("Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills") ORF ("Oral Reading Fluency") for predicting performance on the "Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test" (FCAT-SSS) and "Stanford Achievement Test" (SAT-10) reading comprehension measures. The usefulness of previously…

This study investigated the effectiveness of a multicomponent reading intervention implemented with middle school students with severe reading difficulties, all of whom had received remedial and/or special education for several years with minimal response to intervention. Participants were 38 students in grades 6-8 who had severe deficits in word…