This supplement is designed as a resource for helping students read and respond to literature and other forms of print. It notes that kindergarten through third graders are expected to: develop an ability to read with increasing fluency and understanding by using writing and a variety of other reading strategies; and read, interpret, and respond…

This report describes a program for improving students' reading fluency in order to become more proficient readers. The targeted population consists of first and second grade students in a growing middle class community located in the Midwest. The lack of fluent reading was documented through teacher observation and the calculation of how many…

The No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 has increased the importance of assessment in K-12 education. Designed to ensure that all students meet high academic standards, the law currently requires states receiving Title I funds to test all children annually in reading and math in grades 3 through 8 and report student performance disaggregated by…

Explains a reading and writing assignment called "Writing a Movie" in which students view a short film segment and write a script in which they describe the scene. Notes that this assignment uses films to develop fluency and helps students understand the reading and writing connections. Concludes that students learn to summarize a scene from film,…

Twenty-four students with reading difficulties (grade 4) and 85 skilled readers completed a reading comprehension test, read aloud a folktale, and read aloud a list of the folktale's words. Skilled readers read three times more correct words per minute in context and showed higher accuracy and rates on all measures. (Contains references.)…

Discusses a formative experiment in which 9- and 10-year-old girls created "electronic talking books" in an activity designed to improve oral reading fluency. Outlines facilitative and inhibitive factors that emerged during this process, as well as some unplanned outcomes, such as an improvement in the students' comprehension. Suggests how the…

Discusses how reading comprehension can be improved, how reading fluency is positively affected, and how reading motivation is increased by using drama in the reading classroom. Presents eight practical ideas for incorporating drama into the classroom. (RS)

Investigated role of word identification skills, text phrasing, auditory analysis, and digit-naming speed on oral reading fluency and expressiveness of poor and average fifth-grade readers. Found that poor readers were less fluent and expressive than average readers; parsing contributed to fluency in average but not poor readers; and digit-naming…

Examines key concepts in a thorough understanding of fluent oral reading, noting such fluency is often neglected in classroom reading instruction. The article outlines procedures, activities, and instruments which encourage teachers to attend closely to students' oral reading fluency. With sufficient training, teachers can become accurate judges…

This study examined the effectiveness of repeated reading and assisted nonrepetitive strategies such as echo reading, cloze reading, and unison reading on reading and error rate, comprehension, and fluency with sixth-grade Chapter 1 students. Findings indicated equivalent benefits for both methods, with significant comprehension improvement over…

Discusses curriculum-based measurement as an alternative to both standardized and teacher-developed reading tests. Oral Reading Fluency, a curriculum-based measure of reading is presented as an accurate indicator of both general reading ability and reading comprehension, and as a means of monitoring reading progress towards functional literacy.…

Reading was, is, and always must come first in the early school years. Without a firm basis in reading, children are going to have a tough time in school and, later, in the world beyond the elementary school doors. Children need math and all the other wonderful things they are exposed to in school, but without some degree of success in reading,…

This research investigates the relative importance of vocabulary and oral reading fluency as measurement dimensions of reading comprehension as the student passes from elementary to high school. Invariance of this model over grades 4 through 8 is tested using two independent student samples reading grade-level appropriate passages. Results from…

If reading is understood as consisting of multiple kinds of thinking, then listening is one of the most important forms of mental action in which readers engage. Readers must hear sentences in order to make sense of nested syntactic relationships. They also must hear sounds that occur within the text in order to participate in its world, and they…

Extensive research on reading in a first language has shown the critical role fluency plays in successful reading. Fluency alone, however, does not guarantee successful reading. Cognitive and metacognitive reading strategies and schemata that readers utilize also play important roles in constructing meaning from text. Most research, however,…