Chapter 16: Fluency: A Review of Developmental and Remedial Practices by Khun and Stahl

Sarah Ruth Sullivan
August 21, 2007
Chapter Summary
From Theoretical Models and Processes of Reading, Fifth Edition.
Edited by Robert B. Ruddell and Norman J. Unrau

Chapter 16
“Fluency: A Review of Developmental and Remedial Practices”
By Melanie R. Kuhn and Steven A. Stahl

Kuhn and Stahl describe literacy as a series of qualitatively different stages through which readers develop proficiency reading print. One of the stages of this process, fluency, is the subject of this chapter review. Becoming a fluent reader involves moving beyond labored word-by-word decoding to the rapid, accurate and expressive rendering of text. The purpose of Kuhn and Stahl’s chapter is to review the literature examining how children move toward fluent reading.

Although many models of the stages of reading development have been proposed, Kuhn and Stahl focus on Chall’s (1996b) stages of reading development. Chall describes six stages through which readers proceed, each of which centers on a particular concept in reading development. Note that stage 3 (in bold print) is the focus of this chapter review.

1. Emergent literacy - readers realize that print represents language and carries meaning
2. Initial stage of conventional literacy - readers begin to develop sound-symbol
correspondence
3. Confirmation and fluency “ungluing from print” - readers develop
automaticity with decoding and begin to make use of prosodic features
(phrasing, stress, intonation)
4. Reading for “learning the new” - curriculum shifts from learning to read to reading
increasingly complex texts to gain knowledge (usually presented from a single
perspective)
5. Reading for “multiple viewpoints” – readers use their knowledge base to develop critical
evaluation skills using multiple perspectives and texts
6. Reading for “construction and reconstruction” – readers critically evaluate and synthesize
multiple view points to form or revise their own perspective and mental model

Stage 3, “ungluing from print” describes the process wherein new readers focus on automatizing their decoding ability. It is referred to as a “confirmation” phase because readers are not learning a new skill; they are practicing a known skill, decoding. During the confirmation/fluency stage, readers practice their decoding skill in order to gain comfort with print. The goal of the confirmation practice is the automatic (and unconscious) application of decoding skills. Fluent reading is a prerequisite for reading comprehension because comprehension requires complex cognitive attention. If a reader has not developed fluency, their cognitive energy is depleted by the mental labor of decoding, and therefore cannot be used for the complex construction of meaning involved in comprehension.
Since the goal of reading is to construct meaning, Kuhn and Stahl discuss the role fluency plays in comprehension. They list two primary theories regarding fluency’s contribution to comprehension; the first deals with automaticity and the second deals with the role of prosody.

Contribution of Automaticity – Effective readers recognize words automatically. They do not need to spend cognitive energy decoding or “sounding out” words; thus they can devote all of their attention to constructing meaning. The question, therefore, is how learners make the shift from deliberate decoding to automatic decoding. Kuhn and Stahl report that according to automaticity theorists, the best way to enable this transition is through extensive practice; the implication being that in order to develop fluency, emerging readers must have successive exposure to print.

Contribution of Prosody- The authors note that automatic decoding is a necessary but insufficient factor in fluency; in order for fluent reading to occur, readers must do more than read the words quickly and accurately; they must also read with expression. Reading with expression, or prosody, is comprised of features such as pitch or intonation, stress or loudness, duration or timing. Prosody also includes the chunking of words into phrases or meaningful units according to punctuation and other syntactic structures. Kuhn and Stahl contend that prosody may be the link between fluency and comprehension due to the fact that in order to read a sentence with intonation, one must recognize syntactic role of each word in the sentence. When readers are able to apply syntax to reading, they have made the link between oral and written language. Chunking words into appropriate syntactic phrases signifies that readers have understood what they read.

In order to examine the relative importance of automaticity and prosody to the development of fluency and comprehension, the authors examined instructional research done by The National Reading Panel (NRP-2000) as well as research not included in the NRP’s report.
The NRP examined literature in two areas of fluency – guided oral reading and independent silent reading. Guided oral reading was defined as approaches that involve students reading with feedback and guidance. Examples of this method include repeated reading, impress reading, paired reading, shared reading and assisted reading. The NRP concluded that there is significant evidence of the effectiveness of fluency instruction that includes oral reading and feedback.

Independent silent reading was defined as providing time for children to read by themselves, for example through Sustained Silent Reading (SSR) periods. The NRP found that the literature they reviewed did not provided conclusive evidence of the effectiveness of this approach. The authors point out however that there has been criticism of the NRP’s methodology regarding the studies on SSR. They consider four groups of studies not included in the NRP’s review due to research conditions outside of the NRP’s criteria (the NRP did not accept correlational studies or studies of non-native English speakers). The authors contend that taken together, these studies provide strong support for the importance of practice (gained by SSR) in reading on overall reading achievement.

To further investigate the role of fluency, the authors examine both the NRP’s studies as well as other studies not included in the NRP’s report. The articles that emerged from their search fell into four broad categories:
1. Theoretical bases of fluency development
2. Research pertaining to the validity of fluency theories
3. Recommendations for classroom practice
4. Intervention studies
Of these four broad categories, the authors concentrate the rest of their chapter on intervention studies to determine the overall effectiveness of fluency instruction. They included a total of 71 studies in their review which were separated into two overarching categories: those built on independent learning or unassisted strategies and those labeled assisted strategies that provide learners with a model of fluent reading behaviors.

Unassisted Repeated Reading-
This is a strategy based on independent practice of text. The basic method of repeated reading was developed by Samuels and Dahl (both in 1979) based on a process in which students read a 100 word passage repeatedly until they reached the criterion rate of 100 words per minute. The authors report that given Samuels’s and Dahl’s original goal was to develop a procedure that would allow for increased in reading rate as well as in the improvement of learners’ accuracy, the method of repeated reading proved successful. The authors note that the basic results for comprehension mirror those for fluency as it was generally found that where there was an increase in fluency, there was also an increase in comprehension.

Assisted-Reading Strategies
Like unassisted strategies, assisted strategies emphasize practice as a means of improving accuracy, automaticity and prosody as well as comprehension. Methods of assisted strategies include choral reading in which the student and teacher read the same material simultaneously and at a rapid rate. The student sits in front of the teacher, and the teacher reads directly into the student’s ear. Researchers found that assisted reading is quite successful in improving the fluency of struggling readers, though it has been pointed out that the procedure is time-consuming and thus can be impractical for whole class instruction.

Another method was reading-while-listening in which the students listen to a taped fluent reading while following the text with their eyes. The authors note that one of the primary concerns regarding read-along is that there is no way to ensure active engagement on the part of the learners. In some studies, time spent listening to tapes in class did not improve comprehension, but the authors note that when students were held responsible for being able to read the text fluently, they did actively participate in the process and took pride in their abilities and success.

The authors also discuss the use of closed-caption television programs to improve fluency. In this method, students were expected to practice short portions of the script to develop fluent rendering of the text after they viewed the program with closed captioning. The clinicians of this study considered the lessons effective in promoting the learners’ fluency.

Classroom Approaches which modify the above listed unassisted and assisted reading strategies:

Partner reading – the repeated reading approach is modified so that two readers can work together in order to receive immediate feedback.

Purposeful repeated reading – increases student motivation to reread by giving them a real purpose for doing so, for example creating cross-age reading situations. In this scenario, older struggling readers practice fluency with easy texts in order to eventually read to young children.

Oral Recitation Lesson (ORL) – The goal is to use oral reading as a means of developing students’ prosody, rather than being used as an assessment (as it had been in the traditional basal lesson). In this procedure, the teacher begins by reading a basal story aloud. Next the class discusses the story in order for students to build comprehension. The teacher then rereads the story with the children following along and echoing back each paragraph. Next, the students are assigned a portion of the text to master, with the understanding that their reading was supposed to be expressive. The final step involved the students reading their passage to the group. The authors discuss several studies that were based on this instructional model. These studies generally reported the ORLs to be beneficial, though these approaches need to be examined in more controlled research.

The authors point out that several studies have compared repeated and non-repeated reading and have found that there is no difference in effects between repeated reading of a small number of texts and non-repetitive reading of a larger number of texts. These researchers therefore concluded that it is not the repetition that leads to the increase in fluency but simply the time spent reading connected text in any form.

In their discussion section of the article, the authors contend that the research clearly indicates that when fluency instruction was compared with the traditional instruction used with a basal reader, fluency instruction improved children’s reading fluency and comprehension, but when comparing various approaches to fluency, the evidence is less definitive. Overall, the fluency strategies discussed were effective (to varying degrees) in assisting readers to make the transition between labored decoding and fluent rendering of text. This holds true for both normally achieving readers and those who are having difficulties in becoming fluent. The authors do make the point however; that the research results are consistent with Chall’s stage model in that fluency instruction seems to work best with children from between a later preprimary level and late second-grade level. Beyond or below that level, the results are not as strong as children need to have some entering knowledge about words to benefit from rereading, but not be so fluent that they cannot demonstrate improvement.

In concluding the chapter, the authors note that they have come to view fluency instruction as successful in improving the reading achievement of children at a certain point in their reading development. They further note that despite its effectiveness, they have observed little of this instruction in schools. If the goal is to move readers from labored decoding to the construction of meaning, the authors recommend that educators integrate fluency instruction into the classroom more frequently.