Chapter 16, Fluency: A Review of Developmental and Remedial Practices by Melanie R. Kuhn and Steven A. Stahl

This article was originally printed in 2003 by the American Psychological Association in Journal of Educational Psychology 95 (1), 3-21 and examines the stages of a learner's progress in developing proficiency with print and the increase of familiarity to achieve fluency. It is a look at theory and studies that facilitate the role of fluency.

A beginning look at reading development focussed on chall's (1996) comprehensive view of the reading process and a look at the underpinnings of fluency beginning with word recognition. Ehri (1995,1998) describes phases of sight-word learning and automatic word recognition in fluency. Chall proposed six stages: 1. emergent literacy, behaviors developed before formal reading instruction begins such as book handling and phonemic awareness; 2. initial stage of conventional literacy, formal reading instruction including sound-symbol correspondence and decoding ability development; 3. confirmation fluency, "ungluing from print" includes automaticity, prosody, phrasing, stress, and intonation to reach meaning; 4. reading for learning new information and understanding content material though often from a single perspective; 5. multiple viewpoints, dealing with a variety of viewpoints enables the student to deal with complex texts and crtically evaluate the topics and the sources; and 6.construction and reconstruction, is the stage of synthesis of several viewpoints to determine the student's individual perspective thus becoming a critical reader.

Students need to focus on automatizing their decoding ability in order to have their minds free to focus on understanding. Fluency is essential for students to be able to focus on the primary goal in reading: constructing meaning from text.

Ehris's (1995) phases of sight-word development include familiarity and memory os spelling, pronunciation, and meaning. Ehri depicts the four phases as pre-alphabetic (visual aspects of a word), partial-alphabetic (recognizes at least the first and last letters of a word and graphemes as representatives of sound structure though this knowledge is incomplete particularly for sight words), full-alphabetic (differnces in grapheme representation of words is immediate and sight words that do not regularly correspond phonemically and graphemically are also recognized quickly), and consolidated-alphabetic, (recognition of words is automatic and accurate with fluency relieving the memory load and making it possible to learn new words)

Fluency rests on automaticity and prosody whose components are accuracy in deoding, automaticity of word recognition, and
prosodic features as stress, pitch, and phrasing as an aid to comprehension.

Automaticity contributes to fluency by recognition of words with less attention than is needed during decoding when facing cognitive tasks. The challenge is to determine what words compose the test and what meaning can be understood. Without automaticity, the reader relies on context to identify words. The instantaneous recognition of words frees the reader to focus on meaning.

The question is: how does a reader shift from decoding to automaticity? Practice, practice, practice! Familiarity breeds fluency. The automatic recognition of words frees the mind to contemplate meaning. Prosody including pitch and intonation, tone and timing allows chunch groups of words into meaningful units or phreases known as suprasegmental contributes to meaning. Chafe offers the idea that prosody may provide a connection between fluency and comprehension as if the act of prosody unlocks meaning that is embedded in syntax. Often the experience of hearing speech is easier to understand than reading and the hypothesis rests on the support prosody gives to microprocessing.

Dowhower (1991) identifies six distinct markers in prosodic reading. w. pausal intrusions, length of prases, appropriates of phrases, final phrase lengthening, terminal intonation contour, and stress enabling connections between written and oral language. Prosody is the transfer of this knowledge from speech into reading text. Children are tuned into prosody but also depend on it for fluency and comprehension.

Research on fluency instruction by National Reading Panel and National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (2000) examined instruction guided oral reading (reading with guidance and feedback) and independent silent reading. Researchers noted that the best predictor of gains in reading is the amount of tie spent reading, and students who kept daily logs of their reading in and out of school made gains through in-school reading. In repeated reading the child reads the passage, the teacher monitors and provides feedback. In another study, guidance is given before reading. In still another study, students read only once. The varied nature of these studies prohibited reliable information gathering.

In considering fluency instruction as remediation, the studies noted two categories: those that built on independent learnng known as unassistedg and assisted-reading strategies. Reading methods were designed for individual learners, dyads, or groups to note improvements in fluency measured in reading rate on unread texts and far transfer. Unassisted repeated reading asked students to read new text daily to improve word recognition skills and increase their reading rate to 100 words per minute. Students were expected to read the passage orally to an adult and then reread it silently while keeping track of the nuber of rereads. Repeated rereadings significantly reduced the number of miscues made while no significance was found in fluency with the use of isolated word recognition.

Dahl (1979) evaluated three reading strategies: training in the use of hypothesis testing, repeated reading, and isolated word recognition. Similarly, Samuels (1979) was interested in increasing the reading rate and learner accuracy and found that repeated reading led to success. The more automatic the words, the less time was spent in decoding and more time was allowed for the construction of meaning and comprehension.

Easy and difficult text with scaffolding was considered by Raschotte and Torgeson (1985) but failed to find significant difference betwen the control and experimental group. Researchers felt there needed to be more study in this area.

Cpmprehension studies mirrored fluency studies. Effects for microcomprehension were greater than general comprehension meausres. Fluency affects microcompreension through syntactic relations in sentences but macrocomprehension processes are more affected by prior knowledge. Repeated reading effected speech pauses and intonation. Assisted reading strategies emphasized practice as a means of improving accuracy, automaticity, and prosody thereby enhancing comprehension.

Neurological Impress Method (Assisted Reading sometimes known as choral reading because a tutor reads the material into the ear of the student. The teacher slides a finger under the words and can vary the speed and volume of aloud reading. This study resulted in significant increase in fluency and comprehension (1.9 years)

Reading while listening approach studies by Chamsky (1978) encouraged students to select their own reading material, listen to the books on tape while setting their own pace. First they listed to the book and then selected a prtion to practice. Finally they read along while listed to the story and the parts they wanted to rehearse. They were to slide their fingers under the word for tactile reindorcement. The more they practiced the better.

Closed-Caption TV benefitted turned-off learners for effective lessons in fluency.

Comparisons of repeated reading (Dowhower 1987) required students to reread a meaninful passage until it became fluid. Students were encouraged to practice with a tape recorder and to increase their rate and accuracy. Microcomputer was used to detect length of phrases and number of words. Both forms of repeated reading increased word accuracy and comprehension. Reading-while listening strategy was easiest to implement. In listening centers, student were asked to recite the readings and were held responsible to practice or they would not practice.

Integrated Fluency Lessons has the teacher read aloud. The group discusses it and then the teacher rereads the story and children follow along or echo. Students were assigned a section of text to master. This differs from round-robin training and there was an increase in fluency and reading time.

Students in the shared-book approach made significant gains in fluency elements and comprehension with the opportunity to practice. Conclusios stated that fluency instruction was highly effective in reading at primary level and higher
and that fluency instruction can increase the amout of reading a student does. Assisted, repeated and parsed reading increases fluency rate and self-monitoring. Increasing the amount of reading done has positive effects and at a point in development,