What is our obsession with speed?
Fluency is a super hot topic in the reading world.
Fluency is defined as a metric that includes accuracy + speed/rate + proper expression.
Here’s what folks will say: Kids who read fluently, have better comprehension.
This is false.
Kids who read fluently MIGHT have better comprehension.
Fluency is impacted by a variety of factors, and like comprehension, is an OUTCOME.
Here’s the really puzzling thing to many, but this is perhaps one of the MOST important things to know:
Slow readers can have excellent comprehension.
Read that again.
Slow, robotic readers can have excellent comprehension.
Comprehension is influenced by strong vocabulary, background knowledge, decoding abilities, knowledge of language structures, and verbal reasoning skills.
See my blog on the Comprehension Conundrum for more information. My webinar in January 2024 will go deeper into these aspects of the reading rope and appropriate interventions.
Back to fluency…
Fluency is also impacted by your “hardware.” Kids who are slow processors or have poor working memory may read more slowly. Kids who have struggled with articulation may read more slowly. This is actually a GOOD thing. This gives them time to fully absorb what they’re reading.
Some kids who are engaging in metacognition while reading, will read more slowly because they’re forming the visual images in the mind’s eye and monitoring their thinking.
Students who stop to make connections to real world experiences, ask questions, or reread complex sentences, will score lower of fluency probes.
HOWEVER, these are the strategies used by our most successful readers.
When we put fluency interventions in place, the emphasis is almost exclusively on reading more quickly. This is problematic for a multitude of reasons.
Kids are being trained that speed is more important that rereading, asking clarifying questions, or reading slowly enough to visualize and make sense of complex text.
In my experience with struggling readers, my fastest readers often have the poorest comprehension, especially as it relates to the ability to answer inferential questions.
WHAT?!
In my experience across 15 years and over 15,000 hours working 1:1 with struggling readers, my kids who read quickly, often need more explicit instruction to read deeply.
Many of these students have had exposure to programs that reward faster reading. Although fluency by definition includes “reading with expression,” the bulk of the metrics on the market simply score accuracy and rate. These fast readers often blow through punctuation. They don’t reread when text is confusing, and they don’t stop to ask about novel vocabulary.
Although Oral Reading Fluency is a metric that many folks are using to demonstrate progress, I caution that it is simply one metric that measures outcome and tells us very little qualitatively about how the child is reading and understanding text.
I’ll take a clunky reader with incredible comprehension any day of the week. We can always supplement with technology to support timed reading assignments and to help kids stay on pace with novel study in classrooms. We can accommodate for slower reading. There is no substitute for poor comprehension.
Click to listen to a kid whose teaching team wanted a fluency and comprehension goal on her IEP. When you listen to this 6-minute clip, you’re going to do some serious head-scratching regarding those goals.
She’s not fast. She has a decoding deficit, and her whole being moves slowly. It’s not about speed- it’s not even necessarily about sounding great while you read.
The purpose of reading connected text is to understand.
Let’s shift our priorities to cultivating strong comprehension and save moving fast for the interstates in Atlanta.
