Reading Fluency, The Key to Reading Comprehension

Speed and Accuracy: Build Them, and It Will Come

By Dr. Holly Shapiro, Director of Ravinia Reading Center

Reading fluency begins with a strong foundation of phonology and phonics, and then develops with practice. If a kid misses just one necessary skill early on—or if the instruction of that skill misses the kid—practice time is lost and the child will not keep up. Sally Shawitz, neuroscientist and author of Overcoming Dyslexia, equates the lack of reading fluency to traveling along a slow bumpy country road while everyone else breezes by on a fluency super highway.

A schoolteacher may say that a child's reading is fine when he or she is reading grade-level books with a reasonable degree of accuracy. However, reading isn't functional when it's simply accurate. Those accurate words may have come with debilitating effort. Fluency is when children read words without a trace of effort. Speed and accuracy together equal reading fluency.

Fluency is most important in silent reading, which is how most of us read, but reading aloud offers clues that fluency has been achieved. Reading aloud effortlessly, fluidly, and with appropriate phrasing and intonation, are indicators that a reader is fluent. Other indicators can be as simple as a demonstrated desire to read, and understanding what has been read. Have you ever listened to a child read so slowly and with such effort that you could barely follow the story? That child lacks fluency and likely does not comprehend what he reads.

There are two main reasons for any of us to read – for information and for enjoyment. Whether we read textbooks, instructional manuals, and directions on a sign when we need to find something, rules for a game we want to play, or a compelling book that a friend recommends, comprehension is always the goal. However, comprehension is very difficult to achieve without fluency.

The Conditions for Comprehension

Except in cases of receptive language disorder, comprehension can be achieved when several conditions are met. The first is a reasonable command of content. We don't expect kids to understand a social studies chapter about continents if they have not first studied towns, states, countries and oceans. Without content building and a frame of reference, a child could not comprehend, even if the words could be easily read.

Another requirement for comprehension is that the material is presented in a clear and organized manner. Even a simple story is difficult to understand if not presented well. On the other hand, principles of quantum physics can be understood by non-scientists if the material is presented in a clear enough manner that meets the reader at his or her own level of knowledge.

When these criteria are met, comprehension will occur as long as children can read accurately and quickly. A deficiency in reading fluency can sabotage a child's comprehension potential. It's our goal at Ravinia Reading Center to teach children the reading skills necessary to attain independent reading fluency. As a result, they will more easily comprehend what they read.

So You Don't Teach Comprehension? Nope

That’s not to say anything is wrong with teaching comprehension. Many children can benefit from direct instruction in comprehension strategies, and all children should be taught how to monitor their own comprehension. All children should know, for example, to slow down or re-read when the going gets tough. All children also need to learn to facilitate their own comprehension by actively practicing comprehension strategies like integrating ideas and making mental summaries.

At Ravinia Reading Center, we tell our parents that instruction in reading comprehension strategies is best if carried out by your child's classroom teacher during the school day, using curriculum materials. Meanwhile, a speech-language pathologist at Ravinia can focus on building skills for fluency, because reading fluency is a prerequisite skill to advanced reading comprehension.

Reading fluency is key. Every child who is not reading fluently has lost out on a lot of practice for reading comprehensively. They may be behind their peers, wasting valuable time as they fake it through relatively advanced instruction that misses the mark. At Ravinia, instruction is delivered at a level where traction can be gained.