SLA fluency and self-sustained reading TEKS talk image

Knowledge and Skills Statement

Developing and sustaining foundational language skills: listening, speaking, reading, writing, and thinking--fluency. The student reads grade-level text with fluency and comprehension. .
Reading accuracy refers to error-free reading of text. Students achieve reading accuracy through decoding and sight word knowledge. Building automaticity will increase the rate and accuracy of a reader.
the ability to read text at an appropriate rate, with accuracy, expression, appropriate phrasing, and without significant word-recognition difficulties
Fluency is the ability to read text at an appropriate rate, with accuracy, expression, and appropriate phrasing and without significant word recognition difficulties. It means being able to read a text with natural phrasing and automaticity. Comprehension is the part of reading that involves constructing meaning.
a text with a difficulty level that aligns with a student’s age and grade; text that is written to be accessible to a student at a particular grade
Prosody is the vocal intonation and meter of spoken language. It is the rhythm and patterns of sounds in the spoken language and is also known as expression.
Reading rate, which is a good indicator of automaticity, is the number of words a student can read per minute. Appropriate phrasing plays a key role in determining a student’s reading rate. While the end-of-year target for a second-grade student is 90 words per minute, a reading rate slightly lower is not deemed problematic if the student exhibits strong comprehension.

Research

Kuhn, M. R., Schwaneflugel, P. J., Meisinger, E. B., Levy, B. A., & Raskinski, T. V. (2010). Aligning Theory and Assessment of Reading Fluency: Automaticity, Prosody, and Definitions of Fluency. Reading Research Quarterly, 45(2), 230–251. Retrieved from https://www.jstor.org/stable/20697184

Summary: Over the past decade, fluent reading has come to be seen as a central component of skilled reading and a driving force in the literacy curriculum. However, much of this focus has centered on a relatively narrow definition of reading fluency, one that emphasizes automatic word recognition. This article attempts to expand this understanding by synthesizing several key aspects of research on reading fluency, including theoretical perspectives surrounding automaticity and prosody. It examines four major definitions of reading fluency and their relationship to accuracy, automaticity, and prosody. A proposed definition is presented. Finally, the implications of these definitions for current assessment and instruction are considered along with suggestions for reenvisioning fluency's role within the literacy curriculum.