The QuickReads Advantage

The QuickReads Advantage Posted 05/16/2008 Permanent Link

The National Fluency Challenge

The biggest obstacle to proficient reading for most U.S. fourth graders is fluency.

Why? Because most struggling readers spend the majority of their time and energy trying to recognize even the most common words, thus forgetting the content of what they are reading. They primarily focus on decoding.

By contrast, fluent readers read with ease and expression. They recognize words automatically and make connections between what they are reading and what they already know. They focus on comprehension.

Fluency—the ability to read a text accurately, quickly with proper expression or prosody—provides the bridge from decoding to comprehension. For students to achieve reading proficiency, they must be able to combine the fundamental skills of word recognition and comprehension successfully to ensure that they can think critically about what they read.

Research demonstrates that students can build a solid fluency foundation through instruction that:

• Provides multiple oral reading opportunities.
• Applies a consistent comprehension strategy.
• Supports students in making connections between what they are reading and what they know.
• Provides expressive models of fluent reading.