Reading Fluency: What every speech-language pathologist and teacher should know

For many years, the emphasis in reading shifted away from proficient oral reading in the early 1900s and toward silent reading for private and personal purposes in the 1930s. Consequently, the goal of developing fluent oral readers all but disappeared from the reading curriculum. This change was so much the case that it prompted Allington (1983, 1984) to declare reading fluency to be a neglected goal of reading instruction. However, since the publication of the National Reading Panel Report in 2000, developing students’ oral reading fluency has taken center stage in classrooms across the United States (Pikulski & Chard, 2005). To help students become fluent readers, classroom teachers and speech-language pathologists need to be able to answer four important questions: What is reading fluency? How can SLPs and teachers help students develop reading fluency? How can teachers and SLPs assess reading fluency? What are a few examples of evidence-based strategies that teachers and SLPs can use to provide effective reading fluency instruction and practice? The answers to these questions will help teachers and SLPs build reading fluency skills in the students they serve