Exploring the Dimensionality of Reading Fluency in Grade 4: Prosody and its Role in Supporting Reading Comprehension

The purpose of the current study was to examine the dimensionality of prosody and its role in supporting comprehension in Grade 4 students (N = 198). Participants were administered a grade-level CBM probe and i-Ready Diagnostic, including the Vocabulary, Literary Text, and Informational Text subtests. Spectrographic analysis was used to extract the prosodic data from audio recordings of the passage reading. A comparison group of 30 adults were recruited. A four-factor measurement model was proposed, with a reading comprehension factor comprised of i-Ready subtest, two prosodic factors comprised of pitch and pausing features gathered from the grade-level passage, and a text reading efficiency (TRE) latent factor comprised of oral reading rate, silent reading rate, and oral reading accuracy. However, results supported a unidimensional fluency model comprised of the prosodic and text reading efficiency indicators, along with a separate reading comprehension factor. An additional ad hoc model with prosody indicator variables was also analyzed. Results indicated that prosody did not constitute a multidimensional construct in this study, and that prosody did not contribute directly or indirectly to reading comprehension. These findings are not consistent with the extant research. Given the sparse literature on this topic, more research is needed to elucidate the relation between prosody and reading comprehension skills in elementary students with varied text difficulty. Keywords: Prosody, fluency, reading comprehension, text reading efficiency, dimensionality, difficulty, pitch, pause, pausin