Foundations of Fluency: An Exploration

Initial validation of a measure of decoding difficulty as a unique predictor of miscues and passage reading fluency

Quantifying the decoding difficulty (i.e., 'decodability') of text is important for accurately matching young readers to appropriate text and scaffolding reading development. Since no easily accessible, quantitative, word-level metric of decodability exists, we developed a decoding measure (DM) that can be calculated via a web-based scoring application that takes into account sub-lexical components (e.g. orthographic complexity), thus measuring decodability at the grapheme-phoneme level, which can be used to judge decodability of individual words or passages. Here we report three experiments using the DM: two predicting children's word-level errors and one predicting passage reading fluency. Generalized linear mixed effect models showed that metrics from the DM explained unique variance in children's oral reading miscues after controlling for word frequency in two samples of children (experiments 1 and 2), and that more errors were made on words with higher DM scores for poor readers. Furthermore, the DM metrics predicted children's number of words read correctly per minute after accounting for estimated Lexile passage scores in a third sample (experiment 3). These results show that after controlling for word frequency (experiments 1 and 2) and estimated Lexile scores (experiment 3) the model including the DM metrics was significantly better in predicting children's word reading fluency both for individual words and passages. While further refinement of this DM measure is ongoing, it appears to be a promising new measure of decodability at both the word and passage level. The measure also provides the opportunity to enable precision teaching techniques, as grapheme-phoneme correspondence profiles unique to each child could facilitate individualized instruction, and text.

Letter-Sound Reading: Teaching Preschool Children Print-to-Sound Processing

This intervention study investigated the growth of letter sound reading and growth of consonant-vowel-consonant (CVC) word decoding abilities for a representative sample of 41 US children in preschool settings. Specifically, the study evaluated the effectiveness of a 3-step letter-sound teaching intervention in teaching pre-school children to decode, or read, single letters. The study compared a control group, which received the preschool's standard letter-sound instruction, to an intervention group which received a 3-step letter-sound instruction intervention. The children's growth in letter-sound reading and CVC word decoding abilities were assessed at baseline and 2, 4, 6 and 8 weeks. When compared to the control group, the growth of letter-sound reading ability was slightly higher for the intervention group. The rate of increase in letter-sound reading was significantly faster for the intervention group. In both groups, too few children learned to decode any CVC words to allow for analysis. Results of this study support the use of the intervention strategy in preschools for teaching children print-to-sound processing.

Effects of metalinguistic awareness on reading comprehension and the mediator role of reading fluency from grades 2 to 4

Purpose

This study examined the contribution of metalinguistic awareness including morphological awareness, phonological awareness and orthographical awareness to reading comprehension, and the role of reading fluency as a mediator of the effects of metalinguistic awareness on reading comprehension from grades 2 to 4.

Methods

Four hundred and fifteen elementary students in China mainland were administered a test battery that included measures of morphological awareness, phonological awareness, orthographical awareness, reading fluency, reading comprehension and IQ. Hierarchical regression and structural equation models (SEM) were used to analyze the data.

Results

Morphological awareness uniquely explained 9%, 10% and 13% variance of reading comprehension respectively from grade 2 to grade 4, however, phonological awareness and orthographical awareness did not contribute to reading comprehension; Reading fluency partially mediated the effect of morphological awareness on reading comprehension in grades 2-4.

Conclusions

These findings indicated that reading fluency and morphological awareness should be facilitated in the Chinese instruction. Morphological awareness played an important role in Chinese reading and affected reading comprehension in grades 2 to 4; Reading fluency was a significant link between morphological awareness and reading comprehension in grades 2-4.

Comparison of the effects of two phonics training programs on L2 word reading

Empirical evidence shows that explicit phonics teaching is beneficial for English word reading. However, there has been controversy as to whether phonics teaching should incorporate meaning-involved decodable text instruction to facilitate children's word reading. This study compares the effects of phonics teaching with and without decodable text instruction on immediate and delayed English word reading in 117 Taiwanese children learning English, assigned to a Phonics-only group (n = 58) and a phonics plus decodable text instruction (Phonics+) group (n = 59). Results showed that although both groups significantly improved in immediate and delayed post-test word reading, the Phonics+ group performed better in both post-tests, but the difference was significant only in the delayed word reading, suggesting a better long-term retention effect produced by Phonics+ teaching. These indicated that incorporated meaning-involved decodable text reading might offer another better facilitative linking route for English word reading even for non-alphabetic child learners of English. The findings were discussed from linguistic, psycholinguistic, and reading perspectives, with implications drawn for second/foreign language teaching and research in reading instruction.