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Simply put, if a student does not understand the words she is reading, she will not be able to read
with expression. If a student is not able to read age-appropriate texts with expression, then she is not
a very fluent reader.

Question

What is the primary relationship between fluency and comprehension?

A Fluency is speed reading, which decreases the student’s comprehension.

B Fluency is silent reading, which enhances the student’s comprehension.

C Fluency is shared reading, which has no effect on the student’s comprehension.

D Fluency is prosodic reading, which reflects the student’s comprehension.

Answer

Choice D is the correct response. You’ll recall that prosody is the inflected and stressed reading that
is reminiscent of actual or dramatic speech. The student must comprehend the meaning of the text
she’s reading in order to stress the right words in the right way.

Please note that there isn’t a magical plateau called fluency. Rather, fluency fluctuates. Our
hypothetical reader above is having difficulty reading sentences that are leveled for the current month
of her current year in school. Let’s say she is in the fourth month of the third grade. Though she isn’t
reading on level with much fluency, perhaps she can read texts leveled at the eighth month of the
second grade in a lively, conversational manner. Similarly, only a few college graduates can extract
any meaning from the translated works of prominent cultural theorists. The rest of us are not very
fluent with those types of texts and certainly cannot read them with expression.

Reading with expression? We’re Just Now Sounding Out Words. Should I Be Working on
Expressive Reading Already?

The surest way to determine what your objectives should be is to assess each student individually.
It is recommended that you begin formal, individual fluency assessments by the middle of the first
grade. That’s typically when students are able to read connected text while stumbling over fewer
than two words out of every twenty. The purpose of assessing students on an individual basis is to
determine the type of instruction needed by each student. The spectrum of student abilities can be
broad, even within a single classroom, and assessment data will help you make instructional
decisions.

If your students are having difficulty associating letters and their sounds, then continued phonics
instruction towards letter-sound mastery would be a more appropriate goal at this time. Automaticity
with letter-sound associations, common spelling patterns, and sight words will help students to
decode individual words. The ability to decode individual words will, in turn, help students achieve
fluency.