Rating Fluency in Reading

Question: What are the categories for fluency in reading, low and high?

Answer/Quote: Expression and volume; phrasing; smoothness; pace.

Low:

Expression and Volume: Reads with little expression or enthusiasm in words as if simply to get them out. Little sense of trying to make text sound like natural language. Tends to read in a quiet voice.

Phrasing: Monotonic with little sense of phrase boundaries, frequent word-by[word reading.

Smoothness: Frequent extended pauses, hesitations, false starts; sound-ours, repetitions, and/or multiple attempts.

Pace: Slow and laborious.

High:

Expression and Volume: Reads with good expression and enthusiasm throughout the text. Sounds like natural language. The reader is able to vary expression and volume to match his/her interpretation of the passage.

Phrasing: Generally well phrased, mostly in clause and sentence units, with adequate attention to expression.

Smoothness: Generally smooth reading with some breaks, but word and structure difficulties are resolved quickly, usually through self-correction.

Pace: Consistently conversational.

Comment: We’ve come a long way from reading aloud with no sense of meaning to reading aloud with full comprehension as measured by expression and volume, phrasing, smoothness and pace. RayS.

Title: “Putting the Fun Back Into Fluency Instruction.” MA Cahill and AE Gregory Reading Teacher (October 2011), 127-131.