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Decomposing the Variance in Reading Comprehension to Reveal the Unique and Common Effects of Language and Decoding
Published on: October 11, 2018
The relationship between different measures of oral reading fluency and reading comprehension in second-grade
Justin C Wise1, Rose A Sevcik, Robin D Morris
1Department of Psychology, P.O. Box 5010, Georgia State University, Atlanta, GA 30302, USA. psyjcwx@langate.gsu.edu
Purpose:
The purpose of this study was to examine whether different measures of oral reading fluency relate differentially to reading comprehension performance in two samples of second-grade students: (a) students who evidenced difficulties with nonsense-word oral reading fluency, real-word oral reading fluency, and oral reading fluency of connected text (ORFD), and (b) students who evidenced difficulties only with oral reading fluency of connected text (CTD).
Method:
Participants (ORFD, n = 146 and CTD, n = 949) were second-grade students who were recruited for participation in different reading intervention studies. Data analyzed were from measures of nonsense-word oral reading fluency, real-word oral reading fluency, oral reading fluency of connected text, and reading comprehension that were collected at the pre-intervention time point.
Results:
Correlational and path analyses indicated that real-word oral reading fluency was the strongest predictor of reading comprehension performance in both samples and across average and poor reading comprehension abilities.
Conclusion:
Results of this study indicate that real-word oral reading fluency was the strongest predictor of reading comprehension and suggest that real-word oral reading fluency may be an efficient method for identifying potential reading comprehension difficulties.
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