Silent Reading Fluency in Adult Literacy Learners: The Role of Phonemic Decoding and Speech Disfluencies

Challenges in reading and speech commonly co-occur. For example, adults and children with clinically elevated levels of speech disfluencies, indicating a speech fluency disorder, are more likely to have a reading disorder.

The aim of this study was to explore the connection between reading and speech difficulties in adult literacy learners (ALLs). We examined the relationship between phonemic decoding, speech disfluencies, and silent reading fluency in ALLs. Participants included 234 English-speaking ALLs enrolled in adult literacy programs in the USA and Canada.

Taken together, results suggested that speech production ability mediated the relationship between reading and speech disfluencies. First, phonemic decoding skills positively predicted silent reading fluency, regardless of speech production ability. Second, in contrast to the first finding, higher speech disfluency rates were associated with stronger phonemic decoding only in ALLs with stronger speech production ability (i.e., ALLs with less disfluencies). Third, higher speech disfluency rates predicted lower silent reading fluency scores for ALLs with weaker speech production ability (i.e., ALLs with more disfluencies) but not for ALLs with stronger speech production ability.

These findings point to the complex relationship between reading and speech abilities and underscore the importance of examining speech production skills in ALLs.