A Tandem Model of Reading: Interpreting the Relationship Between Fluency and Silent Reading Comprehension in Secondary Students

• In Event: 75.053 - Strategic Approaches to Literacy Development

Abstract

Prosody in oral reading fluency is often overlooked in favor of automaticity and word identification accuracy in the later grades. To define the role of prosody, silent reading comprehension, automaticity, accuracy, and prosody were assessed in 108 ninth-grade students. Regression results revealed that accuracy and prosody explain from 52.2% to 54.4% of variance in silent reading comprehension. Automaticity, however, contributed no unique variance to silent reading comprehension. Automaticity, accuracy, and prosody were found to form a highly reliable scale reflecting oral reading fluency. Our findings contribute to the growing body of evidence suggesting that secondary students exhibiting appropriate prosody experience advantages in comprehension processing. A tandem model of reading is introduced to discuss relationships among oral reading fluency and comprehension.

Authors

• Theresa Magpuri-Lavell, Bellarmine University

• David D. Paige, Bellarmine University

• Timothy Rasinski, Kent State University

• Grant Smith, Bellarmine University