Kimberly and Thomas’s fourth grade teacher, Mr. Lee, can’t quite pin down what is going on with these students. Both are good at reading words; they are able to decode all the words they encounter and seem to have a pretty good understanding of them as well. Moreover, they appear to be of average to above average intelligence and are knowledgeable about the world around them. But, Mr. Lee also knows that both Kimberly and Thomas do not comprehend what they read. When he asks them questions about what they read, they usually respond “I don’t know,” “I don’t remember,” or give an incorrect or incomplete answer. Interestingly, when Mr. Lee reads to the class, both children seem to have a good understanding of what is read.Mr. Lee refers Kimberly and Thomas to the school reading specialist, Mrs. Pearce, for further testing. Mrs. Pearce works with Kimberly and Thomas separately. She asks each of them to read aloud for her, after which she asks them to retell what they read. Mrs. Pearce confirms Mr. Lee’s observations about accuracy in decoding and poor comprehension. She also notes something else that may be the cause of their reading comprehension problems: both read without appropriate phrasing or interest. Thomas reads in a slow and labored word-by-word manner. His reading rate is 56 words correct per minute. Kimberly buzzes through the passage; she reads the words, but pays little attention to sentence juncture or other punctuation. Her reading rate is 178 words correct per minute. Mrs. Pearce thinks she has found the source of Kimberly and Thomas’s difficulty in reading – reading fluency.

Read on at http://www.prel.org/products/re_/assessing-fluency.htm