Illuminating the Complexity of Oral Reading Fluency: A Multiple Lens Approach

Oral reading fluency is recognized as an important variable associated with the assessment of reading proficiency. Frequently, fluency assessments distill a child’s overall reading fluency to a single numerical score. Even when multiple dimensions are considered, the processes informing the nuance of the reading fluency variations are ignored. In order to shed light on the issue, we use an instrumental case study approach to illuminate how a reader’s fluency varies within a passage. We describe the insight this variability provides to teachers and researchers interested in understanding how readers transact with print. Specifically, we apply a multiple lens approach to analyze one child’s oral reading fluency and address the question: What variables contribute to a reader’s fluency? We combine eye movement miscue analysis and Flurkey’s oral reading flow and compare these assessments to Rasinski’s well-established fluency instrument. This methodology led to the identification of six variables influencing oral reading fluency. Five of the influential factors could not be observed using the traditional fluency measure. These five variables illuminate the complexity of oral reading fluency and support greater understanding of a reader’s abilities. This strengths-based conceptualization of fluency offers supportive rather than subtractive insight into a reader’s fluctuations in oral reading fluency. Our findings highlight a need for professionals to more adequately consider the conceptualizations of oral reading fluency.