Extending Research on Oral Reading Fluency Measures, Reading Speed, and Comprehension

Abstract

Middle-school students completed a comprehension assessment. The following day, they read four, 120-word passages, two standard and two non-standard ransom-note passages with altered font sizes. Altering font sizes increased students’ reading time (i.e., reduced reading speed) by an average of 3 s and decreased students’ words correct per minute (WCPM) scores but did not reduce oral reading accuracy or increase the amount of comprehension score variance accounted for by reading accuracy, reading speed, and WCPM measures. While oral reading fluency (ORF) measures accounted for 32 and 36 % of the variance in comprehension scores, the measure of reading speed embedded within ORF measures accounted for almost all of this explained variance. The importance of reading speed and implications for those concerned that ORF measures non-functional aloud word reading accuracy are described.