Abstract
This study analyzed the predictive relationship between reading fluency and school outcomes across school levels (primary, secondary, and high school), after controlling on the effect of reading comprehension. The sample included 489 children attending Italian primary (grades 4 and 5), secondary (grades 6 and 8), and high schools (grade 9). Students' reading fluency and comprehension were examined with a standardized reading achievement test. At the end of the school year, we requested the school reports of each participant. According to our data, reading fluency predicted all school marks in all literacy-based subjects, with reading rapidity being the most important predictor. School level did not moderate the relationship between reading fluency and school outcomes, confirming the importance of effortless and automatized reading even in higher school levels. Overall this study emphasizes the importance of identifying evidence-based tasks that can be administered in a short time and to many different individuals, which are easy to create, and are linked to school outcomes.
Highlights
Teaching children to read fluently and comprehend a text is one of the main goals of early childhood education, because of the primary aims of reading which are to achieve one’s goals, develop one’s knowledge and potential, and participate in society (OECD, 2013)
Teachers tend to focus on reading comprehension, neglecting the fostering of students’ reading fluency, the influence of which is believed to fade on school outcomes
The aim of this study was to analyze whether reading fluency influences students’ school outcomes in school subjects, independently of the effect of reading comprehension, and whether the independent contribution of reading fluency is moderated by the school level
Summary
Teaching children to read fluently and comprehend a text is one of the main goals of early childhood education, because of the primary aims of reading which are to achieve one’s goals, develop one’s knowledge and potential, and participate in society (OECD, 2013). Teachers tend to focus on reading comprehension, neglecting the fostering of students’ reading fluency, the influence of which is believed to fade on school outcomes. This assumption has recently been challenged, and the importance of reading fluency in adolescence re-evaluated (Rasinski et al, 2009; Ricketts et al, 2014; Zoccolotti et al, 2014). Recent literacy theories have documented how text use differs as a function of domains of academic subjects (Moje Birr et al, 2010), and reading strategies might become less generalizable as students move into increasingly specific disciplinary knowledge areas in higher school levels (Shanahan and Shanahan, 2008). This study analyzed the independent contribution of reading fluency to predict school outcomes in several subjects, after the effect of reading comprehension having been controlled for at three school levels, primary, secondary and high school in Italian students
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