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Reading fluency: The whole is more than the parts

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Abstract

This study examined the relative contributions of phonological awareness, orthographic pattern recognition, and rapid letter naming to fluent word and connected-text reading within a dyslexic sample of 123 children in second and third grades. Participants were assessed on a variety of fluency measures and reading subskills. Correlations and hierarchical multiple regression analyses were carried out to explore these relationships. The results demonstrate that phonological awareness, rapid letter naming, and orthographic pattern recognition contribute to word-reading skills. Furthermore, rapid naming, orthographic pattern recognition, and word reading fluency moderately predict different dimensions of connected-text reading (i.e., rate, accuracy, and comprehension) whereas phonological awareness contributes only to the comprehension dimension of connected-text reading. The findings support the multidimensional nature of fluency in which the whole is more than its parts.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Harvard Graduate School of Education, 14 Appian Way, Larsen 603, 02138, Cambridge, MA

    Tami Katzir & Youngsuk Kim

  2. Tufts University, Medford, Massachusetts

    Maryanne Wolf & Beth O’Brien

  3. Lasell College, Newton, Massachusetts

    Becky Kennedy

  4. The Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, Toronto, Ontario

    Maureen Lovett

  5. Georgia State University, Atlanta, Georgia

    Robin Morris

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  1. Tami Katzir
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  2. Youngsuk Kim
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  3. Maryanne Wolf
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  4. Beth O’Brien
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  6. Maureen Lovett
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  7. Robin Morris
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Correspondence to Tami Katzir.

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Katzir, T., Kim, Y., Wolf, M. et al. Reading fluency: The whole is more than the parts. Ann. of Dyslexia 56, 51–82 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11881-006-0003-5

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