FLUENCY

Fluency is decoding speed that is gained as one masters the alphabetic code.  - Marcia K. Henry, Unlocking Literacy, 2010, pg. 311

Automaticity – recognizing words rapidly and accurately – leads to fluency. Fluency involves reading smoothly, at a good pace, with good expression and phrasing. Students lacking fluency read slowly, with many pauses, making frequent mistakes, ignoring punctuation, and often in a monotone. - Kylene Beers, When Kids Can’t Read: What Teachers Can Do, 2003

Fluency refers to reading words quickly and accurately, but also with proper intonation or prosody… such prosody suggests that the reader comprehends the passage as she reads it, otherwise she would not likely know when to inflect her voice.

Fluency is the result of having a large number of words you can read by sight – effortlessly.  A sight word is a word that is instantly and effortlessly recalled from memory, regardless of whether it is phonically regular or irregular. - David Kilpatrick, Essentials of Assessing, Preventing, and Overcoming Reading Difficulties, pages 83, 121-125

In order to build fluency or automaticity, the need is to…take instruction beyond accuracy at every step---at the letter, word-part, word, and phrase level.

Fluency builds over time, picking up momentum from many sources.  When securing letter-sound associations, make sure that these connections are accurate, stable, and then so well-practiced that they feel easy (automatic).  When working on a word set, or word card stack, focus first on accuracy, then practice to read the stack in less time, while motivating progress by charting it.… This fluency work adds up over days, weeks, and months, fueling increasingly fluent reading at ever high levels. - Judith Birsch & Suzanne Carreker, Multisensory Teaching of Basic Language Skills,  2019,  pg.. 304-305

Automaticity is the link from word study to fluency. Prosody is the link from fluency to comprehension. - A Conversation with Timothy Rasinski, Science of Reading: The Podcast, November 26, 2019

Efficient, effective word-recognition skills that permit a reader to construct the meaning of text. Fluency is manifested in accurate, rapid, expressive oral reading and is applied during, and makes possible, silent reading comprehension." (Pikulski & Chard, 2005)

Accurate reading at a minimal rate with appropriate prosodic features and deep understanding.' (Hudson, Mercer, & Lane, 2000)

Content borrowed from R.I.S.E Arkansas Dept. of Ed