Abstract of

“She's My Best Reader; She Just Can't Comprehend”: Studying the Relationship Between Fluency and Comprehension

Mary DeKonty Applegate

Anthony J. Applegate

Virginia B. Modla

If reading fluency contributes to reading comprehension, then highly fluent readers should be expected to perform well in comprehension when reading materials are at their current grade level. The authors identified 171 elementary, middle, and secondary students who had been labeled by parents and teachers as strong readers and assessed as highly fluent readers. All students were given two narrative passages from the Critical Reading Inventory to assess their ability to react and respond to the text, as well as their ability to remember it. More than one third of the sample was classified as struggling comprehenders and another one third demonstrated instructional needs. The authors concluded that instructing children in fluency as distinct from comprehension is a serious oversimplification of a delicate and complex interaction.

Abstract from Applegate, M., Applegate, A.J., & Modla, V.B. (2009, March). “She's My Best Reader; She Just Can't Comprehend”: Studying the Relationship Between Fluency and Comprehension. The Reading Teacher, 62(6), 512–521. doi: 10.1598/RT.62.6.5