Why Reading Fluency?

 Reading fluency encompasses the speed or rate of reading as well as the ability to

read materials with expression. Meyer and Felton (1999) defined fluency as "the ability

to read connected text rapidly, smoothly, effortlessly, and automatically with little

conscious attention to the mechanics of reading, such as decoding" (p. 284). Children are

successful with decoding when the process used to identify words is fast and nearly

effortless or automatic. The concept of automaticity refers to a student's ability to

recognize words rapidly with little attention required to the word's appearance. The

ability to read words by sight automatically is the key to skilled reading (Ehri, 1998).

Researchers have utilized reading rate for their studies since a student's reading rate is

simply calculated by dividing the number of words read correctly by the total amount of

reading time. Furthermore, Fuchs, Fuchs, and Maxwell (1988) found that students'

fluency was more highly correlated with their scores on a standardized reading

comprehension test than were oral and written retellings, question answering, or cloze

tests. Shinn, Good, Knutson, Tilly, and Collins (1992) provided additional support for the

use of fluency measures to monitor progress in reading. Therefore, reading fluency rate

was selected as a dependent variable measure for this study.

 In response, this research was designed to clarify the relationship among reading

fluency and phonological awareness, naming speed, and visual factors simultaneously

with structural equation modeling.

 Scope of the Study

 This study was conducted within a limited scope. Therefore, there were

delimitations and limitations in conducting the present study. They are described in this

section.