What is Fluency?

What You Should Know (modified from Moats, 1999; see References):

• Definition and purpose of fluency.
• When fluency is an appropriate objective.
• The role of fluency in a comprehensive reading program.
• The features of text that influence fluency.
• How fluent readers should be at grades 1, 2, and 3.
• How much growth average readers gain per week.
• Terminology (automaticity, fluency, slope, CWPM).

What You Should Be Able To Do (modified from Moats, 1999; see References):

• Assess learner performance to determine whether fluency building is an appropriate objective.
• Set appropriate fluency goals.
• Select and sequence text to enhance oral reading fluency.
• Assess fluency growth over time.
• Select and deliver instructional strategies to promote automaticity and fluency in letter sounds, irregular words, and passage reading.

What Accuracy and Fluency with the Code and Connected Text Looks Like:

Children who are automatic with the code:

1. Identify letter-sound correspondences accurately and quickly.
2. Identify familiar spelling patterns to increase decoding efficiency.
3. Apply maximum resources to the difficult task of blending together isolated phonemes to make words.
4. Apply knowledge of the alphabetic code to identify words in isolation and connected text fluently.