Have you ever watched a struggling reader laboriously sound out each word, only to reach the end of the paragraph with little understanding of what they just read? This common classroom scenario illustrates the critical relationship between fluency and comprehension—a connection that’s often misunderstood or underappreciated in our reading instruction.
The Research Behind Fluency and Comprehension
I was working with a second-grade teacher last month who shared something that might sound familiar: “My students can decode the words, and when I read aloud to them, they understand perfectly. But when they read independently, comprehension falls apart. What’s missing?”
The research on fluency and comprehension provides a clear answer. Meredith Liben and Sue Pimentel found that “dysfluency causes as much as 40 percent of the variance in students who pass tests versus those who fail.” In other words, nearly half the difference between your students who succeed on comprehension assessments and those who struggle can be traced back to their reading fluency skills. That’s not a small difference!
Assessment results consistently show that oral reading fluency is one of the strongest predictors of overall reading success. The connection between fluency and comprehension is so strong that many researchers consider fluency assessments to be the most reliable indicator of overall reading proficiency.
Understanding How Fluency and Comprehension Work Together
Think about what happens in our brains when we read. We have a finite amount of attention to use—what researchers call “cognitive load.” When students are still developing decoding skills, they’re using most of their mental energy just figuring out what the words say.
Tim Rasinski explains this connection between fluency and comprehension brilliantly: “The goal of phonics instruction is to get kids not using phonics.” This might sound counterintuitive, but it makes perfect sense. We teach phonics so students can eventually recognize words automatically, freeing up mental space for understanding text.
I love Rasinski’s driving analogy because it resonates with all of us. Remember when you first learned to drive? You had to think consciously about every single action. You probably even turned off the radio when parking because you needed all your attention for driving!
But with practice, those mechanics became automatic. That’s exactly what happens with reading. When decoding becomes automatic, students can direct their attention to meaning-making. This is why the relationship between fluency and comprehension is often described as a bridge—fluency connects word-level skills to text-level understanding.
Expression: The Often Overlooked Component of Fluency and Comprehension
While many teachers associate fluency primarily with reading speed, that’s only part of the picture. Expression—or what researchers call prosody—plays an equally important role in the fluency and comprehension connection.
According to David Liben and David Paige, “Students who read with prosody (expression) are more likely to understand what they read.” This relationship works both ways:
- Students make more sense of text when they read with expression
- Students read with more expression when they understand the text
Classroom Strategies to Strengthen Fluency and Comprehension
So how does this translate to your Monday morning reading block? Let’s get practical with strategies you can implement to boost fluency and comprehension together:
1. Focus on Meaningful Phrases, Not Individual Words
Help your students strengthen the connection between fluency and comprehension by shifting from word-by-word reading to phrase-based reading with these techniques:
Phrasing Marks: Provide texts with slash marks to indicate natural pause points:
- One slash for a short pause at the end of a meaningful phrase or comma
- Two slashes for a longer pause at the end of a sentence
For example: The Grand Canyon / in northern Arizona / is truly spectacular. // It was formed / over millions of years / by the Colorado River. // Many tourists / from around the world / visit this natural wonder / every single year.
Scooping: Similar to phrasing marks, you can also draw curved lines under meaningful word groups and have students “scoop them up” as they read. This visual cue helps students see which words belong together, strengthening the fluency and comprehension connection.
2. Model, Model, Model!
Before asking students to practice on their own, show them how it’s done. Read aloud with appropriate phrasing and expression. Show them what fluent reading sounds like—and even what it doesn’t sound like. This modeling is crucial for helping students understand how fluency and comprehension work together.
Try this: Mark up a short text with inappropriate phrase breaks. Read it aloud following those incorrect marks, and ask students why it sounds awkward. Then work together to identify more natural phrasing.
3. Provide Multiple Practice Opportunities
Depending on your students’ needs, you might:
- Read the text aloud while students follow along
- Try choral reading (everyone reading together)
- Use echo reading (you read, then students repeat)
- Have students whisper-read or partner-read
Each of these approaches supports the development of fluency and comprehension simultaneously, allowing students to practice both skills in context.
Making Connections: Applying Fluency and Comprehension in Your Classroom
When we understand the critical relationship between fluency and comprehension, we can better support our students’ reading development. Just as I’ve seen with countless teachers in my coaching work, small adjustments to how we approach fluency instruction can yield significant gains in overall reading proficiency.
Remember that fluency development isn’t separate from your comprehension instruction—they’re two sides of the same coin. Effective assessment and instruction of fluency and comprehension should happen simultaneously, not in isolation.
The bridge between decoding and comprehension isn’t built overnight. It requires intentional instruction, consistent practice, and your expert guidance. But when that bridge is strong, students can move confidently from simply reading words to truly understanding and engaging with text—which is, after all, the ultimate goal of reading instruction.
What strategies have worked in your classroom to strengthen the connection between fluency and comprehension? How have you seen this relationship play out with your students? These are the questions worth exploring as we continue building strong readers together.
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Additional Resources
If you’re like me and love to keep learning, these are the resources that have earned their keep on my crowded bookshelf—each one offering practical wisdom for our literacy instruction.
- The Megabook of Fluency, 2nd Edition: Strategies and Texts to Engage All Readers by Timothy V. Rasinski and Melissa Cheesman Smith
- The Reading Comprehension Blueprint Activity Book: A Practice & Planning Guide for Teachers by Nancy Lewis Hennessy M.Ed. and Julia A. Salamone M.Ed.
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