© 2005 INTERNATIONAL READING ASSOCIATION (pp. 22–27) doi:10.1598/JAAL.49.1.3JOURNAL OF ADOLESCENT & ADULT LITERACY 49:1 SEPTEMBER 200522Timothy V. Rasinski, Nancy D. Padak, Christine A. McKeon, Lori G. Wilfong,Julie A. Friedauer, Patricia HeimIs reading fluency a key for successful high school reading?Is reading fluency a key for successful high school reading?Findings in this study suggest that reading fluency is a significant variable in secondary students’ reading and overall academic development.With the publication of the report of theNational Reading Panel (NationalInstitute for Child Health and HumanDevelopment [NICHD], 2000), read-ing fluency has become more recog-nized as a key element in successfulreading programs in the primarygrades. Indeed, Chall’s (1983) seminalmodel of reading identified the attain-ment of reading fluency as one of theearliest stages of reading achievement.Given that reading fluency deals with mastery ofthe surface level of text—learning to recognize(decode) words in a passage automatically (effort-lessly) as well as accurately and to express or inter-pret those words in a meaningful manner whenreading orally—it is quite appropriate to think offluency as a goal in reading that should be mas-tered as early as possible in one’s reading develop-ment.Recent research, however, has suggested thatthe issue of reading fluency goes beyond the pri-mary grades. Our own work among struggling elementary-grade students (grades 1–5) referredfor Title I supplementary reading instruction(Title I is a U.S. federally funded program for at-risk students) by their regular classroom teacherfound that the lack of reading fluency appearedto be the area of greatest impairment in reading(Rasinski & Padak, 1998). Pinnell et al.’s (1995)study of the relationship between oralreading fluency and fourth graders’silent reading comprehension foundthat nearly half of the 1,000+ sampleof fourth-grade students had not yetachieved a minimal level of readingfluency.One hypothesized explanationfor the connection between fluencyand comprehension comes fromLaBerge and Samuels’s (1974) theoryof automaticity in reading. Accordingto this theory, readers who have notyet achieved automaticity in wordrecognition (fluency) must apply a significantamount of their finite cognitive energies to con-sciously decode the words they encounter whilereading. Cognitive attention or energy that mustbe applied to the low-level decoding task of read-ing is cognitive energy that is taken away from themore important task of comprehending the text.Hence, comprehension is negatively affected by areader’s lack of fluency.Our work in a university reading clinic indi-cates that difficulties in reading fluency are mani-fested in the majority of students in grades 2through 8 who are referred for reading difficulties.Although the primary reason for referral may os-tensibly be difficulties in reading comprehensionRasinski teaches at KentState University (402 WhiteHall, Kent, OH 44242, USA).E-mail [email protected] also teaches at KentState University. McKeonteaches at Walsh Universityin North Canton, Ohio.Wilfong is a doctoralstudent at Kent StateUniversity, and Friedauerteaches at Mayfield CitySchools in Highland Heights,Ohio. Heim teaches atThornton Elementary Schoolin Newton, North Carolina.(especially among intermediate and middle-gradestudents), we also find that a lack of fluency ac-companies the difficulties in comprehension. Ourclinical intervention program provides work influency and comprehension, and, for the mostpart, students make significant gains in both areas.Fluency beyond the elementarygradesAlthough fluency is generally thought of as an el-ementary grade issue, we wondered if fluencycould be still be an issue in the reading difficultiesexperienced by large numbers of students beyondthe elementary grades. In particular, middle andhigh school students from urban areas appear toexperience more difficulty in reading than stu-dents from nonurban areas (e.g., National Centerfor Educational Statistics, n.d.). Could one sourceof their difficulties in reading stem from a lack ofreading fluency?To answer this question, we assessed the de-coding accuracy and fluency levels of a largegroup of ninth-grade students at the end of theschool year. In this study, fluency was defined asstudents’ reading rate. Although reading rate doesnot capture the full meaning of fluency, it is con-sidered a useful and valid measure of fluency(Rasinski, 2004). The ninth graders in this school,which is part of a moderate-sized urban districtin the U.S. Midwest, have generally performedpoorly on the state high school graduationtests—a series of tests across important contentareas in which students read and respond to textpassages that reflect the various content domains.On one day during the last week of the schoolyear (June, 2003) we visited the high school atwhich half of the school district’s freshmen wereenrolled. We selected the last week of the schoolyear to ensure that the reading samples we ob-tained reflected the most advanced levels of read-ing exhibited by students during the year. Duringthe day, we tested 303 students using a one-minute reading probe, also known asCurriculum-Based Measurement (CBM) in read-ing or Oral Reading Fluency (ORF) Assessment(Deno, 1985; Deno, Mirkin, & Chiang, 1982;Marston, 1989; Rasinski, 2004). Working individ-ually with one of us, students read a ninth-grade-level passage, taken from the Secondary andCollege Reading Inventory (Johns, 1990), for oneminute. Although we recognized that the passagemay have been at a frustration level for some stu-dents, using grade-level materials is the conven-tion for CBM/ORF assessments (Rasinski).Students were asked to read orally in their normalvoices and were told that they would be asked toretell what they had read at the end of the read-ing. During the reading we marked any uncor-rected errors students made during theone-minute period. We also asked them to do aquick retell of what they had read. The primarypurpose for the retelling was to ensure that stu-dents read in a normal manner—to read for un-derstanding rather than speed.The high school at which we worked was di-vided into individual “houses” in order to providestudents with a smaller, more intimate learningenvironment. Students were randomly assignedat the beginning of the school year to one of thehouses. We positioned ourselves at each house sothat reading