The Role of Fluency in Reading Competence, Assessment, and instruction

Fluency at the intersection of Accuracy and Speed: A Special Issue of scientific Studies of Reading

Edward J. Kame'enui

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2001
• ISBN:
  9781135585280
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

First published in 2001. This is a special issue Volume 5, Number 3, from 2001 of Scientific Studies of Reading that looks at the DNA of reading fluency in scientific inquiry accounts. The contributors offer a selection of essays seeks to establish that that fluent reading is plainly developmental and represents an outcome of well-specified sub lexical and lexical processes and skills developed for most children over a bounded period of pedagogical time, rather than in just the school setting.

The Importance and Decision-Making Utility of a Continuum of Fluency-Based Indicators of Foundational Reading Skills for Third-Grade High-Stakes Outcomes

Roland H. Good, III, Deborah C. Simmons, and Edward J. Kame’enui

University of Oregon

Educational accountability and its counterpart, high-stakes assessment, are at the forefront of the educational agenda in this era of standards-based reform. In this article, we examine assessment and accountability in the context of a prevention-oriented assessment and intervention system designed to assess early reading progress formatively. Specifically, we explore the utility of a continuum of fluency-based indicators of foundational early literacy skills to predict reading outcomes, to inform educational decisions, and to change reading outcomes for students at risk of reading difficulty. First, we address the accountability era, discuss the promise of prevention-oriented assessment, and outline a continuum of fluency-based indicators of foundational reading skills using Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills and Curriculum-Based Measurement Oral Reading Fluency. Next, we describe a series of linked, short-term, longitudinal studies of 4 cohorts examining the utility and predictive validity of the measures from kindergarten through 3rd grade with the Oregon Statewide Assessment-Reading/Literature as a high-stakes reading outcome. Using direct measures of key foundational skills, predictive validities ranged from .34 to .82. The utility of the fluency-based benchmark goals was supported with the finding that 96% of children who met the 3rd-grade oral reading fluency benchmark goal met or exceeded expectations on the Oregon Statewide Assessment, a high-stakes outcome measure. We illustrate the utility of the measures for evaluating instruction, modifying the instructional system, and targeting children who need additional instructional support to achieve benchmark goals. Finally, we discuss the instructional and policy implications of our findings and their utility in an active educational accountability environment.

Across the nation, there is growing awareness of the dividends of early reading success and the stark consequences of early reading failure. Though the reading levels of students in the United States remained relatively stable over the past 2 decades (National Center for Education Statistics, 1999), unlike previous generations these reading proficiency levels no longer satisfy today’s societal requirements and aggressive economic environment. The demands of the knowledge-based, 21st-century workplace (Drucker, 1993; Murnane & Levy, 1996) have raised the literacy bar for students, and schools must now respond in kind to heightened expectations. One of the most promising strategies to address this monumental goal is to prevent reading difficulties and to ensure that all children are readers early in their educational careers (National Research Council, 1998).

Though the goal of children reading by Grade 3 is not altogether new, the proposed policies and practices to achieve this goal are. The past 10 years ushered into education an unfamiliar vocabulary and unique set of policies and practices designed to address the problem of low achievement in U.S. schools. Terms such as standards-based reform, accountability, and high-stakes assessment (Carnine, 2000; Thurlow & Thompson, 1999) were relatively disassociated with education a decade ago but are now part of the educational rhetoric. Though standards-based reform has multiple dimensions, the component that is most prominent and polarizing is the process of “using assessments for accountability purposes” (Thurlow & Thompson, 1999, p. 3).

The high-stakes accountability movement calls for an assessment system that produces trustworthy and reliable results that are instructionally relevant and capable of forecasting educational change that positively impacts and sustains student learning (Carnine, 2000; Elmore, 1996; Linn, 2000). Typically, the first high-stakes assessment is administered in Grade 3. During the primary grades, an accountable assessment system would document whether students are learning “enough” (Carnine, 1997) before Grade 3 and before reading problems become too great and intractable. Such a system would allow reasonable and reliable predictions of whether children who perform well on one measure or set of measures in one year are likely to perform at designated benchmark levels in subsequent years.

In this article, we examine assessment and accountability in the context of prevention. First, we examine the accountability era, discuss the promise of a prevention-oriented assessment and intervention system, and propose a measurement model based on a continuum of fluency-based indicators of foundational reading skills. Next, we describe a series of linked, short-term longitudinal correlational and conditional probability analyses involving four cohorts of students enrolled in kindergarten through Grade 3. We examine student performance on early, fluency-based reading indicators and examine their utility in predicting reading success or failure on Grade 3 high-stakes reading achievement tests. Finally, we discuss the instructional and policy implications of our findings and their potential utility in an active educational accountability environment.

THE ACCOUNTABILITY ERA AND THE ATTRIBUTES OF A PREVENTION-ORIENTED ASSESSMENT AND INTERVENTION SYSTEM

Educational accountability and its counterpart, high-stakes assessment, are at the forefront of the educational agenda. For most states, the primary tool to evaluate students’ knowledge and understanding of content standards is the standardized achievement test. Bond, Roeber, and Connealy (1998) reported that 31 states use normative-referenced tests, 33 use criterion-referenced measures, and 19 use both forms of standardized testing to assess student knowledge and understanding of state content standards. Commercial standardized achievement tests, by design, are intended to provide “a level playing field” for comparing children on the same content and for determining proficiency in a given content or skill area (Green & Sireci, 1999). The tenets of fairness and content comparability are laudable and defensible, psychometrically. Nevertheless, traditionally administered commercial standardized achievement tests have serious limitations in a high-stakes assessment system. Generally, the commercial standardized reading achievement tests used in high-stakes assessments are time-consuming, expensive to administer, administered infrequently, and of limited instructional utility (Fuchs & Fuchs, 1999; Kame’enui & Simmons, 1990).

For the purposes of gauging district- or schoolwide progress and global levels of performance, large-scale, traditional assessments may serve an important function. However, for the purpose of informing instruction in time-efficient, instructionally relevant ways capable of altering students’ rates and levels of learning on critical indicators of reading, commercial standardized measures are severely limited, if not inappropriate (e.g., Shephard, 2000). In his review of assessment and accountability over the past 50 years, Linn (2000) lamented that he could not conclude that the use of tests for student and school accountability has produced dramatic improvements in our education system or outcomes. He did conclude, however, that the “instruments and technology have not been up to the demands that have been placed on them by high-stakes accountability” (p. 14). In the following section, we outline the dimensions of a prevention-oriented, school-based assessment and intervention system designed to complement existing high-stakes assessment systems and preempt early reading difficulty from becoming established, inadequate reading achievement.

ASSESSMENT IN A PREVENTION-ORIENTED FRAMEWORK: MEASURING WHAT’S IMPORTANT

Though this study focuses on assessment, the broader focus is on the role of assessment in a comprehensive, integrated educational system. States design and sanction standards and the tests used to assess proficiency on those standards. Schools assume the fundamental responsibility for ensuring that all children read by Grade 3. States determine the level of proficiency required of students to clear the grade-level learning hurdle. Schools are directly accountable for all children being able to read by the end of Grade 3. In a prevention-oriented system, schools have the responsibility to design and use assessment and intervention that adhere to the following principles:

1. Intervene early and strategically during critical windows of reading development.
2. Develop and promote a comprehensive system of instruction based on a research-based core curriculum and enhancement programs.
3. Use and rely on formative, dynamic indicators of student performance to identify need, allocate resources, and design and modify instruction.
4. Address reading failure and reading success from a schoolwide, systemic perspective.

Signature attributes of a prevention-oriented, school-based assessment and intervention system (Simmons et al., 2000) are the ability to predict reading success and difficulty early and to inform instruction responsively. An assessment system must be in place that signals reading difficulty early and prevents early reading risk from becoming entrenched reading failure (National Research Council, 1998; Torgesen, 1998). One of the most replicated and disturbing conclusions from studies of reading is that students with poor reading skills initially are likely to have poor reading skills later (e.g., Juel, 1988; Shaywitz, Escobar, Shaywitz, Fletcher, & Makuch, 1992). Differences in developmental reading trajectories can be explained, in part, by a predictable and consequential series of reading-related activities that begin with difficulty in foundational skills, progress to fewer encounters with and exposure to print, and culminate in lowered motivation and desire to read (Stanovich, 1986, 2000). Low initial skills and low learning trajectories make catching up all but impossible for many readers at risk for reading difficulties. In an era of high-stakes outcomes, the message is clear: We must have a reliable, prevention-oriented, school-based assessment and intervention system to prevent early reading difficulty from forecasting enduring and progressively debilitating reading failure. That assessment system must be dynamic in the sense that it is able to measure and track changes in student performance over time.

Assessment for educational prevention and accountability requires more than just a new test; it requires a different conceptual approach. In the primary grades, such an assessment system in schools at minimum must reliably (a) document and account for growth on a continuum of foundational reading skills, (b) predict success or failure on criterion measures of performance (i.e., high-stakes tests), and (c) provide an instructional goal that if met will prevent reading failure and promote reading success. Such an assessment system is based on the assumption that the measures document not only whether students are learning but also whether they are learning enough prerequisite, foundational skills in a timely manner to attain benchmark levels on high-stakes tests. Moreover, the utility and validity of the assessment system are grounded in two fundamental features: identifying the foundational skills of beginning reading, and evaluating growth of foundational skills efficiently and reliably.

Measuring What’s Important: The Foundational Skills of Beginning Reading

It is generally recognized that reading is developmental and acquired over time. Multiple models of reading articulate the stages of reading development (e.g., Chall, 1983; Ehri & McCormick, 1998). Despite modest differences in theory and nomenclature, there is considerable congruity among models regarding the critical dimensions of reading development. Converging and convincing evidence substantiates that reading competence is causally influenced by proficiency on foundational skills in beginning reading (National Reading Panel [NRP], 2000; National Research Council, 1998). Among the commonly recognized and empirically validated foundational skills are skills we refer to as big ideas in beginning reading. Big ideas are skills and strategies that are prerequisite and fundamental to later success in a content area or domain. These skills differentiate successful from less successful readers and most important are amenable to change through instruction (Kame’enui & Carnine, 1998; Simmons & Kame’enui, 1998). In the area of beginning reading, selected foundational skills include (a) phonological awareness or the ability to hear and manipulate the sound structure of language, (b) alphabetic understanding or the mapping of print to speech and the phonological recoding of letter strings into corresponding sounds and blending stored sounds into words, and (c) accuracy and fluency with connected text or the facile and seemingly effortless recognition of words in connected text (Adams, 1990; NRP, 2000; National Research Council, 1998; Simmons & Kame’enui, 1998).

Although these three foundational skills and processes are by no means exhaustive of beginning reading and early literacy, they represent valid indicator skills along a continuum in which overlapping stages progress in complexity toward an ultimate goal of reading and constructing meaning from a variety of texts by the end of Grade 3. In a prevention-oriented assessment and intervention system, these foundational skills can be assessed early (e.g., fall of kindergarten) and monitored over time as the foci of instruction change and children’s reading skills develop more expansively and comprehensively.

Measuring Growth of Foundational Skills

The concept of growth is fundamental to any comprehensive discussion of assessment (Francis, Shaywitz, Stuebing, Shaywitz, & Fletcher, 1994). Measuring early reading growth in a prevention-oriented assessment and intervention system requires measures and methodology that (a) first and foremost measure growth reliably and validly, (b) specify criterion-levels of performance for a single measure, (c) assess performance on a continuum of linked measures that relate to one another, and (d) reliably document a child’s progression toward meaningful outcomes. The goal for prevention-oriented assessment is to equip schools with a measurement system that reliably predicts performance on critical outcomes early and in ways that are relevant to instruction. Core to this system are instruments that are capable of measuring beginning reading growth functionally and frequ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Table of Contents
• Announcement
• Subscriber Information
• Introduction to This Special Issue: The DNA of Reading Fluency
• Reading Fluency and Its Intervention
• Oral Reading Fluency as an Indicator of Reading Competence: A Theoretical, Empirical, and Historical Analysis
• The Importance and Decision-Making Utility of a Continuum of Fluency-Based Indicators of Foundational Reading Skills for Third-Grade High-Stakes Outcomes