Fluency and reading comprehension as a performance indicator in the 3rd year of elementary school.
Vanessa de Oliveira Martins-Reis, Dâmaris Alves de Araújo Pedroso, Letícia Mendes de Almeida and 3 others
PMID 37672411WHAT IT FOUND
Third-grade students improved reading fluency and literal comprehension over the school year, but inferential comprehension did not improve.
Fluency only reached the national target of 90 words per minute by the final test, with half the students still missing it.
Key findings
01Reading fluency improved significantly throughout the school year, with the average words per minute rising from 67 in the first test to 91.75 in the fourth.
02Total reading comprehension and literal question performance improved significantly, but performance on inferential questions showed no significant improvement.
03Only the final assessment met the national policy target of 90 words per minute, and approximately 50% of students did not achieve this target.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for SLPs
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What it does not show
The sample size was small (53 children) and drawn from a single public school in a region of social vulnerability, limiting generalizability. Attrition and absences affected the number of participants in each test (n varied from 18 to 43 for fluency), which may have influenced the stability of the results. The study was observational, so it cannot determine whether the improvements were due to natural development, classroom instruction, or other factors. The same text was used for all four assessments, which could have led to practice effects, although the authors note that meta-analyses suggest more than four repetitions are needed for significant fluency gains.
Declared interests
The authors declare no conflicts of interest. The study was approved by the Research Ethics Committee.
The easy way to misread this
Do not assume that reading fluency and comprehension improve uniformly. While fluency and literal comprehension showed significant gains, inferential comprehension did not improve significantly over the school year, suggesting that this specific skill may not develop without targeted support.