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Transcript

Mr. Lowe finds Stacia and Nolan, third graders in his classroom, very intriguing. Both possess commendable decoding skills; they can accurately read the words in grade-level texts. Furthermore, they exhibit a wealth of world knowledge, which they eagerly contribute during classroom discussions. They also demonstrate strong learning ability when Mr. Lowe presents information through lectures and read-aloud.

However, Stacia and Nolan struggle with reading comprehension. When Mr. Lowe asks them questions about what they read, they usually respond, "I forget," or supply responses that seem to be guesses based on their prior knowledge of the text's topic.

Mr. Lowe discusses these students at a grade-level teacher-based team meeting, recognizing the team's expertise and the value of their input. He asks his colleagues for advice and wants to know how to group them for skills-based reading intervention.

The teacher-based team looks at existing universal screening data. They confirm that Stacia and Nolan are accurate readers but score poorly on reading comprehension assessments. Interestingly, Nolan and Stacia have also received A's on all social studies and science unit tests taken this school year, where much of the content is presented orally, through text read aloud, or other text sources that do not require extensive reading (e.g., pictures, video clips, etc.).

The team agrees that something else, besides decoding and language comprehension skills, may be causing Nolan and Stacia's reading comprehension difficulties.

Mr. Lowe has observed Stacia and Nolan reading. Although Stacia talks a mile a minute in conversation, she reads very slowly. Her reading rate is 60 words correct per minute, while most third graders read over 100 words correct per minute.

Similarly, Nolan reads word-by-word in a monotone voice and does not adhere to punctuation. His reading rate is 78 correct words per minute.

Mr. Lowe thinks he has found the root cause of Stacia and Nolan's comprehension difficulty – reading fluency, which refers to the ability to read quickly, accurately, and with expression.