Reading Fluency and Formative Assessment

Despite there is a general agreement that reading fluency is one the most important skills to be considered in the development of early literacy adquisition, the construct of fluency has been criticized for lacking a clear definition that informs the learning process among reading scholars and teachers. Whereas some researchers is advocates of a simple definition of reading fluency that centers on rate as the main ability to be mastered by students, others argue that prosodic or expressive oral reading is a skill not to be overlooked by teachers in classrooms. In this article, we reflect on the fact that fast reading is not always fluent reading and that the traditional overemphasis on teaching reading rate in schools -just one aspect of reading fluency-, has led many teachers and students to think of reading fluency as simply reading speed. We then consider formative assessment to promote peer and self assessment, in order for the readers to be able to gain a clear understanding of the standards for good reading fluency perfomance, and to monitor their own perfomance. Finally, we propose the use of quality rubrics to guide assessment.