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Early Education and Development

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Is Earlier Better? Mastery of Reading

Fluency in Early Schooling
a b c
Yonghan Park , Erin A. Chaparro , Jorge Preciado & Kelli D.
d
Cummings
a
College of Education, Chungnam National University
b
Educational and Community Supports, University of Oregon
c
School of Education, Seattle Pacific University
d
Counseling, Higher Education, and Special Education, University of
Maryland
Published online: 03 Apr 2015.
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To cite this article: Yonghan Park, Erin A. Chaparro, Jorge Preciado & Kelli D. Cummings (2015) Is
Earlier Better? Mastery of Reading Fluency in Early Schooling, Early Education and Development, 26:8,
1187-1209, DOI: 10.1080/10409289.2015.1015855

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 Early Education and Development, 26: 1187–1209
Copyright # 2015 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC
ISSN: 1040-9289 print/1556-6935 online
DOI: 10.1080/10409289.2015.1015855

Is Earlier Better? Mastery of Reading Fluency

in Early Schooling

Yonghan Park
Downloaded by [University of California, San Diego] at 18:37 08 September 2015

College of Education, Chungnam National University

Erin A. Chaparro
Educational and Community Supports, University of Oregon
Jorge Preciado
School of Education, Seattle Pacific University
Kelli D. Cummings
Counseling, Higher Education, and Special Education, University of Maryland

Research Findings: The goal of the present study was to provide empirical evidence for the
importance of mastering reading fluency in early schooling. Study participants were 1,322 students
in 3rd grade in 42 schools in a northwestern state. These students were assessed using a battery of
reading skill tests as well as comprehensive tests of more general reading outcomes from kindergar-
ten through 3rd grade. Practice or Policy: The results of the study show that mastery of reading
fluency prior to currently established benchmarks is a significant positive predictor of later reading
skills in primary grades even after student demographic information and initial reading levels are
controlled. The results provide additional evidence for the importance of early reading development,
early intervention, and preventing reading difficulties as early as possible in schooling.

In literate U.S. society, the ability to read and write for meaningful communication is a cultural
imperative (Hines, 2009). An individual’s reading skill is often considered a critical factor for
success in schools because it influences access to numerous features of instruction and to the
general education curriculum (Cummings, Atkins, Allison, & Cole, 2008). In particular, early
reading skills in primary grades set the stage for academic competence in subsequent years (Juel,
1988). Over several decades, education researchers and policymakers have pursued the
promotion of student reading proficiency, especially in early schooling, by emphasizing explicit
and intensive instructional support (Carnine, Silbert, Kame’enui, & Tarver, 2010; Gunn,
Smolkowski, Biglan, Black, & Blair, 2005; Harn, Linan-Thompson, & Roberts, 2008; Torgesen,
2002). Prior research has explored the importance of early reading development by examining
the relation between early reading scores and later achievement scores. Yet few studies have

Correspondence regarding this article should be addressed to Erin A. Chaparro, PhD, 5292 University of Oregon,
Eugene, OR 97403-5292. E-mail: [email protected]
 1188 PARK, CHAPARRO, PRECIADO, CUMMINGS

empirically examined the extent to which fluent decoding (i.e., the ability to correctly interpret
letter–sound relations) predicts reading achievement across the varying time points by which
children achieve mastery levels. The purpose of our project was to explore this relationship with
a sample of students in kindergarten through Grade 3.

THE IMPORTANCE OF FLUENCY IN EARLY READING

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Evidence from the field of early reading research has established critical components of early
literacy that students must master in order to achieve long-term reading success (Ehri, Nunes,
Stahl, & Willows, 2001; Foorman & Torgesen, 2001; National Institute of Child Health and
Human Development [NICHD], 2000). These components are important insofar as they directly
tie to the accurate and fluent reading of connected text for meaning. Taken on their own, these
phases of reading development offer guidance for instruction and early intervention. In a model
by Ehri (1995), the progression of student development was described as moving through approxi-
mately four instructional phases: prealphabetic, partial alphabetic, full alphabetic, and consolidated
alphabetic (see Ehri, 2005, for a more complete description of the theory and its associated phases
of development). In the initial prealphabetic phase students tend to guess at word meaning based
on context alone. In the final consolidated alphabetic phase students unconsciously use their
knowledge of grapheme–phoneme correspondences to make meaning from larger grapheme units.
The field of education as a whole has continued to ascribe to the basic tenets of Ehri’s (1995, 2005)
phase theory, noting that in order to become a fluent reader, students must master the component
skill areas of phonemic awareness, phonological awareness, the alphabetic principle, and fluency
with reading connected text (National Reading Panel, 2000). The development, mastery, and inte-
gration of these skill areas combined with grammar, syntax, and vocabulary knowledge culminate
in the consolidated alphabetic stage with automatic word reading. Unlike stage theories, in which
students must progress through each stage before reaching the subsequent skill level, Ehri’s (1995,
2005) theory does not require a linear progression through the aforementioned phases (Harn,
Stoolmiller, & Chard, 2008). Indeed, depending on a host of factors (perhaps most important,
the context of instruction), students may pass through all four phases or not. Questions remain
about how the rate and timing of skill acquisition impacts future literacy outcomes.
To understand the importance of reading fluency it is imperative to understand the prerequi-
site skills. For example, mastery of the alphabetic principle is a prerequisite for fluency, which is
underscored by the reader’s ability to accurately, prosodically, and automatically decode written
text (Carnine et al., 2010; Washburn, Joshi, & Cantrell, 2011). Mastering the decoding process—
how letters and sounds are deciphered, embedded, and blended into words—is a major linguistic
undertaking for early readers. Without these skills, students may delay or never fully grasp the
phonological structure mastered by good readers (Ehri, 1995; Ehri et al., 2001; Liberman &
Shankweiler, 1991). Students who accurately decode words, sentences, and passages are at a
distinct advantage compared to their nonfluent peers in terms of reading unknown or new words.
Fluent readers can accurately utilize complex decoding mechanisms for efficient reading of
connected text, thereby reading at a rate at which they gain exposure to more vocabulary than
less fluent readers (Carnine, Silbert, Kame’enui, Tarver, & Jungjohann, 2006; Denton, Vaughn,
& Fletcher, 2003; Perfetti, 1999; Rasinski, 2012). Nonfluent reading impacts students’ chances
of becoming independent readers and negatively impacts vocabulary and comprehension
 EARLY MASTERY OF READING FLUENCY 1189

development (Harn, Linan-Thompson, et al., 2008; Torgesen, 2002). Juel (1988) demonstrated
that good readers in first grade have an 88% chance of being good readers in fourth grade,
whereas 87% of poor readers in first grade still remain struggling readers in fourth grade.
Nonfluent readers are more likely to experience poorer long-term academic outcomes than fluent
readers (Juel, 1988).
Considerable research has focused on the importance of word recognition skills in early
schooling and has established a link between word recognition and overall reading ability
(e.g., Chall, 1967; Kendeou, van den Broek, White, & Lynch, 2009; Perfetti, 1985, 1999).
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Successful or fluent readers are students who perform this complicated process automatically
and without effort. Automaticity facilitates adequate text comprehension (Perfetti, 1999), and,
as noted by LaBerge and Samuels (1974), decoding words should be neither a primary focus
nor a task that requires a significant amount of cognitive attention when one is reading text
for comprehension. Automatic processing of text, or fluent reading, includes speed, accuracy,
effortless processing, independent execution, and lack of conscious awareness (Logan, 1997);
each of these elements is necessary for reading comprehension to be facilitated.
Automaticity as a construct is used widely in other areas of psychology, perhaps most
commonly in cognitive psychology. Cognitive load theory (Sweller, 1994, 2010) explains the
conditions that make the complexity of learning either substantial or minimal. According to this
theory, automation facilitates learning by reducing the overall load on working memory. For
example, students who are learning to decode must synchronize and engage multiple cognitive
functions simply to decipher letters and words. In this phase of reading development, a large
portion of working memory is devoted to the immediate task of decoding. These reading tasks
overwhelm beginning readers and minimize available memory resources to the point that very
little attention can be devoted to understanding text content (Perfetti, 1999). Once decoding skills
reach a level of automaticity for grade-level content material, students become fluent and their
cognitive loads are substantially reduced, thus leaving readers free to allocate their attention and
effort to reading comprehension.

MEASURING READING SKILL FLUENCY WITH CURRICULUM-BASED

MEASURES (CBMS)

Given the complexities of reading instruction and learning to read, educators are in need of tools
to provide early, efficient, and reliable feedback regarding student reading progress. One type of
assessment in this area with a 30-year research base is curriculum-based measurement (Deno &
Mirkin, 1977). CBMs were developed for use by special education teachers in the late 1970s,
primarily in the area of reading (Deno, 1985). Now many general education practitioners use
CBM-type measures as part of their daily practice for universal screening, school-wide evalu-
ation, and early intervention. CBMs are used in schools around the United States and other coun-
tries to monitor the various stages and subskills required for beginning reading acquisition;
reading CBMs are the most common (Graney & Shinn, 2005; Hosp, Hosp, & Howell, 2007).
Many reading CBMs offer criterion levels of performance for teachers, instructional leaders,
and school psychologists to use during universal screening activities and form the basis of initial
instructional groups. Most CBM reading measures have also linked these criterion levels of
performance, or goals, to specific grade levels, thus providing a time window by which the goals
 1190 PARK, CHAPARRO, PRECIADO, CUMMINGS

should be reached. The goals for these measures typically serve as minimum standards that
should be met by students to ensure continued success in learning to read (Langdon, 2004;
Smolkowski, Cummings, & Stryker, in press). Some systems also set higher goals as targets
for optimal performance (Smolkowski & Cummings, 2014). If students do not reach the
minimum standards, some instructional intervention may be warranted, and further assessment
is needed to verify the problem and guide the establishment of an instructional plan (e.g., Gersten
et al., 2009).
In the Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills (DIBELS; Good & Kaminski, 2002)
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suite of assessments, two reading measures are commonly used: Oral Reading Fluency (ORF)
and Nonsense Word Fluency (NWF). ORF is typically used for Grades 1 through 8 with estab-
lished benchmarks to measure reading rates of correct words per minute for students (Good &
Kaminski, 2002). When ORF is administered, the assessor asks a student to read a grade-level
passage out loud for 1 min. The assessor starts a stopwatch as the student reads the first word
and stops the stopwatch and stops scoring at the end of 1 min. During the 1 min oral reading test
the assessor marks all incorrectly read words by placing a slash through the word and then
totals the number of words read correctly by subtracting the number of errors from the total
words read.
Another measure from the DIBELS suite of assessments is NWF, and it is typically adminis-
tered in earlier grades (K–2) than ORF. NWF displays combinations of common consonant and
vowel sounds out of context (e.g., nim, sav, kij). To measure NWF, students are asked to read as
many sounds or whole words as they can in 1 min. Similar to ORF the number of nonsense words
decoded correctly is totaled along with a student’s overall accuracy. Unlike ORF, students receive
partial credit for decoding individual sounds (i.e., sound-by-sound decoding) as opposed to
decoding whole words. Partial credit for sounds read correctly allows teachers and other admin-
istrators to observe the development of a student’s decoding skills over time. Research has shown
reasonable concurrent and predictive validity evidence for both ORF (Baker et al., 2008; Betts,
Pickart, & Heistad, 2009; McGlinchey & Hixson, 2004) and NWF (Harn, Stoolmiller, et al.,
2008; Smolkowski & Cummings, 2014) measures, even when disaggregated across populations
of English learners (Fien et al., 2008; Vanderwood, Linklater, & Healy, 2008). These measures of
reading skill fluency give teachers and building leaders a system and a common language to
monitor and discuss the growth of all students on the same scale and at a relatively low cost in
terms of instructional and personnel time.

READING FLUENCY: MORE THAN JUST DECODING WORDS QUICKLY

Many reading researchers have studied the link between reading fluency and the universal goal
of reading for meaning with repeated demonstrations of word and passage reading as strong
predictors of performance on comprehensive measures of reading. For example, multiple stu-
dies have found that NWF and ORF in the fall and winter of Grades 1–3 are predictive of spring
performance on comprehensive measures of reading skills (Catts, Petscher, Schatschneider,
Bridges, & Mendoza, 2009; Powell-Smith & Dedrick, 2006; Schilling, Carlisle, Scott, & Zeng,
2007). Similarly, in Grade 4, word reading fluency and passage reading fluency demonstrate
strong concurrent validity with state assessment measures of literacy (Jenkins, Fuchs, van
den Broek, Espin, & Deno, 2003).
 EARLY MASTERY OF READING FLUENCY 1191

In addition to the concurrent and predictive value of performance-level scores, other programs
of research have established the impact of gain (i.e., slope or growth) scores on the prediction of
later reading comprehension. ORF growth rates during first grade strongly predicted Grade 3
reading comprehension scores (Kim, Petscher, Schatschneider, & Foorman, 2010). Growth in
ORF in Grades 2 and 4 across the school year has also been shown to moderate reading compre-
hension (O’Connor, Swanson, & Geraghty, 2010). Although the mentioned studies demonstrate
strong support for a positive relation between fluency as an early reading skill and more general
reading proficiency, they do not offer guidance on a recommended timeline for achieving
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specific mastery levels. To our knowledge there are currently no other published studies that
suggest and demonstrate an optimal time point for mastery of foundational reading skills.
Therefore, questions remain about the predictive strength of the particular time point of reading
fluency mastery on later reading skill outcomes as well as whether there is evidence of an optimal
time frame for reading fluency mastery.
In this study, DIBELS assessments (DIBELS 6th ed.; Good & Kaminski, 2002) were used to
measure NWF and ORF. For the edition of this set of CBMs, there are published performance
goals. The publishers recommend that students meet the minimum benchmarks for NWF (i.e.,
50 correct letter sounds [CLS] per minute) by the middle of Grade 1. For ORF the test developers
provide minimum performance standards for the end of each grade level. For example, at the end
of Grade 1 the benchmark goal is 40 words read correctly per minute. However, the recom-
mended scores do not seem to provide the goal for mastery; instead, they simply suggest that
students are on track to meet the next minimum benchmark.

PURPOSE OF THE STUDY

The purpose of the present study is to explore the predictive validity of the time frame of reading
fluency acquisition on later general reading skill outcomes and to delineate the implications of the
findings for practitioners. We address the following specific research questions: (a) What are the
characteristics of students who reach a mastery level of reading fluency earlier than their peers in
the same grade level? and (b) Do the time points by which students achieve a mastery level of
fluency predict later general reading skills, even after the contributions of demographic character-
istics and initial reading skills are controlled? We focus on two types of reading fluency measures:
NWF (kindergarten through Grade 2) and ORF (Grades 1–3). Then the time points for mastery of
each of these two types of reading fluency are used to predict general reading skill outcomes at the
end of Grade 2 (for NWF) and at the end of Grade 3 (for ORF). We hypothesize that, based on
cognitive theory (LaBerge & Samuels, 1974; Sweller, 1994, 2010), the earlier foundational skills
are mastered (e.g., NWF and ORF), the better the outcomes will be at the end of Grades 2 and 3.

METHOD

Participants

The sample for the present study consisted of 1,322 students enrolled in 42 elementary schools
in the Pacific Northwest. These schools were participants in the federally funded Reading First
 1192 PARK, CHAPARRO, PRECIADO, CUMMINGS

program under the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001. Reading First was implemented in the
schools with the lowest reading outcomes and the largest percentage of students from high
poverty. The goal of the program was for all students in participating schools to meet the goal
of reading at grade level by the end of third grade. A distinctive characteristic of Reading First
was its focus on assessment, instruction, and reading outcomes in the early grades (i.e., from
kindergarten through Grade 3).
In compliance with Reading First requirements, all students received at least 90 min of daily
reading instruction including a minimum of 30 min of daily small-group, teacher-directed read-
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ing instruction throughout the school year. Instructional time was increased to greater than
90 min for students with reading difficulties but usually was no greater than 120 min in total.1
Reading instruction focused on essential elements of beginning reading, including phonemic
awareness, the alphabetic principle, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension, as defined in a
report of the National Reading Panel (NICHD, 2000). Reading First required schools to
implement a specific model of response to intervention, which can also be considered a multi-
tiered system of supports. Response-to-intervention and multitiered system of support models
similar to Reading First are commonly implemented in today’s schools (Castillo & Batsche,
2012). Further information regarding the participating schools in this study and their Reading
First implementation can be found in Baker et al. (2008, 2011).
Of the students in the sample, 51.3% were female, 53.2% were ethnic minorities other than
White (Hispanic ¼ 31.3%, Black ¼ 7.6%, Asian/Pacific Islander ¼ 7.4%, other ¼ 6.9%),
26.4% were identified as having limited English proficiency, and 71% were identified as econ-
omically disadvantaged. Students were categorized as having limited English proficiency based
on a home language survey and their performance on Oregon’s English Language Proficiency
Assessment. School personnel administer this assessment annually. The number of students
eligible for free or reduced-price lunch determined students’ economic status (i.e., poverty cate-
gorization). In the present study, these students were followed from kindergarten (2005–2006)
through third grade (2008–2009).
The sample for analysis was selected using the following criteria: (a) students stayed in the
same schools from kindergarten to Grade 3, (b) students participated in interim reading fluency
or decoding assessments (e.g., fall, winter, and spring in each grade), and (c) students partici-
pated in the Grade 3 and Grade 2 end-of-year comprehensive reading assessments. Of the initial
student participants, 44 (3%) were missing information for their end-of-second-grade general
reading outcome, primarily because of absence.

Measures

Two types of reading measures were used in the present study: measures of reading fluency and
measures of advanced general reading outcomes. School-based assessment teams supervised by
reading coaches administered all of the measures. Reading coaches were trained on assessment
administration by state-level expert coaches from the Oregon Reading First Technical Assist-
ance Center. Reading coaches were generally highly qualified teachers who had demonstrated
effective literacy instruction (Baker et al., 2011).
1
Students were determined to be at risk for poor reading outcomes if they did not meet the suggested benchmark on
the DIBELS assessment for their corresponding grade level and time of the school year.
 EARLY MASTERY OF READING FLUENCY 1193

Reading fluency. Students’ reading fluency was measured three times a year using two
fluency subtests of the DIBELS 6th edition (Good & Kaminski, 2002): NWF and ORF. NWF
is a timed pseudoword reading task that is intended to assess students’ knowledge of the alphabetic
principle. It is individually administered and standardized. A raw score from this test represents
the number of letter sounds produced correctly in 1 min. The reported alternate-forms reliability
coefficients for the NWF measure range from .83 to .94 (Dynamic Measurement Group, 2008).
NWF was administered from the middle of kindergarten through the beginning of Grade 2.
ORF is an individually administered timed test of accuracy and fluency in reading connected
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text. A raw score from ORF represents the number of words read correctly in 1 min. The reported
alternate-forms reliability coefficients for ORF range from .89 to .98 (Dynamic Measurement
Group, 2008). The ORF test was administered from the middle of first grade through the end
of third grade in this study. For each assessment time point, three alternative ORF probes were
administered and their median score was reported to control for possible passage effects, which is
a typical method of administering the DIBELS ORF measures (Good & Kaminski, 2002). Con-
current and predictive validity for both NWF and ORF have been well documented in previous
studies (e.g., Fien et al., 2008; Kim et al., 2010).

General reading skill outcomes. The students in this study were also assessed for general
reading performance at the end of each grade. The scores from two different general reading
measures were used to assess general reading skills depending on grade. In second grade we
used the Stanford Achievement Test, 10th edition (SAT-10; Harcourt Educational Measure-
ment, 2003), and in third grade we obtained scores from the Oregon Assessment of Knowledge
and Skills (OAKS; Oregon Department of Education, 2010).
The SAT-10 is a group-administered, multiple-choice, standardized test that assesses compre-
hensive reading skill performance in three domains on three subtests: (a) reading comprehension,
(b) reading vocabulary, and (c) word study skills. The reported internal consistency reliability
coefficient is .95, and the correlation with the Otis-Lennon School Ability Test is .64 for
second-grade students (Harcourt Educational Measurement, 2004). The OAKS reading test is
an untimed, multiple-choice, computerized test that assesses seven essential reading skills: (a)
understanding word meanings, (b) locating information, (c) answering literal comprehension ques-
tions, (d) answering inferential comprehension questions, (e) answering evaluative comprehension
questions, (f) recognizing common literary forms, and (g) analyzing the use of literary elements
and devices. The reported alternate-forms reliability coefficient for the OAKS reading test in third
grade is .96, and its correlation with the Iowa Test of Basic Skills (ITBS) is .78 (Oregon Depart-
ment of Education, 2010).

Control Variables

To control for possible covariates in the prediction of later reading performance by the mastery
point of reading fluency, our analyses included letter naming as an early index or initial status of
a student’s learning to read as well as several demographic variables.

Letter naming. Students’ emergent literacy skills at the starting point of the study were taken
into account to better understand the impact of the early mastery of fluency on later reading skill
 1194 PARK, CHAPARRO, PRECIADO, CUMMINGS

outcomes. Letter naming is known to be a powerful predictor of reading development in the early
elementary grade levels (Badian, 1995; Stage, Sheppard, Davidson, & Browning, 2001; Walsh,
Price, & Gillingham, 1988). To assess this early literacy skill, we used the Letter Naming
Fluency (LNF) subtest from the DIBELS (Good & Kaminski, 2002). LNF assesses both letter
knowledge and naming speed by measuring how many randomly ordered uppercase and
lowercase letters children can name correctly in 1 min. LNF is typically administered from the
beginning of kindergarten through the beginning of first grade. The reported alternate-forms
reliability of LNF ranges from .86 to .94, and its correlation with the Woodcock–Johnson
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Psycho-Educational Battery, Revised Readiness Cluster, standard score is .53 to .70 (Dynamic
Measurement Group, 2008).

Demographic characteristics. Student demographic characteristics can be substantially

related to reading performance and overall school achievement (e.g., Bowey, 1995; Klecker,
2006). Students’ gender, ethnic and racial minority status, limited English proficiency status,
and poverty level (as indicated by eligibility for free or reduced-price lunch) were included
as additional covariates in the analyses. All data for demographic variables were reported by
the school district during the students’ Grade 3 year. Demographic variables were coded dichot-
omously in the analysis.

Mastery Levels for Reading Fluency

We defined mastery levels for NWF (>70) and ORF (>109) by considering both the original cut
scores for the measures (Good & Kaminski, 2002) as well as selected studies that have investi-
gated the relationships between fluency and general reading outcomes (Castillo & Powell-Smith,
2005; Fien et al., 2010; Fien, Stoolmiller, Baker, Briggs, & Park, 2009; Powell-Smith & Dedrick,
2006).
Table 1 lists the recommended benchmark assessment schedules and cut scores of the fluency
measures used in the present study. These benchmark cut scores, however, may not fully reflect
the mastery level of the skills, because benchmark scores aim to capture whether skills are on

TABLE 1
Administration Schedules, Benchmark Cut Scores, and Mastery Level Selected for DIBELS Measures
Used in the Study

Grade K Grade 1 Grade 2 Grade 3 Mastery

DIBELS level
Measure Beg Mid End Beg Mid End Beg Mid End Beg Mid End selected

LNF 8þ 27þ 40þ 37þ

NWF 13þ 25þ 24þ 50þ 50þ 50þ 71þ
ORF 20þ 40þ 44þ 68þ 90þ 77þ 92þ 110þ 110þ

Note. The benchmark goals in the DIBELS represent the minimum score that students can earn to still be considered
in the low-risk range. Scores in bold were used as the primary criteria for determining mastery level. DIBELS ¼
Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills; K ¼ kindergarten; Beg ¼ beginning of the grade; Mid ¼ middle of the
grade; End ¼ end of the grade; LNF ¼ Letter Naming Fluency; NWF ¼ Nonsense Word Fluency; ORF ¼ Oral Reading
Fluency.
 EARLY MASTERY OF READING FLUENCY 1195

track at a specific developmental point rather than whether they are mastered to the point of
automaticity. For the determination of mastery skill level, we first examined the final benchmark
score for the measure based on the grades included in this study (K–3). For NWF, this score is 50
CLS at its final assessment time point (i.e., the beginning of second grade). Because NWF is
administered only through the beginning of second grade, when basic reading skills are still
developing for a majority of students, this cut score was considered relatively low and not
enough to represent a mastery level. Additional support for selecting a higher level of mastery
was provided from a careful review of the literature (Fien et al., 2010; Powell-Smith & Dedrick,
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2006). According to Fien et al. (2010), Grade 1 students scoring between 50 and 70 CLS
benefited from additional gains on NWF across the school year. Only students with initial scores
in fall of first grade that were greater than 70 CLS showed no appreciable benefit in terms of
growth in NWF. Powell-Smith and Dedrick (2006) showed similar findings for first- and
second-grade students. Because NWF captures meaningful skill gains up to at least a point of
70, a mastery criterion of 71 CLS or greater was selected for NWF.
For ORF, 110 words read correctly per minute was selected as the criterion for mastery of
accurate and fluent text reading of the DIBELS 6th edition passages (Good & Kaminski, 2002)
because this score corresponds to the benchmark goal at the final assessment period for students
in this study. Also, there is substantial evidence to suggest that this benchmark score corre-
sponds to a mastery level of ORF performance in terms of its relations to nine state reading tests
(Castillo & Powell-Smith, 2005) and to the SAT-10 (Fien et al., 2009).

Analytic Procedures

The present study utilized a multilevel analysis of variance (ANOVA) as the main analytic
approach to take into account the nested structure of the data (i.e., students nested within schools;
Gelman & Hill, 2007; Raudenbush & Bryk, 2002). We focused on two separate models: (a) a
model for the NWF mastery points predicting Grade 2 SAT-10 scaled reading scores (composite
of the three subtests) and (b) a model for the ORF mastery points predicting Grade 3 OAKS
scaled reading scores. The point at which students achieved a mastery level of reading fluency
was used as a categorical independent variable with multiple levels or mastery points that varied
by measure (seven levels for NWF and nine levels for ORF). The analyses also included both
student demographic variables (i.e., gender, minority status, limited English proficiency status,
and poverty level) and an initial literacy variable (i.e., LNF scores) as covariates. The OAKS and
the SAT-10 were used as quantitative dependent variables, varying by grade as described in the
Method section. Post hoc multiple comparisons were conducted using adjusted p values based on
Šidák’s (1967) procedure. Effect sizes are presented based on Cohen’s d and are interpreted
using the standard interpretation guidelines of small (.20 ≤ d < .50), medium (.50 ≤ d < .80),
and large (.80 ≥ d; Cohen, 1992).

RESULTS

In this section, descriptive results are presented first regarding the time points when students
mastered each of the reading fluency skills: NWF and ORF. Then inferential statistics are
 1196 PARK, CHAPARRO, PRECIADO, CUMMINGS

presented about the mastery time points predicting general reading skills, including
comprehension and vocabulary. Table 2 summarizes the means, standard deviations, and ranges
of scores on the measures of primary interest.

Mastery Points of Reading Fluency by Student Characteristics

Students were assessed using NWF six times between the middle of kindergarten and the
beginning of second grade. Table 3 lists the numbers of students who reached the mastery level
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on this measure (NWF ¼ 71 or higher) for the first time by each administration point cumula-
tively and disaggregated by demographic information. Approximately 7% (n ¼ 97) of the total
students (N ¼ 1,322) in the present study reached the mastery level of NWF by the end of kin-
dergarten. An additional 47% (n ¼ 626), or approximately 55% (n ¼ 723) of the total sample,
reached the mastery level by the end of first grade, and another 5% (n ¼ 63) met the criterion
at the beginning of second grade. The remaining students (41%; n ¼ 536) had not achieved
the mastery level by the last administration point of NWF in fall of second grade.
Significant associations were found between some students’ demographic data and their NWF
mastery time points, although the association between gender and mastery point was not

TABLE 2
Descriptive Statistics for Student Performance Scores on the Primary Measures

Assessment M SD Min Max

LNF
Grade K—Beg 8.53 11.62 0 70
Grade 1—Mid 37.05 16.55 0 95
NWF
Grade K—Mid 18.94 17.81 0 144
Grade K—End 38.17 20.58 0 145
Grade 1—Beg 32.88 23.03 0 139
Grade 1—Mid 62.94 28.91 6 193
Grade 1—End 79.01 33.01 8 234
Grade 2—Beg 71.30 33.42 0 242
ORF
Grade 1—Mid 33.03 31.39 0 205
Grade 1—End 57.58 34.93 0 215
Grade 2—Beg 49.79 32.10 0 215
Grade 2—Mid 81.67 37.56 2 225
Grade 2—End 97.87 36.65 6 232
Grade 3—Beg 79.37 33.88 6 212
Grade 3—Mid 98.04 37.32 5 263
Grade 3—End 113.68 35.65 7 249
SAT-10 reading
Grade 2—End 597.66 40.03 494 755
OAKS reading
Grade 3—End 211.30 9.98 181 254

LNF ¼ Letter Naming Fluency; NWF ¼ Nonsense Word Fluency; ORF ¼ Oral Reading Fluency; SAT-10 ¼ Stanford
Achievement Test, 10th edition; OAKS ¼ Oregon Assessment of Knowledge and Skills; K ¼ kindergarten; Beg ¼ beginning
of the grade; Mid ¼ middle of the grade; End ¼ end of the grade.
 EARLY MASTERY OF READING FLUENCY 1197

TABLE 3
Numbers of Students Who Achieved a Mastery Level of NWF at Different Time Points by Student
Demographics

Gender Minority status LEP status Poverty

NWF mastery Cumulative
time point n (%) % Girl Boy White Minority Non-LEP LEP No Yes

Grade K—Mid 19 (1.4) 1.4 7 12 14 5 19 0 9 10

Grade K—End 78 (5.9) 7.3 40 38 42 36 68 10 25 53
Grade 1—Beg 30 (2.3) 9.6 14 16 16 14 25 5 13 17
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Grade 1—Mid 266 (20.1) 29.7 150 116 134 132 219 47 95 171
Grade 1—End 330 (25.0) 54.7 162 168 150 180 231 99 94 236
Grade 2—Beg 63 (4.8) 59.5 30 33 28 35 39 24 12 51
Not achieved 536 (40.5) 100.0 275 261 235 301 372 164 128 408
Total 1,322 678 644 619 703 973 349 376 946

NWF ¼ Nonsense Word Fluency; LEP ¼ limited English proficiency; K ¼ kindergarten; Beg ¼ beginning of the
grade; Mid ¼ middle of the grade; End ¼ end of the grade.

statistically significant, χ 2(6, N ¼ 1,322) ¼ 5.59, p ¼ .470. The association between ethnic
minority status and mastery point was not statistically significant, χ 2(6, N ¼ 1,322) ¼ 11.21, p
¼ .082. About 58% of the 619 White students (n ¼ 356) reached the NWF mastery level by
the end of first grade, whereas 52% (n ¼ 367) of the 703 minority students reached the mastery
level at the same point in time. Language proficiency and poverty had statistically significant
associations with fluency mastery points. Although 58% (n ¼ 562) of the 973 native English
speakers reached the NWF mastery level by the end of first grade, only 46% (n ¼ 161) of the
349 students identified as having limited English proficiency achieved that same goal, χ 2(6, N
¼ 1,322) ¼ 37.61, p < .001. In addition, 63% (n ¼ 236) of the 376 students identified as ineligible
for free or reduced-price lunch achieved the NWF mastery level by the end of first grade compared
to only 51% (n ¼ 487) of the 946 students who did qualify, χ 2(6, N ¼ 1,322) ¼ 22.24, p ¼ .001.
In Table 4, the same information for the ORF measure is provided. Students were administered
ORF a total of eight times. Only 3% (n ¼ 39) of students reached the mastery point by the initial
testing time at the middle of first grade. An additional 5% (n ¼ 70), for a total of about 8% (n
¼ 109) of the students, had already achieved the mastery level for ORF by the end of first grade.
An additional 30%, or cumulatively 38% (n ¼ 506) of the total sample (N ¼ 1,322), reached the
mastery level by the end of second grade, and a further 21%, or cumulatively 60% (n ¼ 784), met
or exceeded the mastery level at the end of third grade. The remaining 41% (n ¼ 538) of students
did not achieve the ORF mastery level by the end of their third-grade year.
Significant associations were observed between students’ demographic characteristics and
their ORF mastery time points. Approximately 44% (n ¼ 295) of girls achieved the ORF
mastery level by the end of second grade, whereas only 33% (n ¼ 211) of boys achieved
mastery, χ 2(8, N ¼ 1,322) ¼ 21.91, p ¼ .005. Similarly, 44% (n ¼ 270) of the 619 White
students reached the ORF mastery level by the end of second grade, whereas 33% (n ¼ 270)
of the 703 minority students reached mastery by that same time point, χ 2(8, N ¼ 1,322) ¼ 26.81,
p ¼ .001. In addition, 43% (n ¼ 415) of the 973 native English speakers achieved the ORF
mastery level by the end of second grade, whereas only 26% (n ¼ 91) of 349 English language
learners reached the mastery goal at that point in time, χ 2(8, N ¼ 1,322) ¼ 60.72, p < .001.
Finally, 50% (n ¼ 188) of the 376 students who were ineligible for free or reduced-price lunch
 1198 PARK, CHAPARRO, PRECIADO, CUMMINGS

TABLE 4
Numbers of Students Who Achieved a Mastery Level of ORF at Different Time Points by
Student Demographics

Gender Minority status LEP status Poverty

ORF mastery Cumulative
time point n (%) % Girl Boy White Minority Non-LEP LEP No Yes

Grade 1—Mid 39 (3.0) 3.0 23 16 25 14 37 2 19 20

Grade 1—End 70 (5.3) 8.2 41 29 42 28 62 8 30 40
Grade 2—Beg 6 (0.5) 8.7 1 5 2 4 5 1 2 4
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Grade 2—Mid 191 (14.4) 23.1 115 76 107 84 169 22 70 121

Grade 2—End 200 (15.1) 38.3 115 85 94 106 142 58 67 133
Grade 3—Beg 6 (0.5) 38.7 2 4 4 2 6 0 2 4
Grade 3—Mid 63 (4.8) 43.5 31 32 34 29 51 12 16 47
Grade 3—End 209 (15.8) 59.3 103 106 87 122 144 65 57 152
Not achieved 538 (40.7) 100.0 247 291 224 314 357 181 113 425
Total 1,322 678 644 619 703 973 349 376 946

ORF ¼ Oral Reading Fluency; LEP ¼ limited English proficiency; Beg ¼ beginning of the grade; Mid ¼ middle of
the grade; End ¼ end of the grade.

achieved the ORF mastery level sometime by the end of second grade, but only 34% (n ¼ 318)
of the 946 students who qualified met the mastery level, χ 2(8, N ¼ 1,322) ¼ 39.05, p < .001.

Prediction of Second-Grade SAT-10 Reading Scores by the NWF Mastery Points

Students were tested at the end of Grade 2 using the SAT-10. See Table 2 for the mean,
minimum, and maximum scores on each measure and at each testing time point. We explored
how student performance on this general reading measure would be predicted by students’
mastery of NWF after controlling for demographic differences and initial literacy competence
as measured by LNF. Before examining the full model with the predictors, we analyzed the
unconditional model to calculate the intraclass correlation coefficient. We found that approxi-
mately 93% of the variance in the SAT-10 scores was between students compared to 7%
between schools (student-level variance ¼ 1,480.89 and school-level variance ¼ 118.20).
The results from the multilevel ANOVA are presented in Table 5 for the effect of NWF point
of mastery on second-grade SAT-10 reading scores. All fixed effects for the predictors were stat-
istically significant (p < .05). Specifically, when other variables in the analytic model in Table 5
were held constant, boys had lower SAT-10 scores than girls on average by 8.19 (F ¼ 25.37,
p < .001), minority students had lower scores than their White peers by 6.13 (F ¼ 9.90, p ¼ .002),
English learners had lower scores than proficient English speakers by 12.35 (F ¼ 32.38,
p < .001), and students in high poverty had lower scores than students in low poverty by 3.90
(F ¼ 3.94, p ¼ .048). LNF scores as measured at the beginning of kindergarten also explained
a significant portion of second-grade SAT-10 scores (F ¼ 149.39, p < .001). Taken together,
these covariates explained approximately 30% of the student-level variance compared to the
unconditional model (for the model including these covariates, student-level variance ¼ 1,037.13
and school-level variance ¼ 83.64).
After we controlled for all covariates, the NWF mastery time point significantly predicted
SAT-10 reading at the end of Grade 2 (F ¼ 58.29, p < .001). Adding the NWF mastery point
 EARLY MASTERY OF READING FLUENCY 1199

TABLE 5
Multilevel Analysis of Variance for Fixed Effects of NWF Mastery Points on Second-Grade
SAT-10 Reading Scores

Fixed Effect Numerator df Denominator df F p

Intercept 1 460 42,138.93 <.001

Boy 1 1256 25.37 <.001
Minority 1 1236 9.90 .002
Limited English 1 1275 32.38 <.001
Poverty 1 1271 3.94 .048
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LNF at Grade K—Beg 1 1274 149.39 <.001

NWF mastery point 6 1268 58.29 <.001
Random Effect Variance Estimate SE t p
Level 1 (residual) 816.14 32.81 24.87 <.001
Level 2 (intercept) 59.65 19.12 3.12 .002

NWF ¼ Nonsense Word Fluency; SAT-10 ¼ Stanford Achievement Test, 10th edition; LNF ¼ Letter Naming Fluency;
K ¼ kindergarten; Beg ¼ beginning of the grade.

reduced the student-level variance by 221 compared to the covariates-only model. The point of
NWF mastery explained an additional 15% of student-level variance in student SAT-10 scores
(for the full model, student-level variance ¼ 816.14 and school-level variance ¼ 59.65).
In Figure 1 we display the change in average estimated SAT-10 reading scores across
different NWF mastery time points. These estimated scores are based on the model specified
previously. The scores represent students’ general reading abilities as they were predicted by
different NWF mastery points after we controlled for covariates. For each estimated SAT-10
reading score in Figure 1, a 95% confidence interval is shown around the mean. The graph dis-
plays a generally decreasing pattern in average estimated SAT-10 reading scores as a function
of later mastery of NWF. But students with NWF mastery at the very first assessment point
(estimated SAT-10 M ¼ 612.13) did not show statistically significant differences in SAT-10
scores compared to students with later mastery points. This finding is likely due to the very
small number of students who achieved the NWF mastery level the first time the assessment
was given (i.e., the middle of kindergarten; n ¼ 19).
Students who reached the NWF mastery level at the end of kindergarten (estimated SAT-10
M ¼ 625.89) performed significantly better on the SAT-10 reading test than students who
achieved the mastery level at the middle of Grade 1 or later (p < .05). Similarly, students who
achieved the NWF mastery point at the beginning of Grade 1 (estimated SAT-10 M ¼ 628.95) per-
formed significantly better than students who reached the mastery level at the end of Grade 1 or
later (p < .01). As expected, students who had not achieved the NWF mastery level by the begin-
ning of second grade had lower SAT-10 scores compared to all other students who reached the
mastery level at some point (p < .05). The average difference in SAT-10 scores between students
reaching the mastery level at the final NWF assessment point (the beginning of Grade 2) and stu-
dents not reaching the NWF mastery level was about 26 points, implying more than a 0.5 SD unit
difference (d ¼ 0.64). Even among students who achieved the NWF mastery level, there was an
observed advantage for students who reached that level earlier. Specifically, students who reached
the goal at the beginning of first grade scored on average 24 points higher on the SAT-10 at the
end of Grade 2 than students who reached mastery at the beginning of second grade (d ¼ 0.60).
 1200 PARK, CHAPARRO, PRECIADO, CUMMINGS
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FIGURE 1 Estimated second-grade average SAT-10 reading scores and 95% confidence intervals for students with different
NWF mastery points. The results on the graph are estimated for students with average letter naming fluency at the beginning of
kindergarten. The percentile lines on the graph are taken from the 2001 normative sample reported in the technical report of the
SAT-10 (Harcourt Educational Measurement, 2004). SAT-10 ¼ Stanford Achievement Test, 10th edition; NWF ¼ Nonsense
Word Fluency; Beg ¼ beginning of the grade; Mid ¼ middle of the grade; End ¼ end of the grade.

Prediction of Third-Grade OAKS Reading Scores by the ORF Mastery Points

Next we explored whether earlier ORF mastery would predict a higher OAKS outcome at the
end of Grade 3. As in the previous analysis, student demographic information and early literacy
skills (i.e., letter naming) were controlled. According to the unconditional model for the OAKS
scores, 91% of the variance in third-grade OAKS scores was observed among students com-
pared to 9% between schools (student-level variance ¼ 91.34 and school-level variance ¼ 8.82).
Table 6 presents the results from the multilevel ANOVA predicting third-grade OAKS read-
ing scores. All fixed effects were statistically significant (p < .05) except gender, which showed a
gap that approached significance (0.72) in OAKS reading scores that favored girls (F ¼ 3.28,
p ¼ .070). When other variables were controlled, the average OAKS score was lower (by
1.99) for minority students than for their White peers (F ¼ 17.39, p < .001), English learners
had lower scores (by 2.22) than native English-speaking students (F ¼ 17.41, p < .001), and stu-
dents who qualified for free or reduced-price lunch scored lower (by 1.20) than students who
were ineligible (F ¼ 6.30, p ¼ .012). Students’ LNF scores at the beginning of first grade were
also a significant predictor of their OAKS reading scores at the end of Grade 3 (F ¼ 41.96,
 EARLY MASTERY OF READING FLUENCY 1201

p < .001). These covariates, in total, explained about 30% of the student-level variance in Grade 3
OAKS scores (for the covariate model, student-level variance ¼ 63.49 and school-level
variance ¼ 9.39). After all covariates were taken into account, the ORF mastery point predicted
student performance on the OAKS reading test at the end of Grade 3 (F ¼ 45.50, p < .001) and
explained an additional 15% of the student-level variance in OAKS scores (for the full model,
student-level variance ¼ 50.21 and school-level variance ¼ 5.50).
Figure 2 displays the average estimated OAKS reading scores for students with different mas-
tery time points for ORF, based on the model described previously and utilizing 95% confidence
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intervals for clarity. There is a clear downward trend in estimated OAKS reading scores as the
ORF mastery level proceeds to later time points, even among students who began Grade 1 with
the same LNF score. Multiple comparison tests supported this trend across all but two measure-
ment occasions with exceptionally small sample sizes (i.e., n ¼ 6 for the beginning of Grade 2
and n ¼ 6 for the beginning of Grade 3).
Students who reached the ORF mastery level at the first assessment time point (i.e., the middle
of Grade 1) performed significantly better on the Grade 3 OAKS reading test (estimated OAKS
M ¼ 223.94) than students who reached it after Grade 1 (p < .001)—with the exception of the
aforementioned two time points (i.e., the beginnings of Grade 2 and Grade 3). Students who
achieved the ORF mastery point at the end of Grade 1 also had significantly higher OAKS read-
ing scores on average (estimated OAKS M ¼ 218.92) than students who reached the mastery
level at the end of Grade 2 or later (p < .05). Students reaching the ORF mastery level at the final
assessment point (i.e., the end of Grade 3) performed significantly better (estimated OAKS
M ¼ 211.30) than students not reaching that level by the final assessment period (estimated
OAKS M ¼ 206.31; p < .001). The mean difference corresponds to 0.5 SD unit (d ¼ 0.50). How-
ever, this group of students reaching the ORF mastery level at the end of Grade 3 performed
significantly lower than students who achieved the ORF mastery level at any point before the
end of Grade 3 (p < .05). The average differences in OAKS scores were 5.04 between the end
of Grade 1 and end of Grade 2 mastery points (d ¼ 0.51) and 2.58 between the end of Grade
2 and end of Grade 3 mastery points (d ¼ 0.26).

TABLE 6
Multilevel Analysis of Variance for Fixed Effects of ORF Mastery Points on Third-Grade
OAKS Reading Scores

Fixed effect Numerator df Denominator df F p

Intercept 1 748 42,683.62 <.001

Boy 1 1294 3.28 .070
Minority 1 1311 17.39 <.001
Limited English 1 1322 17.41 <.001
Poverty 1 1308 6.30 .012
LNF at Grade 1—Beg 1 1318 41.96 <.001
ORF mastery point 8 1307 45.50 <.001
Random Effect Variance Estimate SE t p
Level 1 (residual) 50.21 1.99 25.29 <.001
Level 2 (intercept) 5.50 1.60 3.44 .001

ORF ¼ Oral Reading Fluency; OAKS ¼ Oregon Assessment of Knowledge and Skills; LNF ¼ Letter Naming Fluency;
Beg ¼ beginning of the grade.
 1202 PARK, CHAPARRO, PRECIADO, CUMMINGS
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FIGURE 2 Estimated third-grade average OAKS reading scores and 95% confidence intervals for students with
different oral reading fluency mastery points. The results on the graph are estimated for students with average letter
naming fluency at the beginning of first grade. The percentile lines on the graph are from the normative sample reported
in the technical report of the OAKS (Oregon Department of Education, 2009). OAKS ¼ Oregon Assessment of
Knowledge and Skills; Beg ¼ beginning of the grade; Mid ¼ middle of the grade; End ¼ end of the grade.

DISCUSSION

The present study explored two aspects of early reading development in students in kindergarten
through Grade 3. First, the study attempted to identify characteristics of students who reached
mastery levels of reading skill fluency earlier than their peers. Second, the study explored
whether, after demographics and initial reading skills (i.e., LNF) were controlled, the time points
of achieved mastery predicted later reading skill outcomes. In particular, the study examined
whether students who mastered reading fluency earlier than their peers had better reading skill
outcomes than their peers who mastered the same reading skills at a later point in time (e.g., after
the initial ORF benchmark period in the winter of Grade 1). A secondary area of exploration was
whether there was evidence of an optimal time period for mastery of early reading fluency skills.
The examination of the results to answer the primary research question indicate that the time
point for reading fluency mastery was related to student demographic characteristics. There
were statistically significant differences in achievement of NWF mastery by English learner
and poverty status but not gender or minority status. Males, minority students, English learners,
and students who qualified for free or reduced-price lunch achieved ORF mastery at later points
 EARLY MASTERY OF READING FLUENCY 1203

than females, Euro-American students, native English speakers, and students ineligible for free
or reduced-price lunch, respectively. Altogether, these four demographic covariates along with
LNF score at the beginning of kindergarten explained 30% of the variance in scores in the
spring of Grade 2 on the SAT-10 and in the spring of Grade 3 on the OAKS. By comparison,
time point of mastery skill achievement alone accounted for 15% of the variance in scores from
comprehensive reading measures at the end of Grades 2 and 3. This finding suggests that influ-
encing the time point at which students reach mastery fluency levels could positively impact
students’ long-term reading outcomes.
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When we examined the percentage of students at a mastery level on each fluency measure by
assessment time point we found relatively few students overall who reached the mastery level at
the beginning of a grade relative to the middle or end time points (see Tables 3 and 4). On the one
hand, this finding is likely due to the negative impact of summer vacation, when most children
had no formal reading instruction (Cooper, Nye, Charlton, Lindsay, & Greathouse, 1996). It
implies that summer vacation may exert detrimental effects on early reading development,
especially for children from economically disadvantaged backgrounds. On the other hand, at
least for ORF, the finding may also be due to the change in difficulty level of the reading
materials across grade levels (Good & Kaminski, 2002).
In regard to our second research question, about optimal time points for mastery, we suggest
examining the overall trend of the lines depicted in Figures 1 and 2. In both cases there seems to
be a clear break in the direction of the trend after the beginning of the school year. Specifically,
after the beginning of Grade 1 in Figure 1 (NWF) and after the beginning of Grade 2 in Figure 2
(ORF) the trend declines. This break suggests that for NWF it is optimal for students to reach
mastery levels of fluency by the beginning of first grade; for ORF the optimal time suggested
is the beginning of second grade. In concrete terms, students who reached the NWF goal at
the beginning of first grade scored on average 24 points higher on the SAT-10 at the end of
second grade than students who reached mastery at the beginning of second grade. Less dramatic
is that, when looking at the ORF mastery point, one finds an 8-point advantage for students who
met mastery levels at the beginning of Grade 2 as opposed to those who reached the same levels
at the beginning of Grade 3. It is also interesting to note the negative relation between estimated
OAKS reading scores and ORF mastery levels; as the mastery level proceeded to later time
points, estimated OAKS scores were lower. The negative relation was observed even among
students who began Grade 1 with the same LNF score. Results demonstrate that there is a clear
benefit to students who reach mastery levels of fluency reading skills before peers who reach
mastery at later time points or, of course, who never reach mastery within the window of opport-
unity. The difference in the mastery time points explained a significant portion of students’ gen-
eral reading outcomes on a later assessment, even after we controlled for demographic variables
and differences in students’ emergent literacy-related ability (i.e., LNF). The earlier a student
mastered decoding and ORF skills, the better that student performed on more comprehensive
reading tests later in the primary grades.

The Importance of Developing Reading Fluency

Although many studies have shown the importance of proficiency in foundational reading skills,
few have provided empirical evidence for the role of the time frame in which mastery of these
 1204 PARK, CHAPARRO, PRECIADO, CUMMINGS

skills is reached. In the present study, the findings provide evidence for the important role of
learning those reading skills earlier in the primary grades than what is suggested by the current
benchmark cut points (Good & Kaminski, 2002). Children who had not met the mastery levels
of reading fluency prior to the suggested timelines performed significantly lower on compre-
hensive reading tests than children who had met the mastery levels of reading fluency prior
to the administration of those end-of-year assessments. Children who never mastered the early
literacy skills had at least a 0.5 SD unit disadvantage compared with children who reached the
mastery levels the spring of either Grade 2 (NWF) or Grade 3 (ORF), implying a medium effect
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size (Cohen, 1992).

These results are consistent with the theories of automaticity in reading (LaBerge &
Samuels, 1974) and, more generally, with cognitive load theory (Sweller, 1994, 2010).
Mastery of early literacy skills could lead to students independently reading more frequently
and perhaps varied genres of text. Certainly, during in-class independent reading opportu-
nities more fluent readers will be able to read more words and will therefore be exposed to
a wider range of vocabulary. Once a beginning reader can better allocate his or her attention
to the comprehension of text, he or she can spend more cognitive time in applying more
advanced comprehension skills. It could be argued that students who are more fluent readers
will be more motivated to read independently for pleasure, thus leading to exposure to more
vocabulary words than among students struggling to read fluently and therefore not reading
independently (Allington & Gabriel, 2012). These skills in reading comprehension set the
stage for meaningful reading experiences in which students are able to read texts with more
inference and interpretation. Unfortunately, students who do not master the four phases of
reading development (Ehri, 2005) spend substantial attention on decoding texts. Also, these
students may have fewer opportunities to develop higher reading skills if their cognitive focus
remains on decoding when reading, thus contributing to the Matthew effect (Stanovich, 1986)
observed by many reading researchers (Guthrie, Wigfield, Metsala, & Cox, 1999; Juel, 1988;
Wang & Guthrie, 2004).
The findings from the present study do not suggest that children should learn everything
early and fast to be successful readers. Rather, the results emphasize the importance of timing
and a redirection to the importance of decoding words accurately and fluently. Although it can
be argued that most children can still learn many skills as long as they are taught in an appro-
priate format (Bruner, 1977), we argue that students will learn the skill better if the skill or task
used to illustrate it is developmentally appropriate (Copple & Bredekamp, 2009; Cummings,
Dewey, Latimer, & Good, 2011; Ehri, 2005). To increase learning with new skills or content,
children should possess preskills, or simpler component skills (Kame’enui & Carnine, 1998) to
increase opportunities for achieving skill mastery. In fluent reading and in reading comprehen-
sion, word recognition is one example of a necessary prerequisite (McCardle & Chhabra, 2004;
NICHD, 2000). Although fundamental reading skills such as decoding can be taught at any time
during schooling, teaching decoding skills and ensuring that students have mastered the
alphabetic principle will have a significant influence on reading development. Decoding words
accurately facilitates the learning of more vocabulary words, which positively impacts
comprehension (Nagy & Scott, 2000). In sum, success or failure in learning to read seems to
be established quite early in school, and it is difficult to fill the gaps with late compensation
(Cunningham & Stanovich, 1997; Dion, Brodeur, Gosselin, Campeau, & Fuchs, 2010;
Juel, 1988).
 EARLY MASTERY OF READING FLUENCY 1205

Limitations of the Study and Directions for Future Research

We found differences in later reading performance between children who mastered or did not
master reading fluency as a foundational reading skill at different points in time. But what is
it that creates individual differences regarding children’s mastery of reading fluency at different
points in time? One possible explanation might be the fact that the children already differed in
their abilities at the beginning of schooling. In this study, however, we took into account initial
differences in early literacy abilities by including LNF measured at the beginning of kindergarten
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(for the analysis of NWF) or at the beginning of Grade 1 (for the analysis of ORF). Research has
shown that children’s letter naming skill reflects their early home literacy experiences (e.g.,
Bowey, 1995) as well as at least partially explains their general cognitive abilities or rapid
automatized naming once the letters are known (e.g., Badian, 1995; Stage et al., 2001; Walsh
et al., 1988). Thus, the results might be related more to other sources of differences that are
instructional or contextual after children enter school.
More likely, the children might have had different amounts and quality of experience in learn-
ing reading fluency skills in and out of school (Foorman, Francis, Fletcher, Schatschneider, &
Mehta, 1998; Juel, 2006; Scanlon & Vellutino, 1997). In their study of children entering kinder-
garten with reading difficulties, for example, Scanlon and Vellutino (1997) demonstrated that the
characteristics of literacy instruction that a child received in school was a substantial predictor of
whether the child was a good, average, or poor reader at the end of Grade 1. In particular, those
identified as good readers at the end of first grade came from classrooms in which a greater
portion of the instructional time was spent in systematic activities focusing on the structural
components of words. The participating schools in this study, however, had the same amount
of reading instruction and applied the same reading instruction methods as suggested by the
Reading First initiative. Nevertheless, we were not able to collect detailed information about
the characteristics of participants’ learning experience in and outside of their classrooms. With-
out additional information it is impossible to know whether students who achieved mastery at the
beginning of the school year received access to instruction during the summer months. Future
studies will need to pay more attention to differences in children’s experience with learning to
read in and outside of school.
In the present study, letter naming was used as a single variable controlling for initial individ-
ual differences in early reading abilities. Letter naming, however, assesses only a limited area of
children’s early literacy skills, and also it is influenced by both general cognitive abilities and
early educational experiences. For instance, concepts of print, phonemic awareness, story retell,
and vocabulary are frequently assessed to evaluate young children’s emergent literacy in widely
used early reading batteries such as Early Reading Diagnostic Assessment, Second Edition (The
Psychological Corporation, 2003), and Test of Early Reading Ability, Third Edition (Reid,
Hresko, & Hammill, 2001). Future studies need to consider using additional assessments to mea-
sure children’s early literacy abilities and environment to better control for initial individual
differences.
When interpreting the present study and considering the generalizability of the findings it is
important to recall that all of the schools were participating in a national reading initiative
focused on the implementation of a tiered system of evidence-based reading instruction. The cri-
teria to participate in Reading First required schools to have poor reading outcomes and to serve
high-poverty populations. Thus, the Reading First schools and students represent a relatively
 1206 PARK, CHAPARRO, PRECIADO, CUMMINGS

high-risk group, which does pose a threat to the generalizability of these findings in other
contexts. Another threat to generalizability is that this study focused on students in the primary
grades only, so the findings should only be considered as they relate to other students in the
early elementary grades that are also implementing multitiered system of supports for reading
instruction. It would be interesting to see how the mastery point of reading fluency influences
student reading development in upper grades.
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CONCLUSION

This study provides empirical evidence for the importance of learning reading fluency in early
grades. The results show that educators should consider not only whether children master fluent
decoding but also when this skill is mastered. The mastery of reading fluency skills in the
primary grades is significantly related to better general reading outcomes in later grades. This
finding has implications for early reading education with respect to what to focus on and when
it should happen in primary grades. In addition, it suggests that early identification of reading
difficulties and systematic reading instruction for teaching foundational reading skills should
be used in schooling as early as possible. By allocating the focus and timing of quality reading
experiences appropriately, children from a range of demographic backgrounds can better learn to
read and will also have a better opportunity for reading to learn.

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