A Comparison of Oral Reading Fluency and Silent Reading Rate

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to determine the relationship between silent reading rate and oral reading fluency in upper elementary students. The subjects were twenty-seven sixth grade students attending a suburban school, who were reading at or above grade level. Each student's words-per-minute rate was determined by a timed silent reading of a passage at the student's independent reading level. Each student's fluency score was determined by averaging the three scores obtained from the three raters who had listened to a recorded oral reading of the same passage used in the words-per-minute check. These scores were chosen from a fluency scale compiled by the researcher.