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Revisiting assumptions about the relationship of fluent reading to

comprehension: Spanish-speakers’ text-reading fluency in English

Article  in  Reading and Writing · May 2009

DOI: 10.1007/s11145-009-9168-8

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Read Writ (2010) 23:475–494
DOI 10.1007/s11145-009-9168-8

Revisiting assumptions about the relationship of fluent

reading to comprehension: Spanish-speakers’
text-reading fluency in English

Amy C. Crosson Æ Nonie K. Lesaux

Published online: 13 February 2009

Ó Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2009

Abstract Despite the growing body of research investigating the nature of text-
reading fluency and its relationship to comprehension among monolingual children,
very little is known about text-reading fluency for language minority (LM) learners
reading in English. The present study investigated the nature of text-reading flu-
ency—its relationship to reading comprehension and its predictors—for 76 Spanish-
speaking LM fifth graders. Text-reading fluency explained unique variance in
reading comprehension above and beyond word-reading fluency and oral language
competencies, but its effect was not robust. The impact of text-reading fluency on
comprehension was moderated by an interaction such that only students with pro-
ficient text-reading fluency and well-developed oral language demonstrated skilled
comprehension. Word-reading fluency and decoding skill were significant predic-
tors of text-reading fluency. The results suggest that existing assumptions about the
relationship between text-reading fluency and comprehension may not readily apply
to LM learners.

Keywords Language minority learners
English as a second language

Fluency
Reading comprehension
Oral reading

Introduction

In recent years there has been a surge in research on the importance of reading
fluency (for reviews, Fuchs, Fuchs, Hosp, & Jenkins, 2001; Kuhn & Stahl, 2003;

A. C. Crosson (&)
N. K. Lesaux

Department of Human Development and Education, Harvard Graduate School of Education,
Larsen Hall, 13 Appian Way, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA
e-mail: acc244@mail.harvard.edu

123
476 A. C. Crosson, N. K. Lesaux

National Reading Panel, 2000; Wolf & Katzir-Cohen, 2001). In spite of the robust
body of research in this area, the populations of focus in these studies have typically
been monolingual children and adults. In contrast, minimal scholarship has focused
on reading fluency for the fastest growing population in US schools—language
minority (LM) children—who are faced with the challenge of reading in a language in
which they may not be fully proficient. For example, the National Literacy Panel on
Language-minority Children and Youth presented a comprehensive review of studies
conducted with LM learners through 2001; in this volume, only three studies
investigated the development and role of reading fluency in LM learners’ second
language (L2) reading (see Lesaux & Geva, 2006; Shanahan & Beck, 2006), reflecting
the dearth of research in this area. Moreover, empirical studies investigating reading
fluency often exclude students receiving English as a second language services (e.g.,
Katzir et al., 2006; Schwanenflugel et al., 2006), and even when LM students are
included, as in the case of the NAEP Study of Oral Reading Fluency (Daane,
Campbell, Grigg, Goodman, & Oranje, 2005), results typically are not disaggregated
to present the findings for this growing population of school-aged children. Thus, at
present, very little is known about LM learners’ L2 reading fluency.
Research on the development of reading fluency with monolinguals from the
primary grades through middle school demonstrates a robust relationship between
reading fluency and reading comprehension (e.g., Fuchs, Fuchs, & Maxwell, 1988;
Hosp & Fuchs, 2005; Riedel, 2007; Shinn, Good, Knutson, Tilly, & Collins, 1992;
Wiley & Deno, 2005). In fact, Fuchs et al. (2001) have gone so far as to argue that
that text-reading fluency skill can be considered a ‘‘proxy’’ for overall reading
competence. However, there may be important differences between the populations
of native English speakers, who have been the subject of most research, and LM
learners. Most importantly, unlike the majority of monolingual English children, the
population of LM learners in U.S. schools is characterized by generally underde-
veloped L2 oral proficiency, both receptive and productive (Carlo et al., 2004;
Proctor, Carlo, August, & Snow 2005). Because there is some evidence that oral
language competencies influence the development of reading fluency and its
relationship to reading comprehension performance among monolinguals (e.g.,
Jenkins, Fuchs, van den Broek, Espin, & Deno, 2003a, b; Schwanenflugel et al.,
2006; Torgesen, Rashotte, & Alexander, 2001; Yovanoff, Duesberry, Alonzo, &
Tindal, 2005), it is possible that underdeveloped L2 oral language of many LM
learners may similarly influence the relationship between reading fluency and
reading comprehension.
Thus, it is unclear to what degree the relationships between reading fluency and
comprehension, and the predictors of reading fluency, would diverge from or be
similar to patterns noticed in these related, but qualitatively different, populations.
This study was designed to investigate: (1) the relative influence of text-reading
fluency and word-reading fluency to LM learners’ reading comprehension; (2)
whether and how L2 oral language competencies mediate the relationship between
text-reading fluency and reading comprehension; and (3) predictors of text-reading
fluency for this group of Spanish-English LM fifth graders. In light of the absence of
research on reading fluency with LM students, we draw primarily on research with
monolingual English-speaking children to inform the design and hypotheses.

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Spanish-speakers’ text-reading fluency and comprehension 477

The relationship between reading fluency, oral language, and reading

comprehension

Theories of automaticity explicate how fluent reading is critical for text

comprehension (for reviews see Fuchs et al., 2001; Wolf & Katzir-Cohen, 2001).
LaBerge and Samuels (1974), in their seminal work, asserted that reading depends
upon the execution of myriad lower-level subskills (i.e., visual perception of letters
and orthographic clusters, accessing their phonological representations) to enable
higher-level semantic processing (i.e., organizing word meanings to seek coher-
ence), such that readers must perform most lower-level processes rapidly and non-
deliberately in order to free cognitive resources for higher-level comprehension
processes. Perfetti (1985, 2007) asserts that the lexical quality of a word’s
representation is also central to efficient word-reading fluency, explaining that rapid
retrieval of a word’s meaning is also essential for comprehension. The key premise
inherent in all theories of automaticity is that rapid and accurate lower-level
processing enables the reader to focus cognitive resources on higher-level processes.
In turn, when lower-level reading processes are not executed automatically,
comprehension breaks down. In the present study, we limit our definition of fluency
to rapid and accurate reading.
By and large, research in this area has focused on word-reading fluency—the
accuracy and efficiency with which words out of context (i.e., in lists) are read.
Cumulative, empirical evidence has demonstrated a robust relationship between
word-reading fluency and reading comprehension. For example, for native English
speakers in the elementary grades, word-reading fluency and listening comprehen-
sion explain nearly all the variance in reading comprehension (e.g., Gough, Hoover,
& Peterson, 1996). While the bulk of research on reading fluency has been in the
domain of word reading fluency, recently there has been a resurgence of interest in
the role of fluent oral reading of connected text—that is, text-reading fluency, as
distinct from word-reading fluency.
While there is some evidence that correlations between text-reading fluency and
reading comprehension weaken with age (cf., Slocum, Street, & Gilberts, 1995;
Yovanoff et al., 2005), there is accumulating evidence that for readers who have
shifted from ‘‘learning to read’’ to ‘‘reading to learn’’ (Chall, 1983), text-reading
fluency is more strongly related to reading comprehension than is word-reading
fluency (Jenkins et al., 2003a; Shinn et al., 1992). For example, in their study with
fourth graders, Jenkins et al. (2003a) found that text-reading fluency accounted for
41% of unique variance in reading comprehension performance above and beyond
that accounted for by word-reading fluency; together the two predictors explained
71% of the variance in reading comprehension.
Why might text-reading fluency explain more variance in reading comprehension
than word-reading fluency? First and foremost, many text-reading fluency tasks
include a comprehension component, and thus are closer to the target construct of
reading comprehension than is context-free word-reading fluency. Beyond this,
researchers posit that there are features of text-reading that support comprehension
that are not available when simply reading decontextualized words, allowing readers
to draw on oral language competencies (Jenkins et al., 2003a, b; Schwanenflugel,

123
478 A. C. Crosson, N. K. Lesaux

Hamilton, Kuhn, Wisenbaker, & Stahl, 2004; Schwanenflugel et al., 2006; Thurlow &
van den Broek, 1997). For example, in reading connected text, it is possible that
readers benefit from context-facilitation of word reading (Stanovich, 1980) and
otherwise draw on oral language skills in ways that they would not in the process of
reading words out of context.
In spite of the growing interest in the relationship between text-reading fluency
and comprehension and the rapid growth of LM learners in the school-aged
population, few studies have focused on these learners. Riedel (2007) examined the
relationship between text-reading fluency and reading comprehension with 1,518
first graders, including 59 LM first graders. The correlation between text-reading
fluency and comprehension was even stronger for LM students (.69) than for native
English speakers (.51) at the end of first grade. In a study with 69 LM and native
English-speaking third and fifth graders, Wiley and Deno (2005) found that text-
reading fluency significantly correlated with reading achievement for both language
groups at both grade levels (.71 and .57 for native speakers and .61 and .69 for LM
in the third and fifth grades respectively). These studies suggest that text-reading
fluency may be strongly related to comprehension for LM students, as is true for
monolinguals.
However, we do not know whether LM students’ L2 oral language competencies
influence the relationship between text-reading fluency and comprehension, a
question of great importance given the underdeveloped L2 oral proficiency of many
LM students. Yovanoff et al. (2005) in a cross-sectional study with native English
speakers in grades 4–8 found that oral language competencies covaried with text-
reading fluency in predicting comprehension, but that vocabulary was relatively
more important than text-reading fluency with each grade level. Riedel (2007) found
that the degree to which text-reading fluency predicted reading comprehension was
influenced by vocabulary, such that those students for whom the DIBELS text-
reading fluency measure did not accurately predict comprehension also had
significantly lower vocabulary scores. Neither study investigated the interaction
between oral language competencies and text-reading fluency. However, LM
learners’ limited L2 oral language (e.g., Carlo et al., 2004) may affect the
relationship between text-reading fluency and comprehension (as might be true for
monolingual learners with poor vocabulary and listening comprehension) even for
those students with highly proficient word-reading fluency.
Building on previous work, particularly by Jenkins et al. (2003a), the present
study investigated the relationship between text-reading fluency and reading
comprehension with Spanish-speaking LM fifth graders. Using hierarchical
regression techniques, Jenkins et al. found that text-reading fluency, relative to
word-reading fluency more strongly predicted reading comprehension among native
English-speaking fourth graders. Replicating Jenkins et al.’s design, we examined
the relative influence of word-reading fluency versus text-reading fluency on
reading comprehensions performance. Then, building on Jenkins et al.’s design, we
examined whether text-reading fluency explains unique variance in reading
comprehension above and beyond the influence of L2 oral language and, finally,
whether L2 oral proficiency influences the relationship of text-reading fluency to
comprehension. We predicted that more advanced L2 oral language proficiency

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Spanish-speakers’ text-reading fluency and comprehension 479

would be associated with higher text-reading fluency performance, and in turn,

stronger reading comprehension outcomes.

Determinants of text-reading fluency

Although reading fluency is often defined and measured simply by the speed and
accuracy of reading isolated words, many researchers argue that a more complex
conceptualization is necessary in which fluency is understood in terms of its
components (e.g., Breznitz, 2006; Perfetti, 1985, 1995, 2007; Wolf & Katzir-Cohen,
2001). In this study, two component skills are of particular interest. First, decoding, or
the accuracy with which orthographic patterns generate phonological representations,
has been identified as a predictor of text-reading fluency among monolingual learners
with reading difficulties (Katzir et al., 2006; Torgesen et al., 2001). Evidence from
research with adult bilinguals indicates that readers’ sensitivity to L2 orthographic
regularity is influenced by the orthographic structures in their native (L1) language
(Koda, 1996; Wang & Koda, 2007), making L2 decoding skill a component of interest
for the LM students in the present study. Second, because accessing a rich
representation of the word’s meaning is an integral part of efficient lower-level
processing (Perfetti, 1985, 2007), it is also important to attend to the additional
potential influence of vocabulary knowledge on text-reading fluency. Some empirical
evidence suggests that vocabulary knowledge measured globally predicts text-
reading fluency for monolingual fifth graders (Torgesen et al., 2001).
Examination of predictors of text-reading fluency for LM learners builds upon
the program of research by Torgesen and his colleagues (2001) with monolingual
English-speakers in elementary school. Their study with 201 fifth graders found
moderate, significant correlations for text-reading fluency with both decoding
accuracy (r = .66) and vocabulary knowledge (r = .62). Regression analysis
revealed that while word-reading fluency accounted for 67% of the variance in text-
reading fluency, decoding accounted for 1%, and vocabulary knowledge accounted
for an additional 6%. Interestingly, vocabulary knowledge explained significant
variance only among those students who were at or above average in text-reading
fluency, whereas vocabulary knowledge did not explain significant variance in text-
reading fluency for those learners with below average skills in this area. Torgesen
and colleagues posited that ‘‘the richness of a child’s semantic network may be
uniquely important to text reading efficiency only in older children at higher ranges
of fluency’’ (p. 341). The findings from studies with monolingual English-speakers
indicate that underdeveloped oral language proficiency in English may influence
text-reading fluency in LM students, yet to our knowledge, no empirical study has
investigated the predictors of text-reading fluency with this population of learners.

Present study

This study was designed to advance existing research conducted with monolinguals
(e.g., Hosp & Fuchs, 2005; Jenkins et al., 2003a; Riedel, 2007; Schwanenflugel et al.,
2006; Shinn et al., 1992) on children’s text-reading fluency and its relationship to
reading comprehension by focusing on the growing population of LM students.

123
480 A. C. Crosson, N. K. Lesaux

Explicitly drawing upon the design of Jenkins et al. (2003a) who conducted their
study with monolingual fourth graders, in the first stage of our analyses we examined
the relative influence of word-reading fluency and text-reading fluency on reading
comprehension performance. In the next step of our analyses we expanded Jenkins
et al.’s design by examining whether text-reading fluency explains unique variance in
reading comprehension above and beyond the impact of both word-reading fluency
and oral language skills. In the final step, we investigated the whether L2 oral
language skills influence the relationship between text-reading fluency and compre-
hension. We predicted that more advanced L2 oral language proficiency would be
associated with higher text-reading fluency performance, and in turn, stronger reading
comprehension outcomes. If this hypothesis were substantiated, this would raise an
additional question of interest: what are the factors that influence text-fluency
performance? Drawing on previous studies with monolinguals (Katzir et al., 2006)
and, in particular, the design of Torgesen et al.’s (2001) study conducted with fifth
graders, we investigated the predictors of text-reading fluency for this sample of
Spanish-speaking LM learners.
Thus, the study was guided by three research questions: (1) What are the relative
contributions of text-reading fluency and word-reading fluency to reading compre-
hension? (2) Does oral language proficiency influence the relationship between text-
reading fluency and reading comprehension? and (3) What are the relative
contributions of decoding skill and vocabulary knowledge to text-reading fluency
when controlling for the influence of word-reading fluency?

Method

Participants

The participants in this study were 76 fifth graders (33 girls and 43 boys) of
Spanish-speaking backgrounds from three schools in a southwestern U.S. large,
urban school district. The mean age of participants was 10 years 8 months. All
students in the fifth grade biliteracy program in those schools were asked to take part
in the study; all students who completed the entire battery were included in the
analysis for this study. Participating children were instructed in both Spanish and
English for a portion of each day, with increasing amounts of English instruction in
each grade level. Literacy instruction was predominantly in Spanish during
kindergarten and first grade, and approximately 80% English, 20% Spanish by
fourth grade. In fifth grade, all students were instructed entirely in English in
structured English immersion classrooms. Each of the three schools served a student
population with low socio-economic status, ranging from 90 to 100% of students
receiving free or reduced lunch.
The participants were predominately U.S.-born children of Mexican-American
immigrants. Seventy percent of the participants were born in the U.S., whereas the
remaining participants were born in Mexico, most of whom immigrated to the U.S.
before kindergarten. Seventy-seven percent of the students attended the same school
since kindergarten or first grade, whereas another 12% attended another school in

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Spanish-speakers’ text-reading fluency and comprehension 481

the U.S. prior to their current one, and 11% reported attending a school in Mexico
prior to the current one. Participants’ responses to an interview about language use
revealed that their home language was primarily Spanish, whereas they tended to
use more English outside the home. Nearly 90% of students reported that their
mother spoke ‘‘only or mostly Spanish’’ at home and nearly 70% of the students
reported that their father spoke ‘‘only or mostly Spanish’’ at home. In contrast, over
60% of the students reported that they spoke ‘‘only or mostly English’’ with peers
outside the home.
Given that this study was conducted with Spanish-speaking LM learners reading
in English, the primary focus was on measuring component reading and language
skills and reading comprehension in English. However, in order to thoroughly
describe the learners’ profiles we collected information on their Spanish oral
language and literacy skills using available standardized, norm-referenced mea-
sures.1 For this fifth grade sample, Spanish decoding was above the national average
(standardized mean = 111.6, SD = 18.5), while Spanish oral language skills were
below average (e.g., vocabulary standardized mean = 91.8, SD = 15.9). To our
knowledge, no technically adequate word-reading fluency or text-reading fluency
measure exists, thus we are unable to present information about participants’
reading fluency in Spanish and did not use any Spanish measures analytically for
this study.

Measures

Text-reading fluency

Oral reading rate of connected text was measured using the Gray Oral Reading Test,
fourth edition (GORT; Weiderholt & Bryant, 2001). In this test of passage reading
fluency, participants read passages of increasing complexity aloud. The test is
discontinued when participants make a specified number of oral reading errors and
read the passage in a time at or beyond a certain limit. To be consistent with existing
research on text-reading fluency (e.g., Torgesen et al., 2001), we report GORT
Fluency raw scores representing a combined index of the accuracy and reading rate
of connected text. The publisher reports alternate forms reliability coefficient of .78.

Word-reading fluency

Oral reading rate of decontextualized words was measured using the Test of Oral
Word Reading Efficiency (TOWRE; Torgesen, Wagner, & Rashotte, 1999). In this
test, participants are asked to read a list of real English words as quickly and

1
Spanish decoding was assessed with the Woodcock Language Proficiency Battery Revised (Woodcock
& Munoz-Sandoval, 1995) Word Attack subtest. Spanish vocabulary was assessed with the Test de
Vocabulario en Imagenes Peabody (TVIP; Dunn, Padilla, Lugo & Dunn, 1986), the Spanish version of the
Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test. Reported scores are standardized with a population mean = 100,
population SD = 15.

123
482 A. C. Crosson, N. K. Lesaux

accurately as possible in 45 seconds. The publisher reports alternate forms

reliability coefficients above .90.

Reading comprehension

The Gates Reading Comprehension Subtest (MacGinitie, MacGinitie, Maria, &

Dreyer, 2000), was used as our measure of reading comprehension. For the test,
participants are asked to read 13 short passages and then answer multiple-choice
questions about the passages, completing as much of the assessment as possible
within a 35 min period. The publisher reports Kuder–Richardson Formula 20
reliability coefficients of .90–.92 for the fifth grade test.

Vocabulary

Vocabulary knowledge was measured using the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test
(PPVT-IIIA; Dunn & Dunn, 1997). In this receptive measure, the administrator says
a word aloud, and the student chooses one of four pictures that best represents the
word. The words become increasingly complex and the task administration is
discontinued when a specific proportion of items in a given level are incorrect. The
publisher reports an alternate-forms reliability coefficient of .95 and an internal
consistency reliability coefficient of .95.

Listening comprehension

Listening comprehension was assessed using the WLPB-R Listening Comprehen-

sion subtest (WLPB-R; Woodcock, 1991). In this test, the administrator reads a
passage aloud to the participant. The passage is missing one word, which the
participant must provide. Passages become more complex in terms of sentence
complexity and vocabulary and the task administration is discontinued when a
specific proportion of items in a given level are incorrect. The publisher reports an
internal consistency reliability estimate of .85.

Decoding skill

Decoding skill was measured using the WLPB-R Word Attack subtest (Woodcock,
1991) in which participants are asked to read a list of decodable pseudowords of
increasing complexity. The task administration is discontinued when all items in a
given level are incorrect. The publisher reports an internal consistency reliability
coefficient of .87.

Procedure

A team of trained graduate students administered the assessments in a quiet room.

With the exception of the Gates–MacGinitie reading comprehension test, which is
designed to be group-administered, all measures were individually administered.

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Spanish-speakers’ text-reading fluency and comprehension 483

Table 1 Bivariate correlations and descriptive statistics (n = 76)

1 2 3 4 5 6

1. Text-reading fluency 1.0 0.723*** 0.442*** 0.220
0.151 0.619***

2. Word-reading fluency – 1.0 0.360** 0.228* 0.118 0.499***
3. Reading comprehension – – 1.0 0.555*** 0.490*** 0.370**
4. Vocabulary – – – 1.0 0.635*** 0.200

5. Listening comprehension – – – – 1.0 0.215

6. Decoding – – – – – 1.0
Range 26–111 47–89 7–38 60–158 11–30 477–540
M 59.30 69.63 19.51 112.88 21.26 502.80
SD 14.42 8.97 6.94 20.05 3.89 13.24


* p \ .05; ** p \ .01; *** p \ .001; p \ .10
Note: Text-reading fluency = Gray Oral Reading Test, Fourth Edition; Word-reading fluency = Test of
word reading efficiency; Reading comprehension = Gates MacGinitie Reading Comprehension Subtest;
Vocabulary = Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test; Listening comprehension = Woodcock Language
Proficiency Battery Revised Listening Comprehension Subtest; Decoding = Woodcock Language Pro-
ficiency Battery Revised Word Attack Subtest. All are raw scores

These assessments took place during a six-week period in the middle of the
academic year.

Results

Descriptive results

Table 1 shows means and standard deviations of raw scores for each task.
Performance on the word-reading fluency (i.e., TOWRE) and text-reading fluency
(i.e., GORT) tasks was very close to national norms.2 Word-reading fluency scores
were normally distributed; only three students scored more than one standard
deviation (SD) below national norms. However, the distribution of text-reading
fluency scores was negatively skewed and there was slightly more variability in
participants’ text-reading fluency (SD = 3.34) than would have been predicted by
national norms (SD = 3). Although 42 students (i.e., more than half the sample)
scored at or above national means for text-reading fluency, six students scored more
than one SD below the national mean and five students scored more than 2 SDs
below the national mean.
Several additional observations of interest can be made from the descriptive
statistics (Table 1). First, reading comprehension performance was more than one
full standard deviation below national norms. Second, we observed very poor
performance on the vocabulary and listening comprehension measures. For both
2
In descriptions of the sampling schemes for each measure, the publishers of both the TOWRE and
GORT note that they attempted to recruit a representative sample of different ‘‘ethnic groups.’’ As such,
Hispanics were 9% of the norming sample for the TOWRE and 12% for the GORT. The publishers do not
provide any information about the linguistic background of sample participants.

123
484 A. C. Crosson, N. K. Lesaux

measures, the mean of our sample of LM Spanish-English fifth graders was at least
one standard deviation below national norms. In contrast, the third observation of
interest is that on the decoding task (i.e., word attack), participants performed above
the national mean.

The relative contributions of word-reading fluency and text-reading fluency

to reading comprehension performance

Table 1 shows bivariate correlations between each of the variables calculated using
Pearson correlation analysis. Notably, the strongest relationships were observed
within similar cognitive tasks. Specifically those primarily assessing decoding skill
were strongly correlated (word-reading fluency and decoding: r = .50, p \ .0001)
and oral language tasks were highly correlated (vocabulary and listening
comprehension: r = .635, p \ .0001). Reading comprehension was only moder-
ately correlated with each of the oral reading fluency predictors. However, in light
of the strong correlation between word-reading fluency and text-reading fluency, it
was not clear whether both variables would explain unique variance in reading
comprehension.
Hierarchical regression analysis, conducted with raw scores for all analyses,
enabled us to estimate the degree to which word-reading fluency and text-reading
fluency tasks explained unique variance in reading comprehension.3 With reading
comprehension as the outcome, word-reading fluency was entered in the first step of
the model. Consistent with existing research (e.g., Gough, Hoover & Peterson,
1996; Hoover & Gough, 1990; Perfetti, 1985), word-reading fluency predicted just
under 13% (R2 = 0.1293) of the variance in reading comprehension (b = 0.278,
p = .001, SE = 0.084). Text-reading fluency, when entered into the second step,
explained an additional 7% (R2 = 0.1987) of significant, unique variance in reading
comprehension (b = 0.184, p = 0.014, SE = 0.073). However, with text-reading
fluency in the model, the remaining unique variance explained by word-reading
fluency was not significant (b = 0.065, NS). Nonetheless, these two variables were
included in all subsequent models regardless of their significance level for
theoretical reasons and in order to account for the collinearity they may share in
predicting reading comprehension.

The influence of text-reading fluency and oral language proficiency on reading

comprehension

A subsequent set of models was built to disentangle the role of text-reading fluency
in reading comprehension while taking into consideration the role of oral language

3
To ensure that those students in our sample with extremely low reading comprehension performance
were not exerting an overly strong influence on our results, we first ran all analyses with the full sample of
n = 76 and a second time with a sample that did not include children whose reading comprehension
performance was more than two standard deviations below the national mean (based on National Curve
Equivalent scores). The trends observed in the models based on the full sample (n = 76) were exactly the
same as those observed in the sample without outliers (n = 74). Given the nature of the population under
study, we opted to retain these participants in the models.

123
Spanish-speakers’ text-reading fluency and comprehension 485

competencies. Hierarchical regression analysis enabled us to estimate the degree to

which oral language competencies (i.e., vocabulary knowledge and listening
comprehension) explained unique variance in reading comprehension after
accounting for word-reading fluency. The taxonomy of regression analyses are
displayed in Table 2.
We predicted that the effect of word-reading fluency and text-reading fluency on
reading comprehension would be influenced by oral language competencies,
assessed with vocabulary and listening comprehension measures. In the first step
(Model 1), we included word-reading fluency which alone, as mentioned previously,
accounted for just under 13% of the variance in reading comprehension. In the
second and third steps (Models 2 and 3) we entered the two oral language variables
to reflect a progression from unidimensional (vocabulary knowledge) to multifac-
eted (listening comprehension). Both vocabulary and listening comprehension had
positive, strong effects on reading comprehension with the word-reading fluency
present in the model. This was not surprising, as research has documented the robust
relationship between vocabulary knowledge and reading comprehension (e.g.,
National Reading Panel, 2000; Snow, Burns, & Griffin, 1998).
Text-reading fluency, entered in the fourth step (Model 4), explained unique
variance in reading comprehension above and beyond the other variables (b = .150,
p [ .05), though its effect was not large. This model explained 44.4% of the
variance in reading comprehension performance. Interactions between text-reading
fluency and the oral language variables were tested to pursue our hypothesis that
oral language competencies might influence the relationship between text-reading
fluency and comprehension. Contrary to our hypothesis, the interaction between
vocabulary and text-reading fluency was not significant at the predetermined alpha
level of .05 when entered as the fifth step (not shown in Table 2). Nonetheless, it is
notable that the interaction was very close to the conventional alpha level adhered to
in this study (text-reading fluency b = -0.392, p = .20; vocabulary b = -.156,
p = .319; Interaction b = .005, p = .073).4
Importantly, in the final model (Model 5), the interaction between text-reading
fluency and listening comprehension was significant. This model which includes the
cross-product of text-reading fluency and listening comprehension explained 53.6%
of the variance in reading comprehension, 9.2% more of the variance than Model 4
without the interaction term.
The interaction between text-reading fluency and listening comprehension, as
depicted in Fig. 1, revealed that, for students with well-developed listening
comprehension skill (operationalized as scoring at or above the 75th percentile),
strong text-reading fluency was associated with higher reading comprehension
performance and poor text-reading fluency was associated with lower reading
comprehension performance. However, for those students with poorly developed
listening comprehension skill (operationalized as scoring at or below the 25th
percentile), reading comprehension was low regardless of text-reading fluency skill.

4
Note that we also tested both vocabulary and listening comprehension for an interaction with word-
reading fluency; neither cross-product was significant. Moreover, we tested for an interaction between
word- and text-reading fluency; it was not significant.

123
 486

123
Table 2 Nested taxonomy of hierarchical regression models predicting reading comprehension in which standardized beta weights are presented and their significance
level for unique variance (n = 76)
Predictors M1 M2 M3 M4 M5

Word-reading fluency 0.278** (0.084) 0.191* (0.074) 0.196** (0.102) 0.024 (0.100) 0.084 (0.093)
Vocabulary – 0.173*** (0.033) 0.120** (0.042) 0.118** (0.041) 0.052 (0.041)
Listening comp. – – 0.422* (0.211) 0.393
(0.205) -2.160** (0.711)
Text-reading fluency – – – 0.150* (0.062) -0.920** (0. 293)
Cross-product (text-reading – – – – 0.049*** (0.013)
fluency 9 listening comp.)
R2 0.1293 0.3649 0.3981 0.4441 0.5360
SSE 3147.66 2296.01 2175.89 2009.57 1677.52
DR2 – 0.24 0.03 0.046 0.0919


* p \ .05; ** p \ .01; *** p \ .001; p \ .10
Note: Values for each variable indicate standardized beta weights with standard errors presented in parentheses. The significance level for each beta weight indicates the
significance level for unique variance
Word-reading fluency = Test of word reading efficiency; Text-reading fluency = Gray Oral Reading Test, Fourth Edition; Vocabulary = Peabody Picture Vocabulary
Test; Listening comprehension = Woodcock Language Proficiency Battery Revised Listening Comprehension Subtest
A. C. Crosson, N. K. Lesaux
Spanish-speakers’ text-reading fluency and comprehension 487

40
35
Comprehension Score
Fitted Gates Reading

30
25
20
15
10
5
0
0 20 40 60 80 100 120
Text-reading Fluency Score
Low Listening Comprehension High Listening Comprehension

Fig. 1 Estimated performance on Gates Reading Comprehension subtest predicted by text-reading

fluency performance (GORT-4) at high (i.e., scoring at the 75th percentile in our sample) and low (i.e.,
scoring at the 25th percentile) listening comprehension levels. Note: Raw scores and beta coefficients
were used to calculate interaction term

Determinants of text-reading fluency

Our third goal was to explore the factors that explain variance in text-reading
fluency for Spanish LM fifth graders. As shown in Table 1, text-reading fluency and
word-reading fluency were strongly correlated while text-reading fluency and
decoding skill were moderately correlated. The correlation between text-reading
fluency and vocabulary was weak and not significant.
Hierarchical regression models were constructed to determine the contribution of
decoding skill and vocabulary knowledge to text-reading fluency when controlling
for word-reading fluency. Following the same procedure as used in Torgesen and his
colleagues’ (2001) series of studies predicting text-reading fluency with monolin-
gual English speakers in elementary and middle school, we first entered word-
reading fluency as a control in the model. Based on Torgesen et al.’s findings and
the correlation in the present study, we expected word-reading fluency to be a strong
predictor of text-reading fluency.
As shown in Table 3 and as expected, both word-reading fluency and decoding
skill were significant predictors of text-reading fluency (GORT-4 Fluency Score) in
every model. The parameter estimate for vocabulary was not significant when
entered in Model 3. Note that we also tested interactions between vocabulary and
both the word-reading fluency measure and the decoding measure; neither cross-
product was significant. Thus, we adopted Model 2 as our final model. Word-
reading fluency (b = .896, p \ .001) and decoding skill (b = .920, p \ .001) exert
a strong effect on text-reading fluency, such that faster word reading and more
accurate decoding skill are associated with faster rates of reading connected text.
Together, they explain just over 60% of the variance in text-reading fluency.

123
488 A. C. Crosson, N. K. Lesaux

Table 3 Nested taxonomy of hierarchical regression models predicting text-reading fluency in which
standardized beta weights are presented and their significance level for unique variance (n = 76)
Predictors M1 M2 M3

Word-reading fluency 1.163*** (0.129) 0.896*** (0.138) 0.5141 (0.140)

Decoding skill – 0.920*** (0.241) -0.4970 (0.243)
Vocabulary – – 0.0203 (0.055)
R2 0.5483 0.6022 0.6067
SSE 7434.86 6199.46 6129.53
DR2 – 0.0539 0.0045

* p \ .05; ** p \ .01; *** p \ .001

Note: Values for each variable indicate standardized beta weights with standard errors presented in
parentheses. The significance level for each beta weight indicates the significance level for unique
variance
Word-reading fluency = Test of word reading efficiency; Decoding skill = Woodcock Language Pro-
ficiency Battery Revised Word Attack Subtest; Vocabulary = Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test

Discussion

Despite the recent surge of interest in understanding the development of reading

fluency and the role it plays in reading comprehension processes (e.g., Fuchs et al.,
2001; Daane et al., 2005; National Reading Panel, 2000), very little scholarship has
focused on understanding oral reading fluency for LM learners. Building upon
previous studies with monolingual children (e.g., Jenkins et al., 2003a; Torgesen
et al., 2001), this study was designed both to address this gap in the research by
focusing on the relationship of text-reading fluency to comprehension and to
investigate the predictors of text-reading fluency among LM learners. With a sample
of 76 LM fifth graders from Spanish-speaking backgrounds, we investigated three
aspects of text-reading fluency: the relative contributions of text-reading fluency and
word-reading fluency to reading comprehension; the role of oral language
proficiency in the relationship between text-reading fluency and reading compre-
hension; and the relative contributions of decoding skill and vocabulary knowledge
to text-reading fluency. Our findings both converge and diverge from studies with
monolingual students in interesting ways. Taken together, the findings call into
question working assumptions about the relationships between text-reading fluency
and reading comprehension when applied to this population of LM learners—U.S.-
born, low-income children of immigrants with underdeveloped L2 oral language—
and possibly to other populations of learners with similarly poor oral language
competencies (discussed later).
As has been found in several studies with monolingual students (Fuchs et al.,
2001; Jenkins et al., 2003a; Shinn et al., 1992), text-reading fluency was strongly
related to reading comprehension performance. In the present study, word-reading
fluency as a sole predictor explained a significant 13% of the variance in reading
comprehension, text-reading fluency; when entered simultaneously with word-
reading fluency, explained an additional 7% of the unique variance in reading
comprehension.

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Spanish-speakers’ text-reading fluency and comprehension 489

That text-reading fluency, above and beyond word-reading fluency, plays an

important role in reading comprehension converges with Jenkins et al. (2003a)
finding about the unique role of text-reading fluency. Although direct comparisons
are not possible due to use of different fluency instruments in the two studies, it is
notable that the combination of word-reading fluency and text-reading fluency skill
explained 71% of the variance in reading comprehension among monolingual fourth
graders in Jenkins et al.’s study, whereas for our LM fifth graders, the two predictors
explained under 20% of reading comprehension variance.
Moreover, text-reading fluency explained unique variance in reading compre-
hension even when oral language variables (i.e., vocabulary and listening
comprehension) were accounted for. Although the effect of text-reading fluency
on comprehension was rather small, it was significant, suggesting that there is
something special about rapid, automatic fluent reading of words in connected text
that is not explained by other well-known predictors of reading comprehension.
However, we found that the relationship between text-reading fluency and
reading comprehension is strongly mediated by L2 oral language. That is, when
word-reading fluency and text-reading fluency were entered in a single model
together with oral language variables, these predictors explained approximately
54% of the variance, over 9% more variance than could be explained without the
interaction. The interaction indicated that strong text-reading fluency performance
was associated with better reading comprehension outcomes, especially for those
students who performed well on the measure of English listening comprehension
skills, a holistic measure of oral language that taps verbal reasoning, memory skills,
vocabulary and syntactic knowledge among other skills.
The fact that oral language competencies covary with text-reading fluency to
explain reading comprehension is consistent with the findings of Yovanoff et al.
(2005), but extends that work by exploring the interaction between oral language
and text-reading fluency variables. It also supports Riedel’s (2007) finding that text-
reading fluency is not as reliably predictive of comprehension for students with
poorer vocabulary knowledge.
The strong influence of the interaction between text-reading fluency and listening
comprehension on reading comprehension might not seem remarkable at first
glance. After all, Gough and Tunmer’s (1986) well-known ‘‘Simple View of
Reading’’ predicts that reading comprehension is the cross product of listening
comprehension and word-reading fluency. However, we did not detect a significant
effect of word-reading fluency, nor an interaction between word-reading fluency and
listening comprehension. Instead, the interaction was between text-reading fluency
and listening comprehension. These findings underscore the importance of text-
reading fluency as a unique and important predictor of reading comprehension and
raise questions about its determinants for LM learners, and perhaps for monolingual
children with similar oral language profiles. While we did not have a comparison
group of monolingual English speakers with low oral language, it is, indeed,
reasonable to hypothesize that monolingual children with similarly underdeveloped
vocabulary knowledge and standard English syntax would show similar profiles to
the LM learners in our study.

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490 A. C. Crosson, N. K. Lesaux

In addition to investigating the role of oral language, word-reading fluency and text
reading fluency in reading comprehension, we investigated whether decoding skill
and vocabulary knowledge were significant predictors of text-reading fluency for this
sample of Spanish-speaking LM learners. To do so, we drew upon the design of
Torgesen et al. (2001) study conducted with monolingual English fifth graders. As
hypothesized, word-reading fluency and decoding skill were significant in every
model; however, as was foreshadowed by the weak correlation between vocabulary
and text-reading fluency, the parameter estimate for vocabulary was not significant.
Thus, our final model demonstrates that word-reading fluency exerts the strongest
effect on text-reading fluency and decoding skill exerts a small but significant effect,
such that faster word reading and more accurate decoding skill are associated with
faster rates of reading connected text. Together, word reading efficiency and decoding
skill explain just over 60% of the variance in text-reading fluency. These findings
contradicted our hypothesis that vocabulary would be a significant predictor of text-
reading fluency, as was the case for Torgesen’s fifth monolingual graders. This
discrepancy may be attributable to the use of different instruments for measuring
vocabulary knowledge and/or may relate to the overwhelmingly poor L2 vocabulary
knowledge among LM in this sample, or perhaps that the small sample size did not
permit us to detect significant effects.

Future research

There are several directions for research to address unanswered questions that
emerged from this study as well as to address its limitations. Of note, our final model
left 46% of the variance unexplained suggests that future work should aim to further
unpack additional contributing factors to explain individual differences in reading
comprehension for this population (Lesaux, Crosson, Kieffer, & Pierce, 2006).
First, future studies may include different measures of reading comprehension in
order to investigate the relationship between text reading fluency and reading
comprehension as a function of measure type. We chose a widely administered test of
reading comprehension to examine our findings within the context of findings from
relevant research. However, as has been posited by other researchers employing
global, standardized measures of reading comprehension, this assessment might not
‘‘optimally reflect the capacity to construct meaning from text’’ (Fuchs et al., 2001, p.
243), and it would be important to replicate these findings with other comprehension
measures that perhaps more accurately reflect the kinds and degree of challenge
typical of reading tasks for fifth graders (Schwanenflugel et al., 2006).
Second, related to issues of measurement, in this study we did not assess prosodic
features while reading orally. More recent definitions of text-reading fluency assess
rate and accuracy—as we did—but also include the ability to read with appropriate
expression, operationalized as appropriate intonation, stress, and pauses (Daane
et al., 2005; Miller & Schwanenflugel, 2006; National Reading Panel, 2000;
Schwanenflugel et al., 2004; Wolf & Katzir-Cohen, 2001). Previous research
conducted primarily with monolinguals has demonstrated a very strong correlation
between both text-reading rate (Daane et al., 2005) and word-reading fluency
(Schwanenflugel et al., 2004) with the ability to read with expression. However, this

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Spanish-speakers’ text-reading fluency and comprehension 491

research also shows that measuring these aspects of fluency does not explain more
of the variance in reading comprehension than simpler, more easily operationalized
measures (i.e., rate and accuracy). Nonetheless, assessing prosodic features may
offer a promising avenue for better understanding and explaining the relationship
between text reading fluency and reading comprehension for LM students with
limited L2 oral language, whose prosody might vary more than monolinguals due to
lack of word knowledge or lack of syntactic knowledge. However, an obstacle to
overcome is the poor technical qualities of prosody measures, as these features of
text reading are very difficult to measure reliably (Fuchs et al., 2001).
Third, future research should examine with greater specificity the cognitive and
linguistic factors that may be determinants of comprehension and text-reading
fluency for LM learners. In the present study, two broad measures of oral language
were used to assess the influence of linguistic competencies—listening compre-
hension and breadth of vocabulary knowledge. Future work should seek to pinpoint
which specific aspects of oral language contribute to and interact with text-reading
fluency. For example, sentence-level and syntactic skills that are associated with
fluent reading may support comprehension, including the ability to parse sentences
and the ability to verbally segment word strings into larger syntactic groupings (e.g.,
Kuhn & Stahl, 2003; Schreiber, 1980; Schwanenflugel et al., 2006; Wolf & Katzir-
Cohen, 2001). The nature in which these processes support LM learners’
comprehension may be direct or indirect; for example, automatic syntactic
processing may allow the reader to direct more cognitive resources towards
comprehension efforts and/or activate underlying mechanisms that affect represen-
tation and integration of the information being read. Identifying the specific aspects
of oral language that contribute to learners’ text-reading fluency will shed light on
the extent to which these findings are specific to LM learners or whether they
generalize to monolingual populations with underdeveloped oral language and is an
essential step for informing instructional practice.
Finally, we were unable to look at cross-linguistic relationships, yet there is
evidence from work with adult bilinguals that indeed word recognition processes in
bilinguals are influenced by both underlying language systems (e.g., Dijkstra & van
Heuven, 2002; Koda, 1996; Wang & Koda, 2007). From research with LM children,
there is evidence that L1 word-reading fluency predicts that competency in L2
(Verhoeven, 1994). That is, for Turkish LM learners acquiring Dutch, who had
received literacy instruction in L1, Turkish word-reading fluency was a strong
predictor of the same skill in Dutch. This finding is especially interesting given that
Dutch and Turkish are highly dissimilar with respect to phonological and orthographic
structure, suggesting that at least some aspects of word recognition automaticity may
draw on language general processes. Further research with LM learners should
investigate using psychometrically sound measures of L1 fluency; at this time, no
standardized measure of Spanish word-reading fluency or text-reading fluency exists.

Implications

The critical finding to emerge from this study is that text-reading fluency predicted
unique variance in reading comprehension above and beyond word-reading fluency

123
492 A. C. Crosson, N. K. Lesaux

and oral language competencies with this sample of Spanish-speaking LM learners’

reading in English. Nonetheless, the effect was rather small suggesting that it cannot
necessarily serve as an effective proxy for overall reading ability. In fact, the degree
to which faster text-reading predicted stronger reading comprehension was largely
mediated by L2 listening comprehension. This finding calls into question the
generalizability of current assumptions about the role of text-reading fluency as a
good predictor of reading comprehension, and suggests the need to generate more
complex models of comprehension, and in turn assessment, for LM learners. With
this sample—faced with the challenge of reading in their L2 and not typically fully
proficient—it would be incorrect to assume that assessment of text-reading fluency
can be considered a reliable indicator of reading comprehension. In this case, the
sample’s mean score for text-reading fluency is in the average range yet the mean
score for reading comprehension is more than one full standard deviation below the
national mean for the test.
Consistent with the findings and recommendations put forth by Schilling,
Carlisle, Scott, & Zeng (2007) and Riedel (2007), our findings reinforce the need to
supplement text-reading fluency measures with assessments of vocabulary for
effective screening and/or progress-monitoring in the domain of reading, particu-
larly with urban and low-performing students. Current models of assessment and
assumptions about the multi-faceted reading comprehension process are largely
based on findings from studies conducted with children and adults who are
monolingual speakers of English (cf., NRP, 2000). However, to promote optimal
development of both text-reading fluency and reading comprehension, for LM
students with underdeveloped L2 oral language, it may not be sufficient to rely on
these existing models of reading development and instruction.

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