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11. Unraveling Scarborough’s Reading Rope: Fluency & Comprehension
3rd December 2024 • Literacy in Color: A Science of Reading Aligned Podcast for Educators • Michelle Sullivan • Literacy Coach & Science of Reading Advocate
00:00:00 00:14:41

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In the final episode of this mini-series on Scarborough’s Reading Rope, we tie everything together by exploring the culmination of skilled reading: fluency and comprehension. We’ll recap the interconnected strands of Word Recognition and Language Comprehension, discuss the role of fluency as a bridge between decoding and comprehension, and unpack why both knowledge-building and strategy instruction are essential for fostering reflective, skilled readers.

Key Takeaways:

  • Fluency Defined: Fluency is "reasonably accurate reading at an appropriate rate, with suitable expression," leading to deep comprehension and motivation to read (Jan Hasbrouck & Deb Glaser).
  • Components of Fluency: Accuracy, rate, and prosody work together to create fluent, engaging readers.
  • Fluency as a Bridge: Without fluency, readers struggle to focus on comprehension. Fluency frees cognitive resources to engage deeply with the text.
  • Comprehension Strategies vs. Knowledge Building: Both are essential—strategies help students process text deeply, while background knowledge allows them to make meaningful connections.
  • Skilled Reading: The fluent coordination of word recognition and text comprehension is the ultimate goal, as defined on the right-hand side of Scarborough’s Rope.

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