Becoming a Fluent Reader: Reading Skill and Prosodic Features in the Oral Reading of Young Readers.

Abstract

Prosodic reading, or reading with expression, is considered one of the hallmarks of fluent reading. The major purpose of the study was to learn how reading prosody is related to decoding and reading comprehension skills. Suprasegmental features of oral reading were measured in 2nd-and 3rd-grade children (N = 123) and 24 adults. Reading comprehension and word decoding skills were assessed. Children with faster decoding speed made shorter and less variable intersentential pauses, shorter intrasentential pauses, larger sentence-final fundamental frequency (F 0 ) declinations, and better matched the adult prosodic F 0 profile. Two structural equation models found evidence of a relationship between decoding speed and reading prosody as well as decoding speed and comprehension. There was only minimal evidence that prosodic reading was an important mediator of reading comprehension skill.Prosodic reading, or reading with expression, is widely considered to be one of the hallmarks of the achievement of reading fluency. When a child is reading prosodically, oral reading sounds much like speech with appropriate phrasing, pause structures, stress, rise and fall patterns, and general expressiveness. However, exactly where does the development of prosodic reading or "making it sound like language" (Stahl & Kuhn, 2002, p. 582) fit in our conceptions of developing reading skill? The purpose of the current study was to determine how individual differences in developing reading skill are related to prosodic reading in order to better place prosodic reading in the process of learning to read fluently. Gough and Tumner's (1986) "simple view of reading" proposed that reading comprehension could be described in terms of two factors-language comprehension and word decoding. In this model, both language comprehension and decoding are seen as limiting factors in reading comprehension. If the child's decoding is less than fully automatic, his or her comprehension will suffer. As decoding moves toward full automaticity, reading comprehension skill should equal comprehension of oral language (Carver, 1993(Carver, , 2000Hoover & Gough, 1990). OthersCorrespondence concerning this article should be addressed to Paula J. Schwanenflugel, Department of Educational Psychology, University of Georgia, 323E Aderhold Hall, Athens, GA 30602. E-mail: pschwane@coe.uga.edu. NIH Public Access NIH-PA Author ManuscriptNIH-PA Author Manuscript NIH-PA Author Manuscript (e.g., Kuhn & Stahl, 2003; National Reading Panel, 2000) suggested that more than automaticity of individual word decoding is necessary for comprehension to be enhanced. Instead, they suggested that fluency, defined as not only accuracy and automaticity of individual word reading, but also prosodic rendering of the text, is needed for children to adequately comprehend. What Is Reading Prosody?Despite its presumed status as the hallmark of fluent reading, we currently know little about the nature of reading prosody per se. To read prosodically, children must be able to do more than de...

Prosody of syntactically complex sentences in the oral reading of young children.

“…That is, children who showed large declinations at the end of basic declarative sentences and larger pitch rises following yes-no questions tended to be those whose comprehension skills were greater. Pausing, however, was unrelated to comprehension skills beyond the relation accounted for by rapid and accurate text reading.The current study has found better evidence for the relation between prosody and reading comprehension compared with previous research by Schwanenflugel et al (2004). As in the current study, Schwanenflugel et al found no independent effect of pause structures on reading comprehension once reading speed and accuracy were taken into account.…”

“…A study by Schwanenflugel et al (2004) provided a direct assessment of the role of reading prosody in mediating the relation between decoding and comprehension skills. They carried out spectrographic analysis of the oral readings of a large sample of second and third grade children.…”

“…This study directly addresses some of the limitations of the Schwanenflugel et al (2004) study by focusing on the oral reading of a comparatively complex text directed at the children's grade level. The current study included a large sample of third grade children rather than the mixture of children at second and third grades found in the Schwanenflugel et al study to avoid confounding individual differences with developmental change.…”

“…They found that pause and rate features were more related to fluency ratings, whereas pitch features (those related to F 0 ) were more related to expressiveness ratings. Although these studies provide good descriptive evidence for the idea that prosody is linked to fluent and expressive reading, they do not help us understand whether prosody is helpful for comprehension in young readers.A study by Schwanenflugel et al (2004) provided a direct assessment of the role of reading prosody in mediating the relation between decoding and comprehension skills. They carried out spectrographic analysis of the oral readings of a large sample of second and third grade children.…”

“…However, in terms of the role of reading prosody, the authors found a clear connection between prosodic reading and word reading efficiency, but reading prosody itself added little to the prediction of comprehension skills beyond that accounted for by word reading efficiency alone. The authors argued that reading prosody should be viewed as an indicator of the emergence of automatic word reading skills.One reason that Schwanenflugel et al (2004) failed to find a relation between reading prosody and reading comprehension skill is that the study focused on children's reading of a simple seven-sentence preprimer passage composed mainly of declarative sentences. Simple passages may not encourage children to mark prosody in a way that relates to comprehension.…”