Fluency has been identified as one of five critical components of reading (National Reading Panel, 2000). The definition of fluency—“the ability to read text quickly, accurately, and with proper expression” (National Reading Panel, 2000)—indicates that fluency consists of three major dimensions: speed, accuracy and prosody. 

Several reading models suggested that fluency is a prerequisite for reading comprehension (Laberge & Samuels, 1974; Perfetti, 1985; Stanovich, 1980). When readers can read effortlessly, they are released from the laborious processes of word decoding, which, in turn allows them to concentrate on constructing meaning from text. Similarly, theories of reading development suggest that achieving fluency is one crucial milestone for reading development (Chall, 1996; Ehri, 1998). Children develop the skills to recognize words accurately and effortlessly in the first two or three years of elementary school, and then from fourth grade on the focus of development shifts to comprehension. Many studies report a significant positive relationship between oral reading fluency and reading comprehension (e.g. Pinnell et al., 1995).

Fluency is a relatively neglected topic in research about the development of reading skills with the Chinese language.  Little is known about the role fluency plays in the reading development of children who speak Chinese. We do not know, for example, whether the positive relationship found between fluency and comprehension found in English reading will hold for an orthographically different language such as Chinese. Does Chinese reading fluency significantly predict reading comprehension after accounting for rapid naming speed, word recognition, and recognition of phonetic symbols? Does the relationship hold in different grade levels while children’s reading ability is growing? The answers to these questions can expand what we know about fluency development to languages other than English.

The other focus of this study is about the assessment of fluency. Reading rate has been widely used in previous research, but some researchers argue that fluency is more than just a matter of how fast one can read (e.g. Laberge & Samuels, 1974). There are also studies adopting reading accuracy or prosody as fluency measures (NAEP, 2002). Is one of the components of fluency a better predictor for reading comprehension? Or each of the indices has additive predictivity? In this study, we examined this issue in three different grade levels.

The purposes of this study are twofolds: (1) To explore the predictive relationship between Chinese reading fluency and reading comprehension in grades 1, 2 and 3; (2) To examine the validity of the three dimensional index of fluency, speed, accuracy, and prosody, for predicting reading comprehension in grades 1, 2, and 3. 

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