Building Theory

As children learn to read quickly and accurately, two benefits emerge:

The ability to read with expression (or prosody).

Schwanenflugel, P.J., Hamilton, A.M., Kuhn, M.R., Wisenbaker, J., & Stahl, S.A. (2004). Becoming a fluent reader: Reading skill and prosodic features in the oral reading of young readers. Journal of Educational Psychology, 96, 119-129.

We measured text reading prosody, single word decoding, and reading comprehension in 2nd and 3rd grade children. Children who had quick and accurate word reading read more prosodically than other children. Moreover, children whose oral reading pitch was similar to the adults from their community showed somewhat greater reading comprehension skill than other children.
Miller, J. M., & Schwanenflugel, P.J. (2006). Prosody of Syntactically Complex Sentences in the Oral Reading of Young Children. Journal of Educational Psychology, 98, 839-853.

We measured the prosody of 3rd graders reading a syntactically complex text. Oral reading skill was measured through standardized assessments. Children having quick and accurate oral reading had shorter and more adult-like pause structures, larger pitch changes at the ends of basic declarative sentences and yes-no questions. Further, changes in pitch were more likely to be associated with greater reading comprehension skills.

The ability to read with comprehension

Schwanenflugel, P.J., Meisinger, E., Wisenbaker, J. M., Kuhn, M.R., Strauss, G., & Morris, R.D. (2006). Becoming a fluency and automatic reader in the early elementary school years. Reading Research Quarterly, 41, 496-522.

1st, 2nd, and 3rd grade children completed a series of reading tasks targeting word and nonword processing, text reading, spelling knowledge, autonomous reading, and reading comprehension. Evidence suggested that fluent word and text reading operate together with autonomous reading to produce good comprehension. However, as children get older, skills other than reading fluency increasingly contribute to good comprehension.