Development of Instructional Practices

The effectiveness of two instructional approaches for the development of reading fluency in second grade children were examined:

FORI. This approach is based on Stahl & Heubach (2005) Fluency-Oriented Reading Instruction (FORI) and involved the scaffolded, repeated reading of grade-level texts over the course of a week following a specific lesson plan.
Wide Reading. This approach is based on one developed by Kuhn (in press) that also involved scaffolded instruction, but which incorporated the reading of three different grade-level texts each week. This also follows a specific lesson plan.

A multi-site investigation of 349 children from 24 classrooms found both approaches more effective for the development of fluent, automatic reading and comprehension skills than control approaches. The Wide Reading approach effects emerged earlier and included a broader range of skills.

Table 1. Pretest-adjusted mean percentile ranks as a function of instructional approach.

Assessment Point	Instructional Approach	Test of Word Reading Efficiency	Gray Oral Reading Test	WIAT Reading Comprehension
Pre-test	Overall	39	19	47
Winter	Control	42	24
	FORI	45	29
	Wide	50	36
Spring	Control	45	34	47
	FORI	55	38	53
	Wide	52	41	55

Further information can be found in:

Kuhn, M.R., Schwanenflugel, P.J., Morris, R.D., Morrow, L.M., Woo, D., Meisinger, E., Sevcik, R., Bradley, B., & Stahl, S.A. (2006). Teaching children to become fluent and automatic readers. Journal of Literacy Research, 38, 357-387.