Has your school spent tens of thousands or more dollars on fluency-based reading assessment programs? If so, you might be getting less for your investment than you think. Did you know? There is little consensus on what exactly fluency is. The NRP's report-the basis for Reading First-failed to support its assertion that "it is generally acknowledged that fluency is a critical component of skilled reading." The relationship between fluency and comprehension may be vastly overstated. Challenging commonly held motions, Rereading Fluency provides the vital information any teacher or administration needs to determine the most effective way to help students read well. Combining a careful review of prior research with finding from their own thorough analysis of more than 120 second grade readers, Bess Altwerger, Nancy Jordan, and Nancy Rankie Shelton detail why, as a measure of reading success, fluency can fall flat. Using a multischool, multiprogram study, they compare the effects of commercial, phonics-based programs and noncommercial literature based programs on students' fluency and overall proficiency. The results will surprise you: Faster, more accurate readers aren't always better comprehenders. Decoding rates are highly variable among readers with similar comprehension levels. Commercial, phonics-based programs do not result in better decoding, faster and more accurate reading, or better comprehension. Fluency assessments say little about students' ability to read and understand literature. Altwerger, Jordan, and Shelton don't just dismantle the arguments for considering fluency, they come through with specific critiques of DIBELS and offer better ways to assess reading that can improve instruction, assessment and the success of young readers. Whether your school is about to mandate a commercial reading program or a standardized fluency assessment, or it is trying to get out from under one, make Rereading Fluency your powerful, research based ally in the battle for improved assessment and instruction. Book jacket. Distributed by Syndetic Solutions, Inc.

Bess Altwerger is Professor of Graduate Reading at Towson University Distributed by Syndetic Solutions, Inc.

Foreword	vii
Acknowledgments	xi
Part I Why All the Fuss Over Fluency?
1 Why Do We Need a Critical Look at Fluency?	1
2 What Is Fluency and How Important Is It?	9
3 Following the Fluency Trail: From the National Reading Panel to Reading First	19
Part II What Do We Know About Fluency and the Reading Process?
4 How Can Young Readers Inform Us About Fluency?	27
5 What Is the Relationship Between Fluency and Comprehension?	37
6 What Is the Relationship Between Fluency and Decoding?	44
7 Phonics Versus Literature Programs: What's the Difference?	53
8 Does Fluency Distinguish Between More and Less Proficient Readers?	63
9 What Does DIBELS Tell Us About Readers?	73
Part III Rethinking Fluency
10 Should Fluency Be Considered a Critical Component of Reading?	88
11 If Not Fluency, Then What?	97
12 Should Fluency Be Used to Make Instructional Decisions?	103
References	110
Index	116

Distributed by Syndetic Solutions, Inc.