The development trajectory of primary school students' fluency in reading, and its predictive role for third-grade reading comprehension

This study conducted a three-year longitudinal investigation on the development of reading fluency among 154 first-grade children within the first year of school. The results showed that there was a nonlinear trend in reading fluency: initially, reading fluency improved rapidly, but then it slowed down over time. In contrast, reading fluency when reading paragraphs based on continuous text improved rapidly over time. Meanwhile, reading fluency when reading word lists within one minute, which focused on decoding accuracy, showed a linear trend. After controlling for various cognitive skills related to reading, vocabulary size, and oral language proficiency, it was found that reading fluency when reading word lists within one minute remained relatively stable…