Oral reading fluency measures for educational monitoring

This study assessed oral reading fluency development in students from the 2nd to the 5th grade of Elementary School I over a school year. The research involved 400 students, aged 7 to 10 years, from a municipal public school in São Paulo. The Performance Assessment in Reading Fluency was employed, and students were evaluated in March, July, and November using three texts of similar complexity. The analysis considered the number of words read correctly and incorrectly per minute, with statistical analysis conducted using SPSS 22.0. The results revealed significant improvements in reading fluency over time. The Wilcoxon Signed Rank Test indicated a statistically significant difference between the third and first assessment moments, with increased words read correctly and decreased errors. The Mann-Whitney Test further supported these findings, indicating that the first assessment had fewer words read correctly per minute compared to the second and third assessments, along with fewer misspelt words. In conclusion, this study provides a simple, reliable, and valid method for monitoring and tracking the progressive development of oral reading fluency in students from the 2nd to the 5th grade of Elementary School I.