Learning foundational reading skills through explicit and systematic instruction is an important starting point for readers. However, some students will continue to struggle even with high quality early instruction based in the science of reading. Students are left behind because they either have gaps in decoding skills or they cannot automatically apply their decoding knowledge to new content and contexts.
When students begin to struggle, it is common to provide universal screening, or benchmark assessments for decoding and oral reading fluency (ORF) in elementary school. ORF assessments provide a data point on fluency that drives the next question, “Why aren’t they fluent?” This is an appropriate first step whether the student is in first grade or struggling in middle school.
Students often perform well enough on basic decoding assessments that they go unidentified as students who are at-risk for fluency. When the reading expectations escalate–requiring readers to generalize their skills to new words, multisyllabic words, or automatically read connected text, these students can no longer compensate with inefficient strategies. The WordFlight Screener is an easy, efficient and powerful tool to identify problems early to make sure all students have all the skills to become fluent.
The next step is to understand in more detail the exact status of students’ foundational skills. The WordFlight patented diagnostic assessment was developed and validated with funding support from the U.S. Department of Education Institute for Education Sciences (IES) and research support from cognitive scientists and co-authors from the University of Iowa. WordFlight’s diagnostic was validated over three years.
It is the only diagnostic that provides visibility into each student’s development of decoding, generalization, and automatic word recognition. The WordFlight Diagnostic measures the skills necessary to become a fluent reader.
The WordFlight Diagnostic identifies the strengths and gaps in decoding skills with a depth of information not available in other assessments. It reveals whether a student can automatically and flexibly use what they know across many contexts to automatically read words. Students typically complete the Diagnostic in three 20-minute sessions.
The student profile offers insights on:
- Proficiency and risk in decoding and automatic word recognition skills
- Specific strengths and gaps in decoding knowledge
- Ability to apply decoding skills to new and multisyllabic words
- Generalization of the rules to real and nonsense words
- Readiness for fluent reading
- Priorities for student instruction
The sooner you understand the challenges for each student, the faster you can put them on the path toward fluency in a personalized learning path. The WordFlight Diagnostic provides in-depth assessments that can pinpoint areas of need in the word recognition process. It is administered three times per year as part of the WordFlight Instructional Program.
It’s never about learning skills in isolation. Encoding and decoding must be learned along with vocabulary, syntax and comprehension. Using the WordFlight screener and diagnostic presents the curriculum that best meets the needs of the student and allows them to move forward with appropriate scaffolding to automatic word recognition.
The Role of Automaticity in Reading Fluency
Reading fluency is more than just reading quickly. It’s the ability to read text accurately, at an appropriate rate, and with proper expression. Fluent readers can focus on understanding what they’re reading because the process of recognizing words has become automatic (Rasinski, 2004).
Automaticity is the ability to perform a skill without conscious effort. It also allows the learner to generalize and adapt skills to many contexts. In reading, this means recognizing words instantly, without having to sound them out or think about their individual parts (LaBerge & Samuels, 1974; Stanovich, 1983).
Automaticity is critical for fluency because it frees up cognitive resources. When a reader doesn’t have to focus on decoding individual words, they can devote more mental energy to understanding the text’s meaning, making connections, and drawing inferences (Perfetti, 1985).
The first step in building automaticity is measuring it. WordFlight uses the Diagnostic to create a personalized curriculum for students to build these critical foundational skills.
When WordFlight is implemented with fidelity, +80% of students build automatic word recognitions skills, essential for fluency, in one school year!