Volume 3, Number 3 (October - December 2008)

Educational leaders need to ask themselves how it is possible that nearly 40% of 329,969 Texas fourth grade students are reading below grade level?  With accountability standards rising, how does any school with an at-risk population produce fluent readers and in turn master grade level expectations?  Scholars agree that meaning derives from phrases, not isolated words. How many elementary students are still struggling with word-by-word reading?  The purpose of this paper is to assist educational leaders in identifying best practices related to specific fluency interventions and to call attention to the topic of explicit fluency instruction. The identification of best practices for improving reading fluency is important for educational leaders such as principals to know and use in basing important decisions regarding reading programs. ACCESS FULL MANUSCIPT HERE: http://cnx.org/content/m17686/latest/