Teaching Stamina

& Silent Reading

in the
Digital-Global Age
Edited by Elfrieda H. Hiebert
Teaching Stamina and
Silent Reading in the
Digital-Global Age
EDITED BY

Elfrieda H. Hiebert
TextProject
University of California, Santa Cruz

Reading Essentials Original Series

June 2015

TextProject, Inc.
SANTA CRUZ, CALIFORNIA
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ISBN: 978-1-937889-04-3
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 Contents
FORWARD iii
Striking the Right Balance: Why Silent and Extended Reading of
Challenging Materials Matters
Timothy Rasinski

Preface vii
Teaching Stamina and Silent Reading in the Digital-Global Age
Elfrieda H. Hiebert

I. UNDERSTANDING THE PROBLEM &

THE CONSTRUCT
CHAPTER 1 16
he Forgotten Reading Proiciency: Stamina In Silent Reading
Elfrieda H. Hiebert

CHAPTER 2 32
Eye Movements Make Reading Possible
S. Jay Samuels, Elfrieda H. Hiebert, & Timothy Rasinski

CHAPTER 3 58
Are Students Really Reading in Independent Reading Contexts?
An Examination of Comprehension-Based Silent Reading Rate
Elfrieda H. Hiebert, Kathleen M. Wilson & Guy Trainin

II. INSTRUCTION AND PRACTICES THAT FOSTER

STAMINA AND SILENT READING
CHAPTER 4 79
Stretching Elementary Students in Complex Text:
Why? How? When?
Heidi Anne E. Mesmer

i
 CHAPTER 5 100
he Relationship Between a Silent Reading Fluency Instructional
Protocol on Students’ Reading Comprehension and Achievement
in an Urban School Setting
Timothy V. Rasinski, S. Jay Samuels, Elfrieda H. Hiebert, Yaacov
Petscher, & Karen Feller

CHAPTER 6 121
Exploring the Added Value of a Guided Silent Reading
Intervention: Efects on Struggling hird-Grade Readers’
Achievement
D. Ray Reutzel, Yaacov Petscher, & Alexandra N. Spichtig

III: LOOKING AHEAD

CHAPTER 7 147
Comprehension-Based Silent Reading Rates: What Do We Know?
What Do We Need To Know?
Elfrieda H. Hiebert, S. Jay Samuels, & Timothy V. Rasinski

CHAPTER 8 169
Revisiting Silent Reading in 2020 and Beyond
Elfrieda H. Hiebert, & D. Ray Reutzel

ii
 FORWARD

Striking the Right Balance:

Why Silent and Extended Reading of
Challenging Materials Matters

Timothy Rasinski
Kent State University

O
ver the past dozen years or so, reading assessment and reading
instruction itself increasingly have come to be deined primarily
by oral reading, oten for speed, and for very short periods
of time. his evolution has been due to a number of factors. First, the
curriculum-based measurement (CBM) approach to reading assessment
reduced reading assessment to measures of reading rate over one-minute
periods (Deno, 1985). Second, although the National Reading Panel
(National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, 2000)
identiied reading luency as a critical variable for proicient reading,
the panel restricted luency to oral reading. hese developments, as
well as others, have afected how reading is being taught. In many
primary and intermediate classrooms around the country, oral reading
is the predominant form of reading. Time is allocated to daily luency
instruction where students read a short passage repeatedly for the primary
purpose of reading it faster. his practice is accompanied by regular
assessments of students’ reading (as oten as weekly in some classrooms)
on the number of words students can read correctly in a minute on an
instructional-level passage.
hese developments in reading instruction are based on a solid
foundation of research and indeed I feel there is a legitimate place for
them in the classroom. Reading rate as determined by CBMs and other
similar one-minute readings of short passages is a good measure of word-
recognition automaticity, a critical factor in comprehension. Oral reading
experiences, especially authentic oral experiences, such as the recitation of
poetry or the performance of a script, have been shown to improve reading
luency and overall reading proiciency. However, these are not the only
instructional factors that must be considered for efective reading and
reading instruction.
Most reading done by adults is silent reading. As such, it is not

Rasinski iii
 unreasonable to expect students to receive instruction and support in
silent reading in their classrooms. Further, a fair amount of adult reading
consists of lengthy texts. Again, therefore, it is not unreasonable to
provide students with support and opportunities to read such texts on
their own, primarily silently. Additionally, as adults we are occasionally
called on to closely read material that we might consider diicult or
challenging—for example, technical texts related to our profession or
courses we may be taking, or even texts we read for our own pleasure
and entertainment purposes that may be more challenging in nature.
Certainly, giving students similar opportunities to read challenging
material—with appropriate support—needs to be part of our reading
instruction. herefore, we may safely conclude that issues of silent reading
luency, stamina, and close reading of complex texts are foundational for
proiciency in reading and success in various academic and technical ields.
hese issues are challenging for literacy scholars and educators alike. Each
element is critical in its own right. Additionally, these elements interact
with one another and other critical variables in the reading process.
Despite their importance, however, silent reading, stamina, and complex
texts are issues that, until recently, have not received suicient scholarly
attention.
hat is what this book is about. Dr. Elfrieda Hiebert is one of the
few literacy scholars who has extensively studied issues of silent reading,
stamina, and text complexity, and in this volume, she has assembled a
collection of original and previously published papers that explore these
vital issues in depth. his volume ofers readers the opportunity to explore
the conceptual nature of these issues and discover how exactly we may
begin to go about providing students with the relevant instruction that will
help them achieve success in these areas. he irst four chapters explore
just what stamina and silent reading mean. he notion of text complexity is
embedded within these chapters, as readers must engage in silent reading
with stamina in order to negotiate such texts successfully and eiciently.
Here we are confronted with the reality of what happens in school-based
reading instruction. To develop proiciency in reading, students need to
practice reading.
As Hiebert stresses in her opening chapter, many students simply
do not spend enough time reading in school. Increasing the amount that
students read silently in schools is one of the solutions explored in the
second half of the volume. Other ways that students can be supported in
developing silent reading stamina are explored in the inal four chapters.
hese applications range from a computer-based instructional protocol

iv Forward
that requires minimal teacher input to an approach that relies on the
teacher to provide scafolding and support for silent reading. hese
chapters may provide foundational principles that educators and scholars
can use in order to develop their own approaches to instruction that
develop students’ silent reading stamina.
Success in real world reading is not measured by how fast a person
can orally read a short text. Rather, reading success is more likely to be
an outcome of how well a person can engage in meaningful, close, silent
readings of lengthy, complex, and challenging material for extended
periods of time. his volume is a signiicant step in moving the literacy
ield, scholars, curriculum developers, and practitioners toward a deeper
consideration and understanding of these critical issues.

Rasinski v
 References
Deno, S.L. (1985). Curriculum-based children to read: An evidence-based
measurement: he emerging alternative. assessment of the scientiic research
Exceptional Children, 52(3), 219–232. literature on reading and its implications
for reading instruction (NIH Publication
National Institute of Child Health and No. 00-4769). Washington, DC: U.S.
Human Development. (2000). Report of Government Printing Oice.
the National Reading Panel. Teaching

vi Forward
 Preface

Teaching Stamina and Silent Reading

in the Digital-Global Age
Elfrieda H. Hiebert
TextProject & University of California, Santa Cruz

T
he 21st century demands that individuals have a high level
of literacy to successfully participate in the tasks of colleges,
communities, and jobs. Nonetheless, many students in the United
States are not attaining the necessary levels of literacy, according to
the National Assessment of Educational Progress (National Center for
Education Statistics, 2013). he assessment shows that approximately
two-thirds of a grade cohort fail to attain the proicient level. Such poor
performances are oten traced to a lack of word recognition skills, and
solutions have been designated to ameliorate this perceived gap (see
California Board of Education, 2014). But evidence is strong that all but
a small percentage of American students—approximately 2% of a grade
cohort—can recognize the majority of words in a grade-level text by
the end of the primary grades (Bielinski, Daniel, & Hiebert, 2015). Most
students can read, but they don’t have rigorous independent reading habits.
What many students lack is stamina—the ability to persevere in reading
texts on their own.
In the contexts of most real-life reading and as relected in
assessments, individuals read texts on their own. hat setting is
signiicantly diferent than the oral reading context, which, in recent times,
has dominated reading instruction in American elementary classrooms. In
silent reading, students need to monitor their own comprehension. If they
are reading too quickly, they need to accommodate their rate of reading
to match their comprehension. hey need to revisit a word if they couldn’t
igure it out the irst time. By contrast, a teacher, tutor, or peer is present
when students are reading orally. It’s hard to stop and scan a page when
someone is expecting an oral rendition of the text.
Without suicient experience or strategies for silent reading,
many students read slowly. In lieu of a teacher or tutor to monitor
student performance, many students soon engage in less than eicacious
behaviors in the silent reading context. Some eventually engage in counter-
productive behaviors such as skimming. Mandates and interpretations
Hiebert vii
 of mandates during the No Child Let Behind era may have exacerbated
the situation, as more emphasis was placed on oral reading in assessment
and instruction. But assessments of oral reading luency and accuracy do
not describe student performances in a silent reading context (Trainin,
Hiebert, & Wilson, 2015).
he nature of silent reading and the manner in which it can be
guided has been relegated to secondary status relative to oral reading.
But ultimately, it is silent reading that is most important. In the tasks of
colleges, workplaces, and communities—tasks such as voting, reviewing
documents to purchase large-ticket items such as cars or houses, and
seeking employment—individuals read silently, not orally. Silent reading
patterns and examinations of instruction that supports eicient habits
have received short shrit in both the research and pedagogical literature.
he handful of programs of research that have been devoted to the topic
are represented in this volume. hese papers indicate that silent reading
stamina can be improved through intentional instruction and teachers’
design of tasks.

An Overview of the Volume

hree critical aspects of the topic of stamina in silent reading are
addressed by the chapters in this volume: (a) describing the problem and
the construct of stamina, (b) describing evidence that stamina can be
increased through intentional instruction, and (c) describing the next steps
in the design of instruction and research.

What Is Silent Reading Stamina and Why Is It Important?

he irst section of this volume consists of three chapters that
describe the construct of stamina and its importance in proicient reading.
In the irst chapter, I attend to three themes. he irst of those themes
is that stamina is a major challenge for many students in the U.S. his
theme describes the problem that the research in the volume addresses.
he second theme pertains to the association between silent reading
proiciency and extensive reading opportunities. he third theme describes
the need for appropriate instructional applications to ensure silent reading
stamina, especially for students who are vulnerable or struggling readers.
To understand silent reading and to design activities that support
its proicient development requires an understanding of the ocular-motor
processes involved in reading. he second chapter by Samuels, Hiebert,
and Rasinski provides information on how eicient eye movements are
viii Preface
foundational in proicient reading. hey describe the processes in which
the eyes engage during reading: saccades, ixations, and regressions. Most
students, Samuels et al. note, master the complexities of eye movements
on their own. But some students do not. For those students, opportunities
need to be crated that develop eye movement eiciency.
In addition to understanding basic processes such as eye
movements, educators’ beliefs about students’ abilities to read silently are
critical in designing instruction that supports stamina in silent reading.
Oten, teachers are reluctant to have students read independently because
of the perception that many students do not engage in meaningful
reading in independent contexts. he third chapter by Hiebert, Wilson,
and Trainin provides information on the veracity of this perception.
Speciically, they present data from a study of comprehension-based silent
reading rates (CBSRRs) that addresses the rates at which students read
silently with comprehension. heir indings indicate that the majority of
students employ fairly consistent rates of reading with comprehension in
independent contexts. A portion of students, at least at the fourth-grade
level, do not perform reliably in silent reading contexts. Hiebert et al.
suggest that this minority should not mean that all students are denied
opportunities to read silently in classrooms. Ater all, students read and
learn considerably more in silent reading than in oral reading because the
former is typically faster than the latter. In addition, students with poor
silent reading patterns require instruction that guides them in setting goals
and monitoring their comprehension and reading rates in independent
contexts. he longer the reading task is completely scafolded by others (as
is the case with oral reading), the longer it will take students to develop the
habits of proicient reading.

What Types of Instruction Support Silent Reading Stamina?

he next section of the volume deals with instructional responses
aimed at solving problems of poor silent reading habits among students.
To read in a sustained fashion requires that readers have suicient
automaticity in recognizing words so that their attention is directed to
the meaning of the message. Heidi Anne Mesmer’s chapter highlights a
particular feature of next-generation standards that increases the demands
on stamina in silent reading: the mandate that students at all grade levels
be able to read texts of higher complexity than was the case in previous
standards. Mesmer uses the terms “stretch text” and “stretching” students’
capacity in reading to describe the perspective evident in the staircase

Hiebert ix
 of text complexity within the CCSS (National Governors Association,
Center for Best Practices, & Council of Chief State School Oicers, 2010).
Mesmer’s chapter sheds considerable light on demands for stamina in
reading complex texts by (a) examining what is meant by complex text,
(b) explaining how increased demands on text complexity could inluence
reader-text interactions, (c) explaining the rationale for stretch text, and (d)
noting factors that may contribute or hinder students’ increased capacity
when texts stretch their reading capacity.
he next two chapters in this section describe a response to
the problems related to stamina in silent reading. he response is an
intervention in which the amount of reading is considerable. Even
students whose silent reading habits are not eicacious read more in
the intervention when students’ reading is scafolded digitally. Texts
are matched to students’ reading levels with daily assignments based
on their ongoing comprehension performances. In addition, the digital
context makes it possible to vary length of reading segments, number of
comprehension questions, use of repeated readings, and assignment of
prereading techniques. he results reported in these two chapters indicate
that increasing silent reading of texts of appropriate levels inluences
students at all levels—from the end of the primary grades through high
school.
In the irst project that is described in Chapter 5, Rasinski, Samuels,
Hiebert, Petscher, and Feller describe the results of the intervention
with students from grades 4 through 10. Students who participated in
the program for a minimum of 40 lessons (20 hours of instruction) over
approximately 6 months made signiicantly greater gains on both criterion-
referenced and norm-referenced tests than students who participated in
alternative interventions. he gains were found generally in all grade levels
studied and in all subpopulations, except for English learners.
Chapter 6 by Reutzel, Petscher, and Spichtig describes the eicacy
of the same intervention with third graders. In this study, the authors
compared the eicacy of the intervention to three other interventions.
he students in the Reading Plus intervention demonstrated signiicantly
superior performance on the state’s reading assessment than students
in the other interventions. Reutzel et al. conclude that the silent reading
intervention aforded struggling third-grade students with appropriately
challenging and varied reading genres to be both motivating and within
their reach. hese two reports, then, ofer evidence that even struggling
readers, when provided with scafolded support, can develop stronger
patterns of stamina in silent reading.

x Preface
How Can Stamina Become a Focus of English/Language Arts
Instruction?
Stamina in silent reading poses a substantial problem for the
success of many students in attaining world-level literacy standards.
he chapters in this section consider the steps that need to be taken by
educators and researchers to make stamina in silent reading an integral
part of students’ school experiences.
In Chapter 7, Hiebert, Samuels, and Rasinski illustrate the
eicacy of interventions that emphasize silent reading stamina at three
developmental levels: primary, intermediate to high school, and young
adult. he authors conclude there is suicient support for initiating policies
and practices in classrooms on all levels aimed at increasing silent reading
stamina. hey also conclude that the process of developing silent reading
stamina extends through the elementary grades and into middle and
high school as students encounter new genres and content. At least for the
students who depend on schools to become literate, good silent reading
habits require that they participate in structured silent reading experiences
that model eicient reading.
he inal chapter of the volume makes a inal plea for attending to
the critical proiciency of silent reading stamina. he chapter ends with
a note of optimism. In particular, Ray Reutzel and I conclude that, while
the digital age increases demands for literacy, it also ofers increased
opportunities. Digital contexts can support students who are especially
vulnerable when they enter school or who have not been successful in
typical learning contexts. Digital contexts can provide consistency of
exposure to ensure that students are reading at appropriate levels and are
staying on task. hese opportunities can support students in successful
participation in other literacy contexts including the large and small group
and independent classroom contexts. Eicacious silent reading patterns
depend on thoughtful and strategic actions that are part of interventions
(such as the ones provided digitally) and typical instructional contexts.

he Importance of his Book for Teachers,

Teacher Leaders, and Teacher Educators
he aim of this volume is to bring the topic of silent reading
stamina into the mainstream of ELA instruction and research. New
assessments that are considerably more rigorous and complex than
previous assessments are already being implemented in many states. he

Hiebert xi
 outcomes, which promise to be lackluster (Ujifusa, 2012, 2013), are likely
to result in a great deal of hand-wringing among educators. he release
of the assessment results will likely be accompanied by explanations and
accusations on the part of pundits as they attempt to interpret results.
One missing element is an explanation of what the less than
propitious results of students in many states on the new-generation
assessments have to do with attention to the typical tasks of instruction
and the manner in which they support students’ ability to read silently
for extended periods. Stamina, as the chapters in this volume illustrate,
is critical for ensuring that students are ready for the tasks of college,
communities, and the workplace as well as the new generation of
assessments.
As the irst volume to address the topic of silent reading stamina,
Teaching Stamina and Silent Reading in the Digital-Global Age will be
a useful guide for many constituencies. Among those who will beneit
from this volume are teacher educators and professional developmental
leaders who interact with teachers in courses and workshops. he
volume is especially pertinent to supervisors and curriculum leaders in
districts, states, and agencies such as regional laboratories who work in
the translation of policies to practices. Further, graduate students and
professors who study the eicacy of practice in supporting proicient
student reading will ind the volume useful in the design of research,
especially regarding instructional interventions. he conclusions and
suggestions ofered in the chapters in this volume are intended to serve as
grist for study groups of teachers, graduate and undergraduate courses,
professional development sessions, and conversations among colleagues.

A Note of Gratitude
his book would not be possible without the generosity of a
number of publishers and authors who gave permission to reprint several
of the chapters in this volume. Readers who are unfamiliar with the
legalities of academic book and journal publishers may be unaware that
scholars retain the rights to their work until a manuscript begins the
copyediting phase of publishing as a journal article or a book chapter.
Colleagues at Taylor Francis were generous in acknowledging this policy
and conirming that the papers that appear as Chapters 5, 6, and 7 could be
used in the present volume.
A special note of gratitude is owed to both Tim Rasinski and Ray
Reutzel. Tim generously wrote the foreword and, additionally, provided the

xii Preface
manuscript that was accepted for publication in Reading Psychology, which
later became Chapter 5 in this volume. Ray was most generous in agreeing
to permit the republication of chapters from Revisiting Silent Reading ater
the International Reading Association reverted the rights of the volume to
Ray and me as coeditors. his generosity made possible the publication in
this volume of Chapters 2, 3, and 8. In addition, he generously provided the
accepted version of the manuscript provided to the Journal of Educational
Research (Chapter 6 in this volume).
A skillful editor is truly a git, and I thank Stacy Sharp who
meticulously edited all of the prepublication manuscripts and the chapters
commissioned for this volume. An individual who can produce an e-book
is also priceless and, for serving that role for this volume, I thank Alice
Folkins. She has produced many of the products of TextProject, but
creating an e-book is a new venture that she bravely—and successfully—
took on.
I conclude with thanks to Charley Fisher who handles the many
logistics that make TextProject possible. Without Charley’s generosity
and unfailing willingness to attend to the details, this project—and many
others at TextProject—would only be a dream. I hope this volume will
help the many students who come to our schools every day with dreams of
success see those dreams come true.

EHH
Santa Cruz, CA
June 2015

Hiebert xiii
 References
Bielinski, J., Daniel, M., & Hiebert, Trainin, G., Hiebert, E. H., & Wilson, K.
E. H. (February 19, 2015). Patterns of (2015). A comparison of reading rates,
silent reading luency and accuracy: comprehension, and stamina in oral and
What they mean for instruction and silent reading of fourth-grade students.
intervention. Presentation at the annual Reading Psychology. Retrieved from http://
meeting of the National Association www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/02
of School Psychologists, Orlando, FL. 702711.2014.966183
Retrieved from: https://www.academia.
edu/11191138/Patterns_of_Silent_ Ujifusa, A. (2012). Scores drop on
Reading_Fluency_and_Accuracy_What_ KY’s Common Core-aligned tests.
hey_Mean_for_Instruction_and_ Education Week Online. Retrieved
Intervention from http://www.edweek.org/ew/
articles/2012/11/02/11standards.h32.html
California Board of Education. (2014).
English language arts/English language Ujifusa, A. (2013). Tests aligned to
development framework. Sacramento, Common Core in New York State trigger
CA: California Department of Education. score drops. Education Week Online.
Retrieved from http://www.cde.ca.gov/ci/ Retrieved from http://blogs.edweek.org/
rl/cf/elaeldfrmwrksbeadopted.asp edweek/state_edwatch/2013/08/_one_
interesting_aspect_of.html
National Center for Education Statistics.
(2013). he nation’s report card: A irst
look: 2013 mathematics and reading
(NCES 2014-451). Washington, DC:
Institute of Education Sciences, U.S.
Department of Education.
National Governors Association, Center
for Best Practices, & Council of Chief
State School Oicers. (2010). Common
Core state standards for English language
arts and literacy in history/social studies,
science, and technical subjects: Appendix
A. Washington, DC: Authors. Retrieved
from http://www.corestandards.org/
assets/Appendix_A.pdf

xiv Preface
I. UNDERSTANDING THE PROBLEM &
THE CONSTRUCT

xv
 CHAPTER 1

he Forgotten Reading Proiciency:

Stamina In Silent Reading
Elfrieda H. Hiebert
TextProject & University of California, Santa Cruz

T
he new assessments developed by the Smarter Balanced Assessment
Consortium and the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for
College and Careers (PARCC) to align with the Common Core
State Standards (CCSS; National Governors Association Center for Best
Practices [NGA Center] & Council of Chief State School Oicers [CCSSO],
2010) require all but the most severely disabled students to read and
respond to texts in a digital context. Beginning at third grade, students
are expected to read and respond to texts silently over extensive periods of
time (see Table 1.1). And, unlike typical classroom reading tasks, students
will have no access to teachers to present a irst read or to help them by
scafolding a section of text, monitoring their reading, or advising them
when it is time to start answering questions or writing responses.
Of course, extended silent reading is not a requirement limited to
the new CCSS-related assessments. For the tasks of college, citizenry, and
the workplace, we most oten conduct reading tasks silently on our own for
sustained periods of time. But it is highly likely that many students will not
be prepared for the challenge of the silent reading tasks posed by the new
assessments. he reason for this challenge is not—as pundits and observers
of education frequently suggest—that American students cannot read.
Indeed, most American students can read. What many students cannot
do is independently maintain reading focus over long periods of time.
he proiciency they lack is stamina—the ability to sustain mental efort
without the scafolds or adult supports.
In this chapter, I provide an overview for three themes that are
echoed in the chapters of this book: (a) stamina is a major challenge
for many American students, (b) silent reading proiciency depends
on extensive reading opportunities, and (c) appropriate instructional
applications can increase students’ silent reading proiciency. First,
however, I identify and deine the constructs that are the foci of this

16 Stamina in Reading
book—silent reading, comprehension-based silent reading rate, and
the role of oral reading (including oral reading of instructional texts by
teachers).
Table 1.1: Administration Times and Number of Sessions: CCSS Assessment Consortia1
Grade PARCC SBAC
2 3
3 EOY : 60 min. x 2 sessions CAT : 1 hr. 45 min.
Perf: 40-60 min. per task Perf: 35 min. (stimulus + research Qs;
TOTAL: Approximately 4.5 hours 70 min. writing prompt)
TOTAL: Approximately 3.5 hours
4-5 EOY: 70 min. x 2 sessions CAT: 1 hr. 45 min.
Perf: 50-80 min. per task Perf: 35 min. (stimulus + research Qs;
TOTAL: Approximately 5 hrs. 50 70 min. writing prompt)
min. TOTAL: Approximately 3.5 hrs.
6-8 EOY: 70 min. x 2 sessions CAT: 1 hr. 45 min.
Perf: 50-85 min. per task Perf: 35 min. (stimulus + research Qs;
TOTAL: Approximately 5 hrs. 55 70 min. writing prompt)
min. TOTAL: Approximately 3.5 hrs.
9-11 EOY: 70 min. x 2 sessions CAT: 2 hrs.
Perf: 50-85 min. per task Perf: 35 min. (stimulus + research Qs;
TOTAL: Approximately 5 hrs. 55 70 min. writing prompt)
min. TOTAL: Approximately 4 hrs.
1
From Wixson (2013).
2
EOY: End-of-Year
3
CAT: Computer Adaptive Technology

Deinitions and Distinctions

Oral reading assessments are a critical method for gaining insights
into an individual’s mental processing capacities. Oral reading rate is an
indicator of automaticity with words, so it’s not surprising that it has been
shown to be a strong predictor of students’ comprehension. However,
during the No Child Let Behind (NCLB) era, reading assessments oten
stopped with oral reading measures, ignoring a crucial fact: Ultimately,
it is the silent reading performance of students that is most critical to
their comprehension. Ater all, in the real world—whether we are college
students, newly minted college graduates who are beginning their irst
jobs, or seasoned professionals—we are generally not asked to read articles
or manuals orally. Silent reading, not oral reading, dominates.
Further, it is not the rate at which we read articles or manuals
that is most valuable. What is critical is how well we understand, use,
remember, and apply the content of what we read. Yet the rate at which this
silent reading occurs can also be important. If readers read too slowly, it
can create problems for both comprehension and memory. Consequently,

Hiebert 17
 Hiebert, Wilson, and Trainin (2010) have introduced the construct of
comprehension-based silent reading rate. Initially, we gave the construct
the acronym CBSRR but, over time, we have shortened this to CSR, which
stands for comprehension-silent reading rate. As this term implies, the
emphasis of CSR is on establishing the rate at which students read silently
with comprehension.

Stamina: A Challenge for Many American Students

Continuing a persistent trend, the reading scores for the most
recent National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) show that
approximately one-third of our fourth graders score below the basic level
and another one-third at the basic level (National Center for Education
Statistics [NCES], 2014). Oten, this pattern is interpreted to mean that
our students cannot read, and the “solution” provided is to immerse them
in more word-recognition instruction. Oten the intervention programs
chosen for use with struggling readers emphasize English grapheme-
phoneme relationships, including with middle- and high-school students.
But is the problem really that students cannot recognize words?
In the early 1990s, a group of scholars asked precisely this question.
In response, the NAEP commissioned a special study in 1995 (Pinnell,
Pikulski, Wixson, Campbell, Gough, & Beatty, 1995) and a follow-up
study a decade later (NCES, 2005). Both studies involved a sample of
fourth graders reading orally a portion of a text that had been part of the
silent reading comprehension assessment. Students’ accuracy, luency (i.e.,
prosody), and rate were assessed.
he two student samples in these special NAEP studies (Pinnell et
al., 1995; NCES, 2005) did not read the same texts, but the texts are similar
in their levels of complexity (around the end of the third-grade level). he
two studies also were not precisely the same in terms of procedures (e.g.,
students in the 2002 sample read beyond one minute, while students in the
1992 sample read for a minute). However, the studies were similar enough
to conclude that, within a representative sample of American fourth
graders, the percentages of students who were reading with insuicient
accuracy was relatively low. Clay (1985) deemed a 90% accuracy level as
suicient for determining whether students were reading a text adequately.
he percentages of students within the two samples who were performing
below 90% accuracy were similar at both assessment periods, as is evident
in the information presented in Table 1.2: 2% of a cohort. he students
who were reading with accuracy levels of 90 to 97% read more slowly

18 Stamina in Reading
than students who were reading at the frequently cited independent
level of 98% or higher (Betts, 1946). his pattern would suggest that
students lack automaticity, not the fundamental ability to recognize
words as is frequently assumed in policies and mandates. For example,
the current California textbook requires required (California State Board
of Education, 2014) that intervention programs for students in grades 4
through 8 contain decodable readers for each of the 43 phonemes and their
graphemes.
Table 1.2: Accuracy Levels for Words Read without Meaning Change (Percentages) for Students
Within Two NAEP Studies
100-98% 97-95% 94-90% <90%
19921 41 51 5 2
2
2002 76 15 5 2
1
Pinnell et al., 1995
2
National Center for Education Statistics, 2005

here is also evidence from DIBELS assessments (Dewey,

Kaminski, & Good, 2013) that students (at least fourth graders) maintain
a high level of word-recognition accuracy, even with texts that are more
complex than the below grade-level texts in the two NAEP studies (Pinnell
et al., 1995; NCES, 2005). As shown in Table 1.3, benchmark assessment
passages for the end of the fourth grade on the DIBELS have approximately
2 more rare words per 100 than the NAEP passages. Unlike the passages
in the two aforementioned NAEP oral luency studies, which fall within
the band for grades 2 through 3 on the CCSS staircase of text complexity
(NGA Center, 2010, 2012), the DIBELS passages fall within the band for
grades 4 through 5.
Table 1.3: Features of Fourth-Grade Passages (NAEP, DIBELS, and CSR Studies)
Text Lexile Mean Sentence Mean Log Word Core
(Fourth-Grade Designation) Length Frequency Vocabulary
Hungry Spider 660 10.70 3.69 96%
(1992 NAEP)
Box in a Barn 620 10.29 3.72 96.5%
(2002 NAEP)
he Youngest Rider 810 12.55 3.61 96%
(end-of-year fourth grade
DIBELS)
Temporary Homes 890 13.3 3.50 94%
(Hiebert et al., 2011)
heseus 800 12.5 3.60 90%
(Hiebert et al., 2011)

Hiebert 19
 he DIBELS norms are based on approximately 167,000 students
in kindergarten through grade 12 representing every census region in
the U.S. (Dewey et al., 2013)—approximately 24,000 students per grade
level. Table 1.4 provides accuracy, rate, and comprehension data for fourth
graders. hese data support the NAEP data, as even students at the 10th
percentile display reasonable accuracy—95%. heir rate, however, is
approximately 60% of the oral reading rate of typical grade-level readers.
DIBELS developers have added a retelling measure to the assessment.
Difering considerably from the comprehension measures typical of the
NAEP and of the new CCSS-aligned assessments, this measure indicates
that students’ challenges lie not in their ability to recognize individual
words but in their ability to think about text.
Table 1.4: Fourth Graders’ Rate, Accuracy, and Comprehension on DIBELS (2011 to 2012 Cohort)
Percentile Rate Accuracy Comprehension
10 80 95 21
20 98 97 27
30 109 97 32
40 118 98 36
50 128 98 41
60 138 99 45
70 147 99 50
80 160 99 57
90 176 100 67
99 212 100 94

A third source of information about American students’ word-

recognition capabilities is a line of CSR studies that examined students’
reading rates and comprehension scores in silent reading contexts (Hiebert
et al., 2010; Hiebert, Trainin, & Wilson, 2011). A similar context has been
used in these two studies, one that replicates many norm-referenced
reading assessments. Students read a set of short texts (each 200 to 250
words) about the same topic, and ater reading a passage, they respond to
multiple-choice comprehension questions.
In the irst study (Hiebert et al., 2010), fourth graders read
comparable texts in two diferent contexts: (a) digital and (b) print. For
reading comprehension, no signiicant diferences emerged across the two
contexts. But for silent reading rate, diferences did show up, with students
reading signiicantly faster in the digital rather than the print context.
he Hiebert et al. (2010) study also considered diferences in
reading rate and comprehension across quartile groups. Rates for diferent
20 Stamina in Reading
comprehension quartiles difered as a function of performance level
and part of text. Students in the two lower quartiles started out at a
reasonable rate, but their rates changed dramatically over the sections of
the assessment (but not with increases in comprehension). he readers
from the lowest quartile increased their speed ater one passage but with
lower levels of comprehension. he second-lowest quartile followed a
similar pattern (i.e., increase in rate, decrease in comprehension) as the
lowest quartile, but only ater the irst two sections of the assessment. he
students in the top two quartiles had a stable rate and comprehension
performance that changed very little across sections of the text.
In a subsequent study (Hiebert et al., 2011), fourth graders’
performances on narrative and informational texts were compared. CSR
was computed for the reading of each of four 250-word passages, and
correct responses to four comprehension questions. For both the narrative
and informational texts, percentages of students who attained the CSR
level dropped steadily from the irst text to the third. Whereas 85% of
the students comprehended the irst text, only 66% (narrative) and 56%
(informational) attained the CSR criterion on the last texts.
An examination of the data by Hiebert et al. (2011) also identiied
the following six stamina patterns among students:
1. Nonstarters (i.e., students who did not attain the CSR criterion for
any passage)
2. Quitters ater passage 2 (students who attained the CSR criterion
on the two passages but engaged in rapid reading with insuicient
comprehension on the irst two subsequent passages)
3. Quitters ater passage 3 (students who attained CSR criterion on
three passages but engaged in “fake reading” on the inal passage)
4. Monitors (students who engaged in fake reading ater failing to
comprehend at least one text)
5. Persisters (students who, at best, attained a minimal level of
comprehension on two texts but continued to engage with the same
rate on other texts)
6. Comprehenders (students who attained the criterion on all passages)
he number of nonstarters was low (3%), but approximately 27%
of the students fell into the quitters group and another 6% were classiied
as monitors. Of the remaining students, 56% were comprehenders and 8%
were persisters.
his review of research leads to the conclusion that the vast
majority of American students in an age cohort can recognize words—yet
word recognition is the focus of most reading interventions. Although a

Hiebert 21
 lack of automaticity in word recognition does appear to be an issue for
the students in the bottom 5% or even 7% of a cohort, most students can
recognize the core vocabulary. However, when they are asked to sustain
their attention in silent reading, these students appear not to have the
stamina that is required to interact with texts in a meaningful manner.

Silent Reading: Proiciency Depends on

Reading Opportunities
For any given activity, whether it is highly demanding (e.g.,
performing brain surgery or playing a Rachmaninof piano concerto) or
prosaic (e.g., riding a bike or using a computer keyboard), it is absurd to
think that we can become proicient without participating extensively in
the activity. When it comes to teaching students to read, however, attention
typically focuses on the nature of instruction rather than on the quality
or quantity of deliberate practice time for students. For example, in the
NCLB era, the ive pillars of proicient reading identiied by the National
Reading Panel (NRP; NICHD, 2000)—phonemic awareness, phonics,
luency, vocabulary, and comprehension—became the focus of instruction.
In the era of the CCSS, ensuring that students are engaging in close-
reading strategies has taken center stage in discussions of pedagogy and
implementation. Instruction about critical reading strategies and content is
important, but instruction does not necessarily ensure that students have
the opportunities they need to become proicient independent readers.
For this to happen, students also need to have an abundance of occasions
that allow them to take responsibility for getting meaning from a text,
or as Guthrie, Schafer, and Huang (2001) have described it, students
need opportunities to read. It is especially the case that students require
opportunities to read silently in classrooms.
he research on the nature and efects of students’ opportunities
to read in classrooms is sparse at best. In the late 1970s, several research
groups (e.g., Fisher, Berliner, Filby, Marliave, Cahen, & Dishaw, 1980;
Leinhardt, Zigmond, & Cooley, 1981) examined the relationship of
classroom time spent in silent reading to students’ reading achievement.
hey found that students in classrooms where more time was devoted
to reading practice and instruction attained higher levels of reading
achievement.
More recently, an observation study of more than 1,000 irst and
second graders and their teachers (Foorman, Schatschneider, Eakin,
Fletcher, Moats, & Francis, 2006) showed that of 20 time allocation

22 Stamina in Reading
variables, it was only when time was allocated for text reading in
classrooms that signiicant gains were found on any post-test measures
(including word reading, decoding, and passage comprehension). No
other time factors, including time spent on word recognition, alphabetic
knowledge, or phonemic awareness instruction, independently contributed
to reading growth. In another study, Kuhn and Schwanenlugel (2009)
reported that the distinguishing feature in a large scale-up of an
intervention was not in the results demonstrated by the intervention but
rather the success of students in relation to the amount of time that they
spent reading. Students in the seven most successful classes read seven
minutes more each day than did the students in the seven least successful
classrooms, regardless of whether classrooms were part of the intervention.
Observational studies over the decades have shown, however,
that the percentage of school time students reading texts in many of
classrooms is limited. Leinhardt et al. (1981) found that the amount of time
that students spent reading was approximately 15% of the time allocated
to reading instruction. Taylor, Frye, and Maruyama (1990) found that
students spent an average of 15.8 minutes a day in either assigned reading
or sustained silent reading (SSR).
All evidence points to the fact that, although the amount of time
devoted to reading instruction increased during and following the NCLB
era (Dorph et al., 2007), the amount of time that students actually spend
reading has not increased substantially. Brenner, Hiebert, and Tompkins
(2009) observed the amount—and kinds—of reading in which third
graders participated in a sample of classrooms that were participating in
a state’s Reading First program. On average, across the 64 classrooms,
teachers reported that they were devoting twice as much time to English
language arts instruction than they had prior to the implementation
of Reading First, but their students were involved with text less than
20% of the time, spending an average of 18 minutes a day reading text.
his amount of reading practice is less than those amounts proposed by
Allington (2001) and Fisher and Ivey (2006) but it was greater than the
national average of 12 minutes a day reported by the NCES (1999). Even so,
nearly a quarter of students did not read at all during the observed reading
periods in the classrooms in Brenner et al.’s sample.
In the classrooms that Brenner et al. (2009) observed, less than 10%
of total reading instructional time was allocated to unassisted reading,
where students are responsible for reading texts on their own without
teacher assistance or immediate monitoring. he small amount of time
that students read on their own can be tied to interpretations that were

Hiebert 23
 prominent as a result of the report of the NRP (i.e., NICHD, 2000), which
concluded that there was insuicient evidence to support independent
reading in classroom time. Teachers in the study had been informed of this
inding as part of Reading First trainings and they appeared to follow this
advice, even though the teacher’s guides in their mandated core reading
programs included in-school independent reading.
During the NCLB era, many educators extended the NRP’s
conclusion on independent reading to silent (or unassisted reading, as
Brenner et al. called it) reading as part of instructional sessions (Allington,
Billen, & McCuiston, 2015). his interpretation of this conclusion to
independent, silent reading did not accurately relect the studies on which
the NRP based their conclusions—studies of SSR where students read
texts of their own choosing and without teacher monitoring or scafolding.
he popular interpretation of this inding among educators, however,
was understandable in that the NRP did not provide a highly nuanced
description of the indings and also failed to include descriptive studies
in their database such as the Manning and Manning (1984) study that
showed that SSR was more efective when it included peer discussion or
teacher conferencing.
Following the NRP report, Lewis (2002) analyzed a broader
group of independent reading studies, many pertaining to students’
silent reading. Out of more than 100 separate student samples that
Lewis examined, the majority showed positive results for silent reading.
he samples in most of the studies that reported no efects or negative
growth from silent reading experiences consisted of students in
fourth grade or above. Lewis speculated that because older students
already have some reading proiciency, 10- to 15-minute silent reading
periods—as was typical in these studies—may have been insuicient to
signiicantly inluence these students’ performance. For students who
were less-proicient readers (e.g., beginning readers, learning disabled,
second- language learners), even such short periods typically produced
beneits. Speciically, the studies suggest that when there is some form
of scafolding, students’ silent reading proiciencies improve as a result
of increased opportunities to read (Nunnery, Ross, & McDonald, 2006).
Scafolding may need to take numerous forms, including support for
selecting appropriate texts (Mervar & Hiebert, 1989).
On the 1998 NAEP (NCES, 1999), fourth graders were asked to
report the number of pages that they read daily in school. Even though a
measure of self-reported reading is a rather simple tool (and not necessarily
the most accurate), this measure predicted students’ performances on

24 Stamina in Reading
the NAEP. A follow-up study that focused speciically on the students
within the state of Maryland conirmed that, ater parental education
was statistically controlled, the amount of engaged reading signiicantly
predicted reading achievement on the NAEP (Guthrie, Schafer, & Huang,
2001).
he survey used in the Guthrie et al. study used number of pages
read to determine the amount of reading. In Table 1.5, I have converted
pages read to number of words likely read by a hypothetical student in
each of three proiciency groups on the NAEP, using the average number
of words per page in a set of 100 fourth-grade texts. It is highly unlikely
that all three hypothetical students, representing diferent proiciency
groups on the NAEP, read at a similar rate (Pinnell et al., 1995; NCES,
2005), making the disparities in amount of text read daily in school by less-
proicient and more-proicient students likely greater than the amounts
shown in Table 1.5. But as Table 1.5 illustrates, even when a similar reading
rate is used across proiciency levels, diferences in amount of time spent
reading in school mean that the poor readers keep getting poorer and the
proicient readers keep getting better (Stanovich, 1986).
Table 1.5: Typical Reading Volume: Reading Levels of hree Hypothetical Students
Alex Alice Abby
Daily reading in school (in 7.2 11 15
minutes)
Daily # of words read (yearly 715 (127,700) 1,100 1,485
total words) (198,000) (267,300)
Projected new words (with 290 (1,160) 446 (1,784) 601 (2,406)
morphological family members)
Performance on NAEP Below-basic Basic Proicient
1
Same reading rate used for all students: 100 wpm

Instructional Applications: Appropriate Opportunities

Can Increase Students’ Reading Proiciency
Especially for students whose reading experiences occur primarily
in school settings, a strong silent reading habit (of which stamina is a part)
greatly depends on the experiences that their teachers provide them. he
development of a habit like silent reading does not occur over the course
of only a single grade. How children start out is incredibly important,
but a habit is formed over an extended period of time—grade ater grade
in school. If students haven’t had the kind of support that develops solid
silent reading habits over several grades, it is highly likely that changing
direction and developing appropriate habits may require instructional
Hiebert 25
 programs that are particularly well designed—oten referred to as
interventions.
One such instructional program that was carefully designed to
increase silent reading proiciency for students who were still developing as
readers was the project of Reutzel, Fawson, and Smith (2008). Reutzel et al.
reconigured SSR (where students read independently without substantial
teacher monitoring or guidance) into Scafolded Silent Reading (ScSR), in
which students read widely in independent-level texts covering a range of
genres but with periodic teacher monitoring and accountability. ScSR was
compared to Guided Repeated Oral Reading (GROR), the approach that
the NRP (NICHD, 2000) identiied as efective. In GROR, third graders
orally read a single text repeatedly, typically at grade level or instructional
level, while receiving feedback from a teacher or other students. At the
end of the yearlong study, Reutzel et al. concluded that the two forms of
reading did not produce signiicant diferences in students’ luency and
comprehension. What this study showed is that, when students are guided
in what and when to read silently, students’ achievement is as good as
that of students reading orally. In that silent reading is the proiciency
that typiies most reading done by adolescents and adults, such scafolded
opportunities to read silently lay the foundation for subsequent tasks in a
way that a heavy diet of oral reading in the primary grades does not.
One context in which consistency and adaptive solutions can be
part of reading lessons is the digital environment. Online contexts give
structure to learning experiences, which may be particularly valuable for
struggling readers who have spent three or four years in classrooms where
appropriate scafolding has not been provided (Hiebert, Menon, Martin, &
Bach, 2009). In a digital environment, there are ways to monitor students’
involvement—which, of course, is a diicult thing to do with 25 or more
students in a classroom. When considered relative to the approximately
1,200 hours most students spend in school annually, even a small
amount of consistent support in an online context leads to considerable
improvement in the CSRs of struggling readers in grades 3 and beyond.
Rasinski, Samuels, Hiebert, Petscher, and Feller (2011) found that
as little as 20 hours of participation in a digital context over a school year
resulted in improved performances on both a norm-referenced test (NRT)
and a criterion-referenced test (CRT). Reutzel, Petscher, and Spichtig (2012)
found that a similar digital intervention of additional reading was also
eicacious in increasing the reading proiciency of struggling third-grade
readers.
In a recent assessment of CSR completed by 350,000 students

26 Stamina in Reading
from grades 2 through 12 (Hiebert, Spichtig, Bender, 2013), over 14% of
the students could not comprehend a irst-grade text. What is surprising
is what these students gained from consistent reading—on computers—
over a two-month period following the assessment. Ater only 10 hours
of instruction that consisted of reading extended texts and answering
comprehension and vocabulary questions, these students had moved from
a 58% to 79% (on average) level of comprehension, moved to one grade
level higher of text, and were reading an average of nine words faster
(Hiebert et al., 2013). hese students had suicient word recognition—even
the lowest scoring ones—to increase substantially in their comprehension
on a irst-grade passage. And this growth happened ater students had read
approximately 40,000 words over the course of 40 lessons. Even a relatively
small increase in reading apparently can mean substantial increases in
students’ proiciency.
hese reports (Rasinski et al., 2011; Reutzel et al., 2012; Hiebert
et al., 2013) all indicate that there are instructional mechanisms that can
support students in developing the reading habits that are needed for the
21st century—and that build on the research on cognitive and linguistic
processes. But most teachers don’t have access to digital technology such
as that I have discussed, nor am I advocating that digital technology or
a particular program is the solution to all reading problems. Instead,
it is critical to consider the important components of various kinds
of successful programs. Using knowledge about research, theory, and
practice, I have generated seven actions that teachers can take to support
increased stamina in silent reading. he actions are listed below.
1. Give students responsibility for the irst read of texts.
2. Be explicit about the degree of challenge.
3. Have students make explicit goals for increased stamina and
reading.
4. Increase the amount that students are reading.
5. Increase students’ engagement in reading through connected
homework reading and magazine articles.
6. Increase students’ responses to texts through writing and
discussions.
7. Have monthly “on your own” sessions using available sample
assessments.
Individual teachers can implement these actions over the course of
a school year with a cohort of students. Getting support in one year may
make a diference (as was the case in the Rasinski et al., 2011 and Reutzel
et al., 2012 studies). As the Hiebert and colleagues (2013) project indicates,

Hiebert 27
 students can beneit even from several months of consistent and deliberate
opportunities of increased silent reading. But for students who have
developed poor reading habits in the early grades, the efort of creating
strong silent reading patterns, including stamina, will likely require the
involvement of teachers over several years of students’ school careers.
Opportunities need to be consistent and aimed at acquiring knowledge.
he texts can’t be vacuous—otherwise students won’t be engaged in
reading—but neither should the texts be far out of the realm of students’
knowledge or their vocabulary expertise.

Conclusions
he need for eicient silent reading habits for success in the digital-
global age is unarguable. here is emerging evidence that these habits
can be enhanced through scafolding, both on the part of teachers and
from digital supports. hese supports look quite diferent than the SSR
that Hunt (1970) advocated in favor of. his structuring can begin when
students are in the early stages of reading (Reutzel et al., 2008). Further, it
is highly likely that the process is an ongoing endeavor, extending through
the elementary grades and into middle and high schools as students
encounter new genres and content. At least for the students who depend
on schools to become literate, good silent reading does not just happen as a
result of an emphasis on oral-reading luency training. For many students,
good silent reading habits require that they participate in structured silent
reading experiences that model eicient reading. he target activities can
be summarized as a succinct mantra (Hiebert, 2013) that provides the
meanings for increasing stamina in silent reading: Read oten. Mostly
silently. Focus on knowledge.

28 Stamina in Reading
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S. McCormick & J. Zutell (Eds.), Cognitive Teaching children to read: An evidence-
and social perspectives for literacy based assessment of the scientiic research
research and instruction (38th Yearbook literature on reading and its implications
of the National Reading Conference; pp. for reading instruction (NIH Publication
529–535). Chicago, IL: National Reading No. 00-4769). Washington, DC: U.S.
Conference. Government Printing Oice.
National Center for Education Statistics. Nunnery, J.A., Ross, S.M., & McDonald,
(1999). NAEP 1998 reading report card for A. (2006). A randomized experimental
the nation and states (NCES 1999-500). evaluation of the impact of Accelerated
Washington, DC: Institute of Education Reader/Reading Renaissance
Sciences, U.S. Department of Education. implementation on reading achievement
in grades 3 to 6. Journal of Education for
National Center for Education Statistics. Students Placed at Risk, 11(1), 1-18.
(2005). he nation’s report card. Fourth-
grade students reading aloud: NAEP Pinnell, G.S., Pikulski, J.J., Wixson, K.K.,
2002 special study of oral reading (NCES Campbell, J.R., Gough, P.B. &. Beatty,
2006-469). Washington, DC: Institute of A.S. (1995). Listening to children read
Education Sciences, U.S. Department of aloud: Data from NAEP’s integrated
Education. reading performance record (IRPR) at

30 Stamina in Reading
grade 4 (Rep. No. 23-FR-04). Washington, Stanovich, K.E. (1986). Matthew efects in
DC: Oice of Educational Research reading: Some consequences of individual
Improvement, U.S. Department of diferences in the acquisition of literacy.
Education. Reading Research Quarterly, 21(4),
360–407.
Rasinski, T., Samuels, S.J., Hiebert, E.,
Petscher, Y., & Feller, K. (2011). he Taylor, B.M., Frye, B.J., & Maruyama,
relationship between a silent reading G.M. (1990). Time spent reading and
luency instructional protocol on reading growth. American Educational
students’ reading comprehension and Research Journal, 27(2), 351–362.
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Reading Psychology, 32(1), 75–97. Wixson, K.K. (April 24, 2013). Key shits
in assessment and instruction related
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(2008). Reconsidering silent sustained Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/
reading: An exploratory study of watch?v=IHYcJAX0AO8
scafolded silent reading. he Journal of
Educational Research, 102(1), 37–50.
Reutzel, D.R., Petscher, Y., & Spichtig,
A.N. (2012). Exploring the value added
of a guided, silent reading intervention:
Efects on struggling third-grade readers’
achievement. he Journal of Educational
Research, 105(6), 404–415.

Hiebert 31
 CHAPTER 2

Eye Movements Make Reading Possible1

S. Jay Samuels
University of Minnesota-Twin Cities

Elfrieda H. Hiebert
TextProject & University of California, Santa Cruz

Timothy Rasinski
Kent State University

T
he ability to read and understand printed words represents a
remarkable human accomplishment. Although the ability to
communicate through the spoken word seems to have been
genetically hardwired into our species over the eons of time it has taken
our species to develop (an estimated 5-8 million years), the skill of reading
has been with us only for about 7,000 years. Because of the huge time
diferences between the development of language by ear versus language
by eye, there appears to be some design laws in the human eye that must
be overcome before reading can occur. In essence, as remarkable an
instrument as is the human eye, it is not ideally constructed for reading.
An argument that we make in this chapter is that without eye movements,
reading alphabetic texts would not be possible.
A century ago, the study of eye movements was one of the hottest
topics in reading psychology. In the classic volume he Psychology and
Pedagogy of Reading, Huey (1908/1968) devotes two chapters to eye
movements. Despite this auspicious start, it is not the hot topic in reading
that it once was, as evidenced in Cassidy and Cassidy’s (2009) “What’s
Hot for 2009” survey in the United States. In this list, ocular-motor eye
movement is not listed as a topic to be rated by the experts. Because of
the critical role that eye movements play in the reading process, the topic
should be of interest to educational leaders at all levels who desire to see
improvements in reading achievement. his chapter on eye movements in
1 his chapter was previously published in Revisiting Silent Reading: New Directions for Teachers
and Researchers. he deinitive publisher-authenticated version published in 2010 and in 2014 is available
online at: http://www.reading.org/general/Publications/Books.aspx & http://textproject.org/library/books/
revisiting-silent-reading/
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

32 Eye Movements Make Reading Possible

reading should prove to be useful to educators in understanding how some
reading problems that beginning readers encounter can be traced to faulty
but correctable eye movements. When students’ eye movements become
more accurate and efective, schools can anticipate gains in reading
achievement (Gelzer & Santore, 1968).
When reading scholars were asked to explain why eye movements
are not hot today, responses indicated a perception of eye movements as
purely mechanical, unrelated to cognitive or social processes. It is true that
eye movements seem purely mechanical when the reading process is going
well. Eye movements, however, are inluenced by cognitive factors, such as
the need to locate information of personal interest or to reread a portion
of the text to do a comprehension check (Just & Carpenter, 1980). hese
cognitive factors inluence the duration of eye ixations and where the eye
searches for information in texts.
Kaakinen and Hyönä (2008) examine how eye movements mirror
the ongoing cognitive processing in which readers engage. In their study,
half of the readers were told to read a passage about a house from the point
of view of a burglar, while the other half were told to take the perspective
of an interior designer. Both groups wore eye-tracking apparatus that
indicated which parts of the text received attention and the duration of eye
ixations. hose who read from a burglar’s point of view had greater gaze
duration time on words that dealt with how one might burglarize a house,
while those who read from an interior designer’s point of view spent more
time on words that dealt with what made the house attractive.
In a similar study (Sipel & van den Broek, 2009) where the
emphasis was on text comprehension, college students read a text that
contained recently learned rare words, common words, and unknown
words. Eye tracking revealed that students spent more time ixating on
unlearned rare words than on recently learned rare words. he extra
duration of eye ixations on the rare, unlearned words may also relect
greater cognitive emphasis on decoding and meaning generation of the
rare, unlearned words. hese studies strongly suggest that eye movements
and gaze duration, rather than being purely mechanical and immutable,
seem to be under the cognitive control of readers and inluenced by factors
such as personal interests and purpose for reading.
Numerous scholars have attempted to explain how reading is made
possible. Given the number of diferent models of the reading process (see
Ruddell & Unrau, 2004), one may rightfully wonder if we need yet another
description of the reading process. he answer to this question may be
found in the brilliant poem entitled “he Blind Men and the Elephant”

Samuels, Hiebert, & Rasinski 33

 (Saxe, 1873). In the poem, each of six blind men described the elephant
from his perspective. Saxe claims that each blind man was partly in the
right, though all were in the wrong. Like the blind men, each model of
the reading process in the research literature on reading describes only a
part of this complicated miracle called reading, and more information is
needed to ill in the missing parts in the reading mosaic.
As remarkable as the human information processing system is,
there are areas that can be considered to be design laws insofar as reading
is concerned. In essence, the eye was not designed for reading. In this
chapter, we explain how eye movements and selective attention represent
ways in which human beings overcame the information processing design
laws in the human eye. Furthermore, as we reviewed a considerable
body of eye movement research, we became aware that most of it has
been done using a convenience sample of adults. Keith Rayner (personal
communication, May 10, 2009), one of the leading researchers in the
ield of eye movements, agrees that it is important that researchers learn
more about the eye movements of beginning readers, especially young
children. When, in the past, information that was derived from adults was
used either to understand beginning reading or to justify the methods
used in beginning reading instruction, it led to serious and regrettable
consequences. Keeping this admonition in mind, we describe how ocular-
motor eye movements make reading possible and, in fact, overcome some
of the bottlenecks that are part of our human information processing
system. To accomplish this goal, we begin by indicating how Javal’s (1879)
discovery set the stage for research on eye movements. hen we describe
the physiology of the eye and the eye movements that enable reading
to occur. In the inal section, we suggest implications that can lead to
enhanced reading achievement in classrooms.

Discovery of Eye Movements

More than a century ago, it was a commonly held belief that the
eye uninterruptedly and smoothly took in information as it swept along
a line of print or when looking at a scene outdoors. Contradicting this
common belief, Javal (1879) found that the eye seemed to jump from spot
to spot and then paused during reading. He concluded correctly that the
eye took in information only when it paused. He called these ocular-motor
eye movements saccades. Dodge (1900) supported Javal’s conclusions
indicating that when the eye movements were unbroken the observer was
unable to tell what had been exposed. In fact, before an eye movement

34 Eye Movements Make Reading Possible

occurs, vision is suppressed to prevent the reader from seeing the blur that
occurs during a saccade (Latour, 1962).
Whether the content is print or the view out of a window, eye
movements occur in what Hochberg (1970) describes as installments. here
are three types of ocular-motor eye movements that occur during reading:
1. Fixations—when the eye pauses momentarily on a line of print to
take in information or integrate information across ixation pauses.
2. Forward saccades—when reading English script the eye seems to
jump from let to right on a line of print to bring the eye to the next
ixation pause.
3. Regressions and rereadings—where eye movements occur
backward from right to let.

Generally, regressions go back about one word, whereas rereading allows

the eye to reexamine a previously ixated portion of the text. If the saccade
extends back several words, we identify this as a rereading saccade, not a
regression. In rereading, a student moves quite a few words back to a prior
section of a line and then proceeds in a usual manner to reread from that
point forward as a comprehension check.

Human Eye Physiology

As depicted in Figure 2.1, the human eye contains three major
parts. he irst part is the cornea, located in the front of the eye. It acts
like a window and allows light waves relected from visual images on the
printed page to pass through so they can settle upon the retina, which
is located at the back of the eye. he second part is the retina, which
primarily consists of two kinds of receptor cells: rods and cones. Some
of these are sensitive to letter and word shape. he third part consists of
a collection of communication wires called the optic nerve that carry
information from the retina to the visual perceptions areas of the human
brain.
he cornea of the eye contains a hole called the pupil through
which visual information from the page passes through on its way to the
retina. Surrounding the pupil is the colored portion called the iris, which
contains muscles that alter the size of the opening of the pupil. Under dim
light, the opening of the pupil is larger to admit more light and, under
bright light, the opening is smaller to admit less light. Located directly
behind the pupil is the lens that has the function of focusing the visual
images from the page as sharply as possible on the retina. he retina

Samuels, Hiebert, & Rasinski 35

 contains cells that function like the ilm in a camera. hese retinal cells
are sensitive to particular bands of light wavelengths (i.e., red, blue, green)
and ire only when the right wavelength causes the rhodopsin—a pigment
in the retina—to react. he mosaic, or pixel-like, electrochemical impulses
are sent to the brain via the optic nerve, where they are reconstructed to
make an image. Some specialized parts of the brain, in turn, control the
ocular-motor eye movements that we discuss shortly.
Figure 2.1. he Human Eye

Graphic from National Eye Institute, National Institutes of Health.

A key idea in this chapter is that the human eye is not ideally
designed for reading. Although the eyes are designed to move to perceive
things, the typical perception pattern of a visual image difers from that
of a line of print. Consequently, the eyes need to learn to make particular
kinds of movements if proicient reading is to occur. Imagine that you are
trying to identify the person who is standing in front of you. As you look
at this person, all that is in focus is the person’s nose and eyes. he rest
is fuzzy, but you can detect shape. You rapidly shit your points of focus
to other parts, so that in time the various parts of the individual are in
focus. he diiculty in determining the identity of this person is somewhat
similar to the problem of recognizing words when reading a text.
he problem with the eye when reading is that at any given
moment only a tiny amount of printed material from a page is in enough
focus to enable easy reading. Consequently, rapid eye movements are
required to bring diferent parts of a text onto that tiny area on the retina
that can see the letters and words clearly—the fovea. he retina of the eye

36 Eye Movements Make Reading Possible

contains two kinds of cells, rods and cones. Both kinds are important and
have diferent reading functions. Cone cells provide the visual acuity that
enables readers to see letters and words clearly. A major design law of
the eye in regards to reading is that the cone cells that enable the reader
to see letters most clearly are not evenly distributed across the retina but
are concentrated in a tiny area called the fovea. here are about 10 million
cone cells packed into the fovea of each eye where vision is most acute—
where the reader can identify letters and words with precision. Because of
the fovea’s location in the middle of the retina, print has to be front and
center and not of to the side.
Further, the parafoveal region surrounding the fovea also plays
a critical role in reading. he parafovea contains the rod cells that are
sensitive to word shape and word length. Information received in the
periphery of the eye helps guide the eye to its next ixation destination
(Rayner & Sereno, 1994). he spaces surrounding words are important
clues as to word boundaries and length, and this information is used
by peripheral vision to plan the distance the eye should jump with each
saccade. In essence, the rod cells are part of the eye’s guidance system.
Because the area of cone cell concentration is small, the number
of letters that can be in focus within a single eye ixation is limited.
We contacted two leaders in the ield of eye movement research to get
information on how many letters can be perceived by the fovea at any
given time. Keith Rayner (personal communication, May 10, 2009) stated,
he number of letters falling in the fovea depends on letter size and viewing
angle. In general, 3-4 letters usually occupy 1 degree of visual angle. Because
the fovea is about 2 degrees, it would be 6-8 letters in the fovea.

he second expert, George McConkie (personal communication, May 10,

2009) stated,
he foveal region is the area where...visibility of letters drops of pretty fast as
they move outward from the center of vision. hus, the problem in answering
this question is setting a “clarity” criterion. I suppose that a criterion might be
even the most similar letters such as v and u or o and c can be distinguished
at this distance.... What Keith and I were ater in our original studies was
to determine the region within which letter distinctions make a diference.
We found this to be about four letters to the let and eight to the right of the
directly ixated letter. he greater distance on the right is probably (there is
some supportive evidence) an attentional factor rather than retinal resolution
diferences to let and right.

Legge et al.’s (2007) research suggests that only six or seven letters
surrounding the ixation point on the fovea can be identiied with 80%
accuracy and, as the eye moves farther away from the ixation point,

Samuels, Hiebert, & Rasinski 37

 accuracy of identiication decreases more. For example, within four letter
spaces to the let of the ixation point, or eight letter spaces to the right
of the ixation point, accuracy of identiication drops to about 60%. In
summary, the evidence from the experts is that the size of the perceptual
span from which letters can be seen with accuracy and clarity falls in a
range of six to eight letters. It also appears that the shape of the window is
asymmetrical, with fewer letters in focus to the let of ixation and more
letters in focus to the right of ixation. It is also commonly acknowledged
that there is a rapid drop-of of acuity from the point of visual focus that
makes word recognition diicult (Feinberg, 1949).
he experts make a good point when they say that there is no hard
and fast rule about the number of letters that are in focus on the fovea. he
number of letters in focus is a function of letter size and the distance at
which they are being viewed. However, the experts agree that the number
of letters in focus is not large. hus, one bottleneck in the reading process
is that only a small portion of the text on a line can be clearly identiied.
Other letters that fall to the right and let of the fovea experience a steady
and rapid decline in clarity. One way to overcome this rapid loss of clarity
is to shit focus through eye movements so that diferent parts of words
that are not clear come into focus on the next eye movement. he problem
of attempting to shit focus so that the desired part of the text is in focus
on the fovea is somewhat analogous to the problem facing hunters who
try to keep a moving target within the cross hairs of a rilescope. It is
a diicult task, because eye movements make it easy to overshoot or
undershoot and miss the target. Rod cells shit to the next eye ixation so
that diferent parts of a text are in focus (Smith, 1971). While the cone cells
aid in identifying letters and words, the rod cells help the brain plan the
trajectory of how far to move the point of focus for each new eye ixation.
In addition, when words are printed in lowercase letters, the words take on
skyline and shape characteristics, and the rod cells are capable of picking
up word shape information (Lee, Legge, & Ortiz, 2003).
he span of apprehension refers to the number of letters the
eye can see in a single ixation. One might think that the span would
be symmetrical around the ixation point, but this seems not to be the
case. Instead, the span is asymmetrical with more letters recognizable
to the right of ixation for those reading in English, whereas the span of
apprehension is greater to the let of the ixation point for those reading
in Hebrew or Arabic. hese asymmetrical diferences in the span of
apprehension relect how text is written and processed in each of the
languages (e.g., English from let to right and Hebrew and Arabic from

38 Eye Movements Make Reading Possible

right to let). he span, then, is attention driven or learned rather tan
the result of a ixed pattern (Hebb, 1930). Moreover, if the words to be
recognized are low frequency and unfamiliar to the reader, the span of
apprehension is smaller than if the words are familiar high-frequency
words (Rayner, 1998).

Eye Physiology and Cognitive Psychology

he eye has additional properties that are relevant to the reading process.
Sperling’s (1960) research convinced skeptical psychologists that the eye
has a memory, or what has come to be called iconic memory. his memory
bufer can be viewed in terms of four characteristics: (1) speed of input, (2)
speed of output, (3) capacity, and (4) longevity. Speed of input and output
refers to how fast the images in the visual ield can be placed on the retina
and how fast the images can be retrieved when needed. he capacity of
the eye to take in the visual scene is huge and includes everything in a
circular visual ield. As Sperling’s research indicates, however, the longevity
of the image that is placed on the retina is short. he typical image lasts
only for one or two seconds at most, and then the image is gone. Although
the longevity of the word’s image on the fovea is short, the reader can
overcome this problem by ixating the same word several times. When this
is done, image two can function as an erasing image and the second image
can obliterate image one (Gilbert, 1953). With each repeated ixation of the
same word, additional decoding occurs and the process is repeated until
the word is recognized.
Because the capacity to take in information from the visual
ield is so huge, it presents a processing problem. he human brain can
process only a limited amount of information in a short amount of time.
In a single eye ixation, there is more information than the brain can
handle. Consequently, the brain ilters the unwanted information and
focuses on what it needs. For example, when viewing a scene outside, the
view is circular. In reading, however, the reader does not want circular
information from the visual ield because he or she would then be getting
information from lines of print that are located above and below the line
on which he or she is focusing. If the reader were aware of the information
on lines of print above and below the ixation point, it would lead to
confusion. hus, the eye needs to ilter out information above and below
the line that is being processed (Willows, 1974).

Samuels, Hiebert, & Rasinski 39

 Selective Attention
he mechanism the brain uses to ilter out the unwanted
information is selective attention (McConkie & Rayner, 1976; Posner,
1980). Selective attention is an internal mechanism that ilters out of the
visual ield that which is not important, and by doing so it also allows
the reader to focus attention on the areas that are important (LaBerge &
Samuels, 1974). To illustrate the nature of selective attention, researchers
have created laboratory analogs to what has been described as the “cocktail
party phenomenon”—where an individual engaging in a conversation
continues to maintain eye contact with another person even when he
or she has switched his or her internal cognitive attention to an adjunct
conversation. Even though the person is essentially iltering out the
immediate conversation to attend to the adjunct one, there is no observable
change in body position or receptors such as eyes or ears.
Evidence that the eye has a memory bufer that enables selective
attention came from Sperling (1960). he experiment involved lashing
12 numbers on a screen in three rows of four numbers, one each at the
bottom, middle, and top of the screen. As the 12 numbers disappeared
from the screen, they were followed by a tone (e.g., high, middle, low)
that signaled at which level the numbers were to be read back. his task is
diicult on several levels. First, the number of numbers—12—exceeds the
capacity of short-term memory, so they cannot be memorized. Second,
subjects needed to read back the numbers even though they were no longer
on the screen. hird, they needed to provide the tones that came ater the
visual image had disappeared. To succeed at this task, subjects had to do
an internal scan using selective attention and read the numbers of their
visual memory bufer. Subjects were successful with this task before the
visual image disappeared from memory.
Several characteristics of selective attention allow it to be a useful
companion to eye movements and reading. One feature is iltering out
unwanted information, such as text above and below the line the reader
is on. Although it is true that only about 6-8 letters that fall across the
fovea can be seen clearly, surrounding letters can be discerned. Without
resorting to another eye movement, the reader can do an internal
attentional scan to read the other letters of interest. If, however, the letters
cannot be identiied, another eye movement is required. For readers who
are not yet at the point where the entire word has become the unit of word
recognition, selective attention allows them to attend to parts of words
as they decode them (LaBerge & Samuels, 1974). Selective attention also

40 Eye Movements Make Reading Possible

allows readers to switch attention—whether on parts of a word or the
entire word, on decoding and then on comprehension, or on the letters in
focus and then on word shape in the periphery. Attention switching is fast,
under cognitive control, and can be automatic or contro11ed (Shifrin &
Schneider, 1977).

Visual Unit of Word Recognition

If the processing problems created by the fact that only 6-8 letters
strung across the fovea are seen with acuity were not enough, there is an
additional problem that strikes hard on the beginning reader and less so
on the skilled reader. his problem relates to the size of the visual unit
used in word recognition. Cattell (1947), using a convenience sample of
German graduate students, concludes that the unit of word recognition
was the word. Gough (1971), on the other hand, concludes that the unit
of word recognition was the letter, and each subsequent letter in a word
added approximately 50 milliseconds (ms) to how long it took to recognize
it. To determine which researcher was correct with regard to the size of
the visual unit used in word recognition, the irst author and colleagues
(Samuels, LaBerge, & Bremer, 1978) devised an experiment in which words
were shown on a computer screen. If the word on the screen was an animal
word, the student pressed a handheld button, and the computer measured
latency of response (i.e., reaction time) and accuracy. he animal words
were all controlled for word frequency, and there were three-, four-, ive-,
and six-letter words.
he rationale for the study was simple. If Gough (1971) was correct
and the unit of recognition was the letter, then the longer animal words
should take more time to recognize, but if Cattell (1947) was correct, there
should have been no diference in processing time related to word length
because a chunk is a chunk and a word is a word. In our study, we had
subjects from second, fourth, and sixth grades and college. Our results
were fascinating, because Cattell and Gough were each correct, but for
diferent age groups. he beginning readers were processing words letter
by letter as Gough had predicted and longer words were taking them more
time to process, while the sixth graders and the college students were using
the whole word as the unit of recognition, supporting Cattell’s contention
that the unit of recognition was the whole word. For sixth graders and
college students, there was no signiicant diference in processing time
related to word length. In other words, they were processing words as
entire units, and a chunk is a chunk. Fourth graders in this study showed

Samuels, Hiebert, & Rasinski 41

 increases in the size of the unit of word recognition. heir unit of word
recognition was larger than the single letter but not yet whole word
(Samuels et al., 1978).
here have been several replications of this study, including a
signiicant change in method, and the results are robust and hold up. In
fact, the research by Taylor (1971) on the number of eye ixations required
to read a 100-word text supports the research indings on the size of the
visual unit used in word recognition. By 11th grade, only 96 eye ixations
were required, implying that with each eye ixation the unit of recognition
was the word. In irst grade, however, 224 ixations were required,
suggesting that the unit of recognition was smaller than a word. As we
have already discussed under selective attention, there is an internal scan
mechanism that is used for processing the letters that are on the fovea and
letters that extend slightly beyond.
he size of the visual unit used in word recognition is an important
factor in eye movement. Imagine how hard it must be for the beginning
reader to place the target word on the fovea and then to process a word
unit that is smaller than the entire word. To add to the diiculty, the
processing must be fast enough that the word fragments put into short-
term memory are not lost (Peterson & Peterson, 1959). he student must
igure out the meanings of the words that are placed in short-term memory
in less than 10 seconds or what was placed there will be lost and the
process must be repeated. In addition, the wrong part of the text may fall
on the fovea with the ixation pause. Considering some of the processing
bottlenecks that have been identiied, such as the fact that only about six
letters are in focus in a single eye ixation, beginning readers may have
diiculty with the accuracy of eye movements. Given these problems that
must be overcome by beginning readers, it is not surprising that learning
Table 2.1. Development of Ocular-Motor Skills From 1st hrough 12th Grades
Ocular-Motor Skills 1st Grade 12th Grade
Fixations (including 224 96
regressions per 100 words)
Regression per 100 words 52 18
Average span of recognition 0.45 1.06
in words
Average duration of ixation 0.33 0.25
in seconds
Reading rate with 80 250
comprehension

42 Eye Movements Make Reading Possible

to read with skill takes time and practice. Table 2.1 shows the development
of ocular-motor skills from irst through 12th grades.

he Fixation Pause
Eye ixations in reading are critical because it is during a ixation
that the eye takes in information from the printed page and begins to
process it for meaning. he duration of the typical ixation pause is about
300 ms, which is about one third of a second (pauses can be as short as 100
ms or as long as 500 ms, which is 1/10 to 1/2 of a second). It is assumed
that during longer ixations considerable cognitive processing is going
on, such as attempting to grasp the meaning of a sentence or integrating
information across several sentences. “While the word ixation implies
that the eye is motionless, this is not the case. here is a slight eye tremor
that serves to activate the neurons in the retina so they will continue iring
(Gilbert, 1959). Taking into account the brief amount of time it takes to
make a forward saccade in which the eye moves from one ixation pause
to the next, in a single second the eye can make approximately three
ixations. “When viewing a scene or a page of printed material, the typical
person seems to be unaware that the information being processed by the
brain has been coming in at a rate of three bursts a second and that each
burst must be processed rapidly, because the visual image coming with
each burst survives for less than a second and then it is lost. If,however, the
processing is too slow and the visual image disappears from the retina, all
is not lost. he reader can reixate the original image. he term eye ixation
pause represents the time spent on a single ixation, whereas the term gaze
duration suggests the total amount of time the reader spends on a word
across several eye ixations.
Because of the rapid loss of the visual image from a ixated word or
word part, what the reader must do is transform the visual image into its
sound representation. For example, when the reader encounters the printed
word cat, it is transformed into its phonological form /c-a-t/ and then
placed in short-term memory.
he advantage gained by transferring visual into phonological
information and placing the phonological information in short-term
memory is that the shelf life of the acoustic information in short-term
memory is about 10 seconds, which is considerably longer than the
duration of visual information in iconic memory, which is less than 1
second (Peterson & Peterson, 1959). For the acoustic information that
is in short-term memory, 10 seconds is usually suicient time (in most

Samuels, Hiebert, & Rasinski 43

 cases) for skilled readers to complete tasks such as decoding the text,
integrating sentence meaning, and inally, moving the information that
was temporarily stored in short-term memory into long-term-semantic
memory.
Because eye physiology is such that the eye takes in diferent kinds
of information from three areas—foveal, parafoveal, or peripheral—the
total span of information is large. Beginning readers have a span of
apprehension that is 12 letters to the right and skilled readers have a span
of 15 spaces, although we cannot assume that words can be recognized
that far out, but word length and shape information is obtained (Ikeda
& Saida, 1978; Rayner, 1998). Foveal information enables one to identify
words, whereas the parafoveal area provides information about shape and
length (Rayner, Well, & Pollatsek, 1986). McConkie and Rayner (1976)
have shown that as skill increases the span of recognition increases, but not
beyond one or two words.
To the person reading a text or viewing a scene outdoors, the entire
operation appears to be seamless. It is the seamless nature of the operation
that led to the mistaken belief before Javal’s (1879) time that the eye
continuously took in information and simultaneously processed it as the
eye swept smoothly across a page of print. In terms of transfer of training,
it seems as if several of the eye-movement mechanisms used in viewing a
scene outdoors are also used in reading a text. he saccade serves as the
setup to get the right information in focus. However, information is not
taken in while the eye is in motion during a saccade. It is only during the
ixation pause that the brain assembles information for processing. he
number of ixation pauses per second for viewing a scene outdoors is about
the same as for reading a text (Taylor & Robinson, 1963) and comes to
about three ixations per second. According to Feinberg (1949), the number
of letters that fall on the fovea that can be seen clearly comes to about four
or ive-the same as the number of letters in a high-frequency word. hus,
if the reader is skilled and the unit of word recognition is the word, he or
she should be able to process three words per second and be able to read
at a rate of about 180 words a minute with comprehension, which is a little
short of the igure that Germane and Germane (1922) report as the silent
reading rate for good readers in the eighth grade.
An important question that eye movement researchers have
addressed is whether the eyes ixate on each word in a text or skip certain
words. It appears that the eye skips certain words, and the words that are
skipped are determined in part by word length and skill level. Short words,
high-frequency words, and words that can be predicted from context may

44 Eye Movements Make Reading Possible

be skipped (Brysbaert & Vitu, 1998; Paulson & Goodman, 1999).
Gilbert (1940, 1959) notes that oral reading is slower than silent
reading. his simple fact poses a problem in many classrooms where round
robin reading is practiced. In round robin reading, one student reads
orally from a text while the other students follow along reading silently
from the same text. However, when a poor reader reads orally, with typical
slow reading rate and lack of expression, it forces the better readers who
are reading silently into twice as many eye ixations and regressions.
Gilbert’s concern was that this round robin reading practice was training
poor ocular-motor habits in students. Gilbert cautions teachers that this
common practice should be discontinued. he practice, however, was
deeply entrenched in typical reading instruction.
One reason for the entrenchment of round robin reading in
practice is that it provided a means whereby teachers could get a sense of
how numerous students were progressing in their reading from day to
day. Informal reading inventories, given in a one-to-one setting, might
provide more valid information, but they were costly in terms of teachers’
time and, consequently, given infrequently (Pikulski & Shanahan, 1982).
Deno (1986) provides a viable alternative for monitoring that was not as
costly in terms of teachers’ time and, as a result, freed up instructional
time for other forms of oral reading, such as choral or echo reading or even
scafolded silent reading. Dena’s solution was to have students read orally
for one minute and to count the number of correct words read in that brief
period of time. By keeping a running record on each student’s reading rate
over a period of time, teachers could determine if there was improvement
in rate up to some asymptote. As good as Dena’s method is, there is a
problem. he problem is that comprehension is not measured, only rate.
Despite warnings that meaning should not be sacriiced for the sake of
reading rate, some teachers continue to encourage rate and students fail to
put attention on meaning. Because of the problems associated with using
only reading rate to measure progress, the time has come for researchers to
develop a testing method that focuses attention on comprehension as well
as reading speed.
As we noted, the typical eye ixation pause lasts for about 300 ms,
or about one third of a second. Even a pause this short can be separated
into components representing the diferent processing tasks that must
be performed to read with understanding (Abrams & Zuber, 1972). he
typical pause comes at the end of an eye movement when the eye has just
completed a rapid movement from one spot on a text to the next spot,

Samuels, Hiebert, & Rasinski 45

 somewhat like an automobile that comes to an abrupt stop at a stop sign.
here is still residual motion that must be halted and stabilized, and in the
case of the eye, it must be stabilized so that it can focus on the print.
Figure 2.2 is a simpliied rendition of what takes place during an
eye ixation of a skilled reader. Essentially, ive tasks are performed with
each ixation pause. he irst task following a saccade is to stabilize the eye.
Once the eye is stabilized suiciently, the next task is to focus the visual
images from the page on the fovea of the retina. With the visual image
from the page focused on the retina, the third task is to engage in word
recognition, or what many call the decoding process—converting the word
into its sound representation. If the reader is highly skilled and automatic
at word recognition, the task is done quickly and accurately, and it requires
a minimal amount of cognitive resources and attention. Although the
typical duration of an eye ixation is 0.33 seconds, in many instances it
may take longer.
Figure 2.2. Activities hat Occur During a 400 Ms Eye Fixation by a Fluent Reader

If a person is a skilled reader, the amount of time required for

the word recognition process may be only 100 ms, leaving 200 ms for
comprehension—the fourth task. In fact, the deining characteristic of
luency is the ability to decode and comprehend in the same eye ixation.
For skilled luent readers, the decoding task is done so quickly and requires
so little of the cognitive resources that comprehension can take place at
the same time (LaBerge & Samuels, 1974). he inal task for the reader is
to plan the next saccade (Abrams & Zuber, 1972). For luent readers, the
usual unit of word recognition is the word. A word is deined as a letter
or series of letters surrounded by space. Space is a critical cue used by the
rod cells in planning the trajectory for the next leap, which is probably
the next word. For readers not at the automatic stage of word recognition,
there are some important diferences in what happens during an eye
ixation. First, the word recognition process is usually slower, less accurate,
and may use up all of the cognitive resources available at the moment.
hus, during that one eye ixation, the single major accomplishment for
nonluent readers is word recognition. To add to the complexity of word

46 Eye Movements Make Reading Possible

recognition for the nonluent reader, the unit of word recognition is
smaller than the entire word, leaving the student in the position of having
to piece together the letter clusters that in combination make up the word.
Because only 6-8 letters that are on the fovea are in focus along with some
other letters to the right that are not so distinct, the student may resort to
selective attention to process the letter cluster. However, once the student
has recognized the word, his or her next task is to switch attention to
the comprehension process. his constant switching of attention from
decoding to comprehension places a heavy load on short-term memory
and makes learning to read so much harder for the less skilled reader than
for the accomplished reader.
Figure 2.2 is an important visual because it strikes at the heart of
the debate on what is reading luency. his visual shows that, within an eye
ixation, skilled readers can decode and comprehend what is in the text.
Unfortunately, beginning readers cannot do both tasks simultaneously.
hey irst decode the text, and then they try to comprehend what they have
decoded. he products of the dual process are stored briely in short-term
memory, but the decoding and comprehension tasks must be completed
within 10 seconds of that memory system or what was briely stored is lost.
If beginning readers lose what was stored, they repeat the process. he
second attempt is faster because of the previous encounter with the text.
During an eye ixation, exactly what part of the word the eye is
focused on is important if the reader wants to infer the word using only
partial information. Diferent parts of a word vary in the amount of
information they provide the reader. Broerse and Zwaan (1966) found
that not all parts of a word are equally informative for purposes of word
recognition. hey found that it is the beginning part that carries the
most information for purposes of word recognition. For example, if the
reader has already identiied the following context “Father was cutting the
green...,” and the letter string on the fovea for the next eye ixation contains
the following “gr_ _ _,” it is an easy task to infer that the next word is
grass. Paulson and Goodman (1999) believe that under certain conditions
the reader may skip words in a text and, if context is strong enough, use
partial information to infer the word. However, Taylor (1971) is of the
opinion that typically the reader does not try to infer a word from its parts.
Despite this claim, Paulson and Goodman report there are times when
words are inferred and recognized through their parts. In planning an
eye movement, the preferred location for a ixation is halfway between the
beginning and middle of a word (McConkie, Kerr, Reddix, & Zola, 1988)
because, given the span of apprehension, and the typical length of common

Samuels, Hiebert, & Rasinski 47

 words, the highly informative beginning of a word would be on the fovea.
An important question about the role of eye ixations in reading is
how much information is taken in and processed with each ixation pause.
he answer is that the eye provides the brain with information from three
areas, the foveal, parafoveal, and the peripheral. Of the three, the foveal
area is most important because it is here that the letters are in focus. he
foveal area extends 2 degrees of visual angle for a maximum of 8 letter
spaces asymmetrically distributed around the point of focus, with fewer
letters in focus to the let of ixation and more to the right (McConkie &
Rayner, 1976), but, as Feinberg (1949) has noted, beyond 4-5 letter spaces
from the ixation point, there is a sharp drop-of in clarity. However, for
skilled readers the amount of information that is available in a single eye
ixation is usually suicient to permit rapid identiication of the word.
Although the parafoveal and peripheral areas do not provide
sharp, detailed information, they provide important information in a
number of ways. First, there is word length information (e.g., short words
may be skipped). Word length information is provided by the spaces that
skilled readers use in the decoding process. Second, there is word shape
information. Words printed in lowercase have a characteristic shape or
skyline that aids word recognition. In addition, the space surrounding
words is used in planning the trajectory for the next saccade. To illustrate
how diicult reading becomes when word shape and length information
are eliminated, try reading the following sentence:
ONLYRECENTLYHAVEEYEMOVEMENTSANDEYEFIXATIONSBEENRE
COGNIZEDFORWHATTHEYREALLYARETHEYAREUSEDINTHEWORD
RECOGNITIONPROCESS

he division of printed words by spaces is a relatively recent

invention that turns out to be a most useful cue to readers. Gaur (1992) has
stated that the division of words and sentences developed only gradually,
and these changes occurred between 600 and 800 AD. he majority
of ancient scripts did not use space to divide words and sentences. he
reason is that the scribes who wrote the texts were so well versed they did
not need any aids as to word boundaries. It was not until about the year
1200 AD that monks preparing medieval manuscripts began to include
spaces so that readers who were less skilled could determine where the
word boundaries were, and it is this very word boundary information
that is used today when the brain plans the next saccade. If the saccadic
movement is incorrect and the eye overshoots the target, the low of
meaningful information can be interrupted and the reader may have to
self-correct by means of regressive eye movements. Just as the duration
48 Eye Movements Make Reading Possible
of eye ixations varies as a function of reader skill, the number of eye
ixations relects reader skill as well. From Taylor’s (1971) research, we
learned that to read a 100-word text, 1st graders needed 224 eye ixations
and 12th graders needed only 94 ixations. here are yet other factors
that should inluence eye ixations. For example, how do the goals of the
reader inluence eye movements? At times, the goal may be to study a text
carefully to pass an exam, while at other times the reader desires only a
casual, surface-level overview of a text. Surely, we might wonder how these
diferences in goals for reading inluence visual factors such as duration of
eye ixations, span of apprehension, the distribution of attention over the
text, the length of a saccade, and regressions.

Regressions and Rereading

To advance through an English text from beginning to end, the
direction of eye ixation advances from let to right. here are eye ixations
when reading English texts that move in the opposite direction, and
go from right to let. Fixations following right-to-let eye movements,
excluding return sweeps from one line of print to the next, may be
considered regressions. Some scholars diferentiate between regressions
and rereading. Taylor (1971) believes that some regressions that serve
no purpose may relect poor habits formed during the learning-to-read
stage, and these ineicient habits may persist for long periods of time.
Other regressions, however, may be purposeful and indicate that the
reader has encountered an unanticipated word and is going back to do a
comprehension check.
Regression may occur for any number of reasons. For example, in
the earliest stages of learning to read, the student must learn how to adjust
the accuracy of each eye movement. Pointing to the words is a strategy
that many beginning readers—and even more proicient readers when the
task is challenging—use (Ehri & Sweet, 1991). his aid (i.e., ingerpointing)
is evidence that some young children are aware that they need to train
themselves where and how to look at print.
Taylor’s (1971) research uncovered sizable diferences in the number
of regressive eye ixations made as a function of reading skill. In 1st grade,
for example, Taylor found that for every 100 words read, the students made
52 regressions while the 12th graders made only 17 regressions. How does
one account for this large diference in backward eye movements between
unskilled and skilled readers? One reason identiied by researchers for such
regressions pertains to poor habits that are acquired in the early grades

Samuels, Hiebert, & Rasinski 49

 that need to be overcome to some extent with increased skill in the later
grades. A second reason acknowledges the need for comprehension checks,
which may require regressions. A third reason to regress may occur when
the eye misses its mark during a saccade and the reader tries to adjust with
a regressive eye correction.
We suggest a fourth possibility. When beginning readers attempt to
construct meaning from the text, they engage in a two-step process: hey
decode the words, and then they attempt to get their meanings. During
this process, the decoded words or word parts are moved to short--term
memory where they are held for 10 seconds before they are lost. Once lost,
the readers must start the process again. Speed is of the essence in this
process. We have all noticed during oral reading how beginning readers
laboriously work their way through a sentence, stop, and then regress
back to an earlier section of text and start over. What has happened is
the students took too long and ran out of time, and what was temporarily
stored in short--term memory was lost. herefore, the students had to
regress and start over. Twelth graders make only 17 eye regressions per
100 words read but irst graders make about 52. Not only do less skilled
readers make more backward eye movements but also the duration of each
eye ixation is longer, which accounts in part for the slower reading speeds
of the less skilled readers. Text diiculty also inluences eye movements,
with increases in text diiculty usually accompanied by increases in the
duration of the ixation pause. Low-frequency, unfamiliar words in text are
ixated longer, the distance the eye moves with each saccade decreases, and
more regressions occur as more comprehension checks are needed.

Forward Saccades
When reading English, forward saccades are characterized
by let-to-right eye movements. During an eye movement, vision is
suppressed because the movement is so fast that the brain cannot process
the information. he amount of time required to move the eye from
ixation to ixation requires only 1/20th of a second. he distance the eye
moves in each forward saccade ranges between 1 and 20 letter spaces,
with the average being 4-5 letter spaces—the length of a shorter word. It
would appear, then, that for skilled readers, for whom the unit of word
recognition is the word, the eye jumps from word to word. For skilled
readers, what controls the distance the eye jumps with each saccade are
the rod cells, which are sensitive to the spaces that mark word boundaries.
Ideally, the saccade would place the image of the word so that the letters

50 Eye Movements Make Reading Possible

are spread across the fovea of the eye where letters are in focus. As we
move away from the focal point, clarity of the letters decreases, and in
fewer than 10 letter spaces out from the point of ixation, visual acuity has
dropped by 45% and ease of word recognition becomes more of a problem
(Feinberg, 1949; Legge et al., 2007). Consequently, as Rayner (1983) states,
the planning of how far to move the eye with a forward saccade is critical.
It is by means of the forward eye movements that the reader is
able to advance through a text from its beginning to its end. As important
as the forward eye movements are, they exact a heavy price. he price
is that they slow down reading speed and impair comprehension. It has
been shown, for example, that when readers look at a point on a computer
screen and all the words from a text are presented one at a time to that
point, very high rates of reading accompanied by modest comprehension
can be obtained—somewhere between 700 to 1,000 words per minute. his
procedure, however, that requires no eye movements embodies a serious
problem. It prevents the reader from making regressions that are essential
for comprehension checks (Rayner & Pollatsek, 1989).
In summary, readers are able to overcome the limitations presented
by the fact that in any given instant the eye can only see with clarity
about one short word or eight letter spaces—through several kinds of
eye movements: forward saccades, regressions, and ixations. In the
next section, we examine problems that readers can experience with eye
movements.2

What Educators Should Know About

Eye Problems in Reading
Although there is some disagreement about the extent to which
abnormalities of the eye itself and eye movement deicits lead to reading
problems, we take the position that eye abnormalities and ocular-motor
deiciencies can contribute to reading problems for inexperienced as
well as experienced readers. Certainly, lack of visual acuity for distance
viewing can be picked up through Snellen eye charts and corrected
through properly itted glasses, but the charts are not useful for detecting
problems in the close-up viewing that is required in reading. Tracking
can be a common and persistent source of diiculty, where readers have
trouble maintaining the focus of the eye on a line of print. Some readers
who have a tracking problem may skip entire lines. Even skilled readers

2 Reference to the next section is referring to materials in Revisiting Silent Reading: New Directions
for Teachers and Researchers.

Samuels, Hiebert, & Rasinski 51

 may have this problem, especially when the lines of text are long. In fact,
the tendency to lose one’s place when reading long stretches of text across
the page led many newspapers across the United States in the 1950s to
adopt the practice of using narrow columns of text as a way to reduce eye-
tracking problems in reading (Tinker, 1958).
Ideally, each eye should coordinate with the other, and both eyes
should work as a team. When both eyes are working properly, we have
binocular coordination. When there is a lack of binocular coordination,
the efort it takes to read can become prohibitive. A somewhat related
eye problem is convergence insuiciency. When reading, it is necessary
for the eyes to turn inwards toward each other as well as to focus on the
letters of the words that are being read. Convergence insuiciency is the
condition whereby the ability of the eyes to converge and focus properly is
compromised. If this occurs, students may experience blurred or double
vision, headaches when trying to read, and burning and tearing of the eyes.
here can be other issues that stem from the fact that eye
movements such as forward saccades and regressions are controlled by
the muscles of the eye and, as such, are similar to motor activities found
in skiing, golf, and tennis, all of which respond positively to training
and practice. Each of these sports has a learning curve, starting with
nonaccuracy and advancing with extended practice to mastery and beyond
that to automaticity. When a skill reaches the automatic stage, it can be
performed accurately and without conscious thought about its execution.
Eye movements such as the forward saccades and regressions also require
learning and practice to perform them accurately and automatically.
hese ocular-motor eye movements are diicult for the reader because he
or she must estimate how far to move the eye from one ixation point to
the next. Gauging how far the eye is to jump is not an automatic activity
and is a complex skill that must be learned over an extended period of
practice. he sports examples mentioned earlier may be easier to learn
than gauging how far to move the eye, because skiing, tennis, and golf
are open to observation by a coach who can see what is being done wrong
and correct the athlete’s mistakes. Under ordinary classroom conditions,
the eye movements are invisible to the outsider. his “black box”
phenomenon makes coaching the reader virtually impossible. he black
box phenomenon is a term psychologists use to describe the workings of
the mind that are hidden to an observer.
he sophisticated equipment that researchers such as Rayner
and McConkie—the experts we contacted for this chapter—have used
to study eye movements is unlikely to be afordable or practical in most

52 Eye Movements Make Reading Possible

classroom settings. However, digital technology is advancing rapidly, as
video recording on cell phones and lip camcorders become cheaper and
more accessible. he capacity of the technology will need to be matched
with ways of analyzing eye movements. here is equipment that is more
reasonable in cost and provides data almost as accurate as that of the
equipment typically used in research settings (Spichtig, Vorstius, Greene,
& Radach, 2009). It is unlikely that equipment such as this will be used
routinely in classrooms but, for comprehensive diagnoses of struggling
readers in particular, such information may well add insight that is not
available from typical assessments. Diagnosis needs to be coupled with
plans for addressing the ineicient patterns. here, too, digital programs
hold promise in developing more productive eye movements that underlie
eicient reading (Marrs & Patrick, 2002).

Conclusions About the Essential Role of

Eye Movements in Reading
At one time it was thought that the eye of the reader swept along
the lines of text and continuously processed texts for meaning. However,
Javal’s (1879) research more than a century ago showed that in reading
the process was not characterized by a continuous uptake of information.
Rather, it appeared as if the eye jumped from one point on a line of text to
another, and the critical components of reading such as word recognition
and comprehension occurred only during the brief ixation pauses. hese
ixation pauses occurred at a rate of about three ixations per second.
Because the physiology of the eye is such that only about 6-8 letters at
a time can be seen with clarity, eye movements are the means by which
diferent parts of the text can be sequentially processed.
A critical aspect of eye movements is the guidance system used
to gauge how far to move the eye from one focal point to the next For
skilled readers for whom the unit of word recognition is the word, the
spaces surrounding words are used as cues to guide the jumps as the
reader advances from one word to the next. For beginning and less skilled
readers, however, the unit of word recognition is some unit that is smaller
than the entire word. What guides the beginning reader is not clear,
because the bulk of the eye movement research that has been done has
used skilled adult readers. With the many advances that have come with
eye-tracking equipment, the time has come to learn more about the ocular-
motor processes of less skilled readers. One possibility as to how less
skilled readers process a text is that in addition to the eye ixation pause

Samuels, Hiebert, & Rasinski 53

 when letters from a word are displayed in focus across the fovea, they rely
partly on an internal shit of attention, or an internal scan, to process parts
of words that are on their retina.
One thing seems certain when considering all involved in the
learning-to read process efective and eicient eye movements are critical.
Although many students master the complexities of eye movements on
their own, there are many others who require additional help. Not only
do less skilled readers need help with eye movements, but also even
skilled readers working on advanced academic degrees can show marked
improvement in their ocular-motor eiciency and reading achievement
ater receiving additional training and practice with eye movements.

54 Eye Movements Make Reading Possible

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Samuels, Hiebert, & Rasinski 57

 CHAPTER 3

Are Students Really Reading in

Independent Reading Contexts?
An Examination of Comprehension-Based
Silent Reading Rate1

Elfrieda H. Hiebert
TextProject & University of California, Santa Cruz

Kathleen M. Wilson & Guy Trainin

University of Nebraska, Lincoln

A
ter a recent presentation by one of the authors (Kathleen), a
teacher asked, “My students act like they are reading when reading
silently, but how do I know if they are really reading?” his
teacher’s question relects a concern of many teachers. Recently, however,
teachers have not been the only ones asking questions about the eicacy
of silent reading. As a result of the conclusions of the National Reading
Panel (NRP; National Institute of Child Health and Human Development,
2000) that sustained silent reading has not proven particularly efective in
increasing luency and comprehension, policymakers and administrators
have raised questions about the efectiveness of silent reading during
instructional time. he NRP’s conclusions regarding the eicacy of
oral, guided repeated reading have meant an emphasis on oral reading
experiences in the primary grades as evident in classroom observations
(Brenner, Hiebert, & Tompkins, 2009) and in textbook programs (Brenner
& Hiebert, 2010). At the same time, the Panel’s conclusions regarding
the lack of substantive empirical literature that conirms the eicacy of
independent, silent reading experiences on comprehension have meant, at
least in the primary grades, a deemphasis on silent reading (Brenner et al.,
2009).
Ultimately, however, most of the reading that adults, adolescents,
and even middle- and upper elementary-grade students do is silent.
1 his chapter was previously published in Revisiting Silent Reading: New Directions for Teachers
and Researchers. he deinitive publisher-authenticated version published in 2010 and in 2014 is available
online at: http://www.reading.org/general/Publications/Books.aspx & http://textproject.org/library/books/
revisiting-silent-reading/
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

58 Are Students Really Reading in Independent Reading Contexts?

Unarguably, the ability to read extended texts on one’s own (i.e., silently)
with comprehension is the foundation of proicient reading. he products
and processes of comprehension are frequently the focus of researchers and
educators. However, one dimension that is infrequently addressed is the
rates at which students are reading with meaning. he topic of rate of silent
reading has oten been equated with speed reading. We are not suggesting
a return to the speed-reading craze of the 1960s, nor are we advocating the
obsession with speed that has become the interpretation of oral reading
luency during the last decade.
here can be little doubt that demands for eicient and efective
silent reading have increased as the amount of information available to
citizens of the digital-global age increases. he form of reading in which
we are interested has comprehension at its center. Within a focus on
comprehension, we believe that there is room for attention to the rates at
which students are reading, particularly whether students are reading at
appropriate rates. he digital revolution has meant that there are potential
ways to address these reading rates and for determining whether they
are appropriate for the tasks confronting students. We have termed the
construct in which we are interested as comprehension-based silent
reading rate (CBSRR).
Teachers in our graduate courses and workshops have asked
numerous questions about CBSRR, such as the one that introduces our
chapter. We delved into the research literature to answer these questions
as well as our own questions. Our search for answers, however, produced
few deinitive responses. With only a few exceptions (e.g., Carver, 1990,
1992), researchers have not addressed CBSRR over the past decades. While
the lack of a robust research surprised us, it also served as an impetus. We
initiated a study that considered several persistent questions about CBSRR.
We could not address all of the critical questions in a single study, so we
raise some of our many remaining questions at the end of the chapter.
We were able, however, to provide preliminary answers to some critical
questions about CBSRR in the study we describe here.
his chapter provides a summary of responses to the three foci of
our study:
(1) How do students of diferent quartiles vary in their CBSRR? (2)
How well do students sustain their CBSRR across an extended text? (3)
How consistent is the CBSRR of students in a digital context relative to a
paper-and-pencil context? Before describing the design and indings of this
study, we provide an overview of what is and is not known about CBSRR
and our three foci.

Hiebert, Wilson, & Trainin 59

 A Review of CBSRR
he term comprehension-based is central to our deinition of
CBSRR. he digital age has made an abundance of information available
to human beings, unlike any volume experienced by previous generations.
While ofering unique opportunities for learning and communication,
this surfeit of information places demands on readers for higher level
comprehension processes more than those demands of previous eras. Full
participation in the digital-global marketplace and community demands
deep and broad background knowledge and comprehension skills that
are inely honed to evaluate and integrate information. A fast reading rate
without higher order comprehension skills falls far short of the literacy
standards needed for full participation.
he term silent reading rate is also a critical consideration in
developing readers who can participate fully in the tasks of the digital-
global age. Readers who stop and tediously sound out numerous words in
texts are unlikely to have the cognitive resources to employ higher level
comprehension processes. hey are also individuals who will likely not
have the stamina to read and integrate information from several sources or
read extended texts.
Literacy researchers have shown an interest in two of the words
within these terms—comprehension and rate. here has been substantial
research on comprehension and comprehension processes (e.g., Duke &
Pearson, 2002) and consider able work on rate. Almost all of this work,
however, has been done on oral reading rate (e.g., Fuchs, Fuchs, Hosp, &
Jenkins, 2001; Kame’enui & Simmons, 2001). Rarely, however, have the two
constructs been examined in the same study. In particular, attention on
the rates at which students are reading with meaningful comprehension
has been scant.
When the topic of silent reading rates is raised among literacy
researchers, the general response is one of skepticism (e.g., Brozo &
Johns, 1986) or disinterest (see, e.g., Cassidy & Cassidy, 2009). In our case,
especially for the two of us who have been teachers or teacher educators
in U.S. contexts since the early 1970s, we know that this describes
our perspective. As teachers and graduate students, we watched with
skepticism the claims of and the techniques on speed reading (e.g., Frank,
1992). Continued spurious claims of speed-reading programs, such as
that of reading 25,000 words a minute, have only reinforced a sense of
skepticism for a new generation of researchers. As a result, the study of

60 Are Students Really Reading in Independent Reading Contexts?

rate, with respect to silent reading at least, has not been a popular topic for
research.
Although there are several sets of oral reading norms (e.g.,
AIMSweb, 2008; Good & Kaminski, 1996; Hasbrouck & Tindal, 2006),
there is a single set of silent reading norms that are based on data gathered
in the late 1950s and reported in 1960 (Taylor, Frankenpohl, & Pettee,
1960). hese silent reading norms are presented in Table 3.1. his set,
although based on a large sample, is for the 50th percentile. How the 25th
or 75th percentile groups do in comparison is uncertain. Such generic
norms stand in contrast to the oral reading norms like those of Hasbrouck
and Tindal (2006) that are also included in Table 3.1. As is the case with
the various oral reading norms that have proliferated over the past 20 years
in the wake of the advent of curriculum-based measurement (CBM; Deno,
1985), these oral reading norms are not based on assessments that include
comprehension. Although dated and not as detailed as the Hasbrouck and
Tindal (2006) oral reading norms, the silent reading norms (Taylor et al.,
1960) are based on comprehension. his distinction is an important one,
and it served as a primary incentive for our interest in CBSRR rather than
simply on silent reading rate.
Table 3.1. Silent Reading and Oral Reading Rates
Percentile Grade
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 College

Silent 50th 80 115 138 158 173 185 195 204 214 224 237 250 280
reading
25th 23 65 87 92 100 122 123 124 NA
rates
(Taylor et
al. (1960)
Oral 50th 54 94 114 118 128 150 150 151 NA
reading
75th 82 117 137 153 168 177 177 177 NA
rates
(Hasbrouck
& Tindal,
2006)

How Do Students of Diferent Quartiles Vary in heir CBSRR?

Although the Taylor et al. (1960) comprehension-based silent
reading norms do not give an indication of the variation across a cohort
of students, all available evidence leads to the expectation that diferences
across students within a cohort would be great. On the National
Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP; Lee, Grigg, & Donahue,
2007), the diferences within a cohort of students in their comprehension

Hiebert, Wilson, & Trainin 61

 performances on a silent reading test are substantial.
here is evidence that rate igures into these performance
diferences on the NAEP silent reading assessments, insofar as the evidence
comes from oral reading assessments. In a special study associated with
the NAEP, researchers had a representative sample of students read orally
the texts on which their silent reading comprehension had been assessed
(Pinnell et al., 1995). Oral reading rate correlated moderately well with·
comprehension. Diferences in students’ word recognition accuracy were
not statistically signiicant. Diferences in students’ oral reading rates were
substantially diferent, with students who comprehended less well having
much slower oral reading rates than students whose comprehension was
higher. Similar patterns were found in a recent replication of the Pinnell et
al. study (Daane, Campbell, Grigg, Goodman, & Oranje, 2005).
Table 3.1 includes the rate of growth that occurs in words per
minute (wpm) in oral reading for students at three percentile levels across
irst through eighth grades, according to the Hasbrouck and Tindal
(2006) norms. What is remarkable is the degree of consistency across the
percentile groups once students move beyond irst grade. hey start at
diferent points in irst grade, but their growth occurs at the same pace
ater this point. Once students get to the middle grades, they level of.
his rate of oral reading—150 wpm—is the same as the typical speech
production rate of adults in the United States (Schmidt & Flege, 1995). he
students in the 75th percentile have attained a level slightly higher than
this rate, but the 50th percentile is on target in terms of speech production
speed. he 25th percentile, at least through eighth grade, performs
approximately 25 words slower than the average speech production rate.
In considering the potential patterns of CBSRR for readers at
diferent levels, it is critical to recognize the diferences between oral and
silent reading. Oral reading is a performance-based situation. If a word is
unknown, students cannot gloss over it in the manner that is possible in
silent reading. Further, oral reading speed is governed by the speed with
which individuals talk. Humans can speak faster than 150 wpm, and
students can likewise read faster orally, especially if there is no concern
with prosody or comprehension. hese higher than expected rates may be
the case as a result of the assessment expectations and practices of the past
decade. Typically, as the norms in Table 3.1 indicate, proicient oral reading
keeps pace with the rate at which human beings speak.
he oral production factor and the need to produce each word
when reading orally, especially to a teacher or evaluator, leads to the
suggestion that there may be more similarities among individuals in oral

62 Are Students Really Reading in Independent Reading Contexts?

reading than in silent reading. Silent reading contexts, however, also have
constraints. here are limits to what the brain can do (Cunningham,
Stanovich, & Wilson, 1990) and what the eye can do (see Chapter 22, this
volume). Claims that someone can take a mental photograph of a page of
text at 25,000 words a minute do not require extensive investigation to be
deemed as spurious (McNamara, 2000).
What is clear from the data in Table 3.1 is that, not long into the
reading acquisition process, silent reading rates surpass oral reading rates.
he comparison of students at the 50th percentile in oral and silent reading
attest to this conclusion, even at irst grade. By fourth grade, silent reading
for 50th percentile students is approximately one third faster than it is for
oral reading. Further, once oral reading rates stabilize (relecting the oral
production factor) at the end of elementary/ middle school, silent reading
rates continue to increase. By the time they are in college, readers at the
50th percentile read silently at almost twice the rate that they read orally.
With a greater range in reading rates, as is the case with silent
reading, there may be greater variability among students of diferent
proiciency levels. One factor that has sometimes created problems in the
measurement of silent reading is the tendency for struggling readers to
inlate their self-reports of reading rates (Fuchs et al., 2001). By making
comprehension performances the ultimate criterion for determining
appropriate rates, we are eliminating the potential of “fake” reading
(Griith & Rasinski, 2004).

How Well Do Students Sustain heir CBSRR Across an Extended

Text?
We are especially interested in a construct called “reading
stamina”—the ability to sustain attention and proiciency across a text.
Even though educators refer to stamina as a critical aspect of reading (e.g.,
Johnson, Freedman, & homas, 2008; Qualiications and Curriculum
Authority, 2005), it is rarely addressed directly in research. For example,
in reviewing the three volumes of the Handbook of Reading Research,
we found no references to or descriptions of stamina. Despite this lack
of attention, a strong case can be made for hypothesizing that stamina
could be an issue in both oral and silent reading. Students, particularly
those in the bottom quartile, may quickly become fatigued when asked
to read longer texts. Conversely, it could be argued that once students
become familiar with the content and the vocabulary of an extended text,
2 References to chapters, this volume are referring to materials in Revisiting Silent Reading: New
Directions for Teachers and Researchers.

Hiebert, Wilson, & Trainin 63

 their reading rates would increase. Texts are frequently written so that
the principal ideas-and the vocabulary that represents those ideas-are
presented early in a text. Once students have been introduced to a text’s
vocabulary and principal ideas, their reading rates might increase as they
move through the remainder of the text.
Another perspective is that stamina would be challenged most
directly in silent reading. Silent reading involves managing one’s strategies
and comprehension. A strategy that illustrates such comprehension
management is clarifying confusing parts of text, one of a handful of
strategies that has been found to distinguish proicient and challenged
readers (Brown & Smiley, 1978). hus, slow silent reading may be an
indication of comprehension monitoring. Evidence for this hypothesis
is limited. here is a need to ind out more about silent reading rates,
especially those of students in diferent proiciency groups. Rather than
glossing over silent reading, interventions may need to focus directly on
the nature of dysluent silent reading patterns of low-performing students.
Stamina may be a particularly critical construct to consider in
relation to the “iGeneration” (Rosen, 2010). For these students, whose lives
have involved a barrage of information presented in several modalities
simultaneously, attending to the ine print in rather solitary situations may
be challenging. hese students may have high levels of word recognition
and may be facile with a variety of background knowledge. What may be
challenging for them is sustained involvement with a text. he average
length of a text on the fourth-grade NAEP is 800 words (Lee et al., 2007),
while the average length of texts in the fourth-grade anthology of a widely
used core reading program is approximately 2,000 words (Alerbach et al.,
2007).
A particular shortcoming of assessments that have typiied the
CBM movement, whether the mode is oral or silent reading, is the brevity
of assessments—one minute or two minutes at most. he oral reading
norms summarized in Table 3.1 relect the shorter tasks. he silent reading
norms, by contrast, relect substantially longer tasks.

How Consistent Is the CBSRR of Students in a Digital Context

Relative to a Paper-and-Pencil Context?
Teachers’ interest in answers to this question derive from the
recognition that reading in digital contexts is central to success in the
digital-global age. Reading in digital contexts involves a myriad of
issues that are not present in paper-and-pencil contexts (see Chapter

64 Are Students Really Reading in Independent Reading Contexts?

13, this volume). Even elementary students need to make numerous
choices as they negotiate online reading tasks. In the face of a paucity of
information on students’ comprehension and rate of reading, our interest
was straightforward: We wanted to know if students were able to read
with similar levels of comprehension and at similar rates when they were
reading texts presented digitally and in conventional contexts with printed
texts.
Students’ ability to transfer their reading skills to a new and
critical context was one reason for including this component in our
study. As researchers, we had a second reason. If teachers are going to
support students’ stamina and capture whether students are improving in
their CBSRR, they need ways to gather information on students’ CBSRR
regularly and with authentic data. At the present, the typical form of
assessment that is used for capturing CBSRR is the maze technique (Deno,
2003). he maze technique emanates from the CBM perspective that also
spawned the widely used one-minute oral reading assessments (e.g., Good
& Kaminski, 1996). A maze assessment for the primary grades consists of a
passage slightly longer than what is anticipated would be read by the fastest
grade-level readers (e.g., 300 words for second grade). Every seventh word
(although the number can be varied) is replaced with a blank, and three
or four words are listed underneath. he choices include the correct word
as well as words that vary in their semantic, syntactic, or graphophonemic
similarity to the target word. Students mark their choices. heir CBSRR
is based on the number of words represented by their correct choices. As
with oral reading luency assessment, the typical length of time is one
minute.
Studies have been conducted on the reliability of the maze relative
to other assessments and have shown that the maze is positively related
to performances on standardized tests (Shin, Deno, & Espin, 2000).
Questions of validity have persisted around the maze, such as the efects of
needing to stop and mark choices (Guthrie, Siefert, Burnham, & Caplan,
1974; Parker, Hasbrouck, & Tindal, 1992). Maze developers have identiied
particular rules for guessing, but the technique’s success depends on
carefully crated alternatives for the target words.
he crating of questions is a challenge for any assessment, but
we are interested in the use of comprehension texts and questions that
are typical of those used in classroom experiences, including typical
tests. he tests that currently form such a central part of the classroom
lives of students and teachers oten contain highly crated questions.
Unfortunately, information from such tests is reported as summary scores,

Hiebert, Wilson, & Trainin 65

 usually in the form of norms. If data on CBSRR are to be brought to bear
on instruction, teachers and students require information about speciic
texts and questions. hey also require this information quickly to make
informed instructional decisions—in hours rather than in the weeks or
even months it can take to get back test results.
Because recent advances in digital environments have been
notable (PytlikZillig, Bodvarsson, & Bruning, 2005), we believe that new
technologies of fer a viable approach to the problem of assessing CBSRR. In
particular, the interactivity of the computer “page” could permit educators
to measure students’ CBSRR reliably, frequently, and with authentic texts
and tasks. A question that remained unanswered was whether students
would perform with similar rates and comprehension when reading text
on a computer screen and in the more typical school contexts of a printed
text.

Designing and Implementing a Project to

Answer Questions About CBSRR
In the study that we designed to address our questions about
CBSRR, we had students representing a range of reading proiciencies read
silently sections of an extended text in two diferent reading contexts. Our
interest lay in similarities or diferences in the performances of students of
diferent quartile groups, at diferent points in reading an extended text,
and between two contexts (digital and paper and pencil).

Method
Eighty-three students from ive fourth-grade classrooms in
a Midwestern, urban school district participated in the study. he
participants were 65% Caucasian, 13% African American, 12% Asian
American, and 9% Hispanic. More than 60% of the students in the schools
receive free-or reduced-cost lunch. Participants included 15% English
Learners and 13% special education students (i.e., those with speech-
language disorders or speciic learning disabilities).
We wrote two comparable sets of informational texts, each
containing 1,000 words. Each set consisted of ive texts connected by
a common theme. he content of both themes came from a similar
domain—communication. he underlying theme of one set of texts had to
do with the role of posters in the past and present (e.g., posters as a source
of information and announcements before the printing press). he theme
of the second set was on nonverbal language (e.g., military hand signals,
66 Are Students Really Reading in Independent Reading Contexts?
Braille).
Texts were created over numerous iterations to ensure that the
two sets were as comparable as possible on several measures. he irst
was sentence length. As the readability levels for the Flesch-Kincaid and
Fry indicate in Table 3.2, texts were comparable on that dimension. A
second consideration in the creation of the texts was the comparability of
vocabulary. Data on the distribution of words in word zones established by
frequency of appearance in written English (Hiebert, 2005) indicate that
the distribution of words that were highly frequent (i.e., Word Zones 0-2),
moderately frequent (Word Zones 3-4), and rare (Word Zones 5-6) was
comparable across the two sets of texts.
he readability levels on both the Flesch-Kincaid and Fry suggest
that the texts were approximately 1.5-2.5 grade levels above the mid-
fourth-grade (the grade-level placement of students in the study). his
diiculty level, however, is an artifact of a feature of readability formulas
that has long been recognized as inlating the diiculty of informational
texts (Cohen & Steinberg, 1983). his feature is that each appearance of a
word counts in the establishment of readability with formulas such as the
Flesch-Kincaid or Fry. In informational texts, rare (and oten multisyllabic
words) are repeated frequently when they are central to the content. hus,
informational texts typically are assigned high readability levels.
Table 3.2. Features of Texts Used in Study
Feature Text A (Posters) Text B (Nonverbal Language)
Number of words 1,000 1,000
Flesch-Kincaid readability 6.1 5.9
Fry readability 7 7
Unique words:
Word Zones 0-2 85% 83%
Word Zones 3-4 13% 16%
Word Zones 5-6 1.5% 1%
Type-token ratio 0.28 0.28

he texts in this study had been written to be representative of

informational texts and to comply with components of the TExT model
(Hiebert, 2002) in which cognitive load (i.e., the ratio of unique words
to total words or type-token ratio) and the percentage of rare words (i.e.,
Word Zones 5-6) are seen to inluence text diiculty. he texts, as can be
seen in Table 3.2, had type-token ratios of 0.28. A typical assessment text,
such as those on the Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills
(DIBELS; Good & Kaminski, 1996) has a type-token ratio of 0.50 or higher
Hiebert, Wilson, & Trainin 67
 (Hiebert, Stewart, & Uzicanin, 2010). Further, the percentages of rare
words were low (1-1.5%) and the percentages of words in the 1,000 most
frequent words (i.e., Word Zones 0-2) of 83-85% were high, leading to the
expectation that most fourth graders should be able to read the majority of
words.
To accompany the two text sets, we created two short sample
passages of 200 words, each on familiar informational subjects: U.S.
parks and dinosaurs. Each sample passage had two multiple-choice
comprehension questions. As with the main text sets, the vocabulary in the
sample passages was controlled. he purpose of the sample passages was to
familiarize the participants with the assessment’s format.
Each passage within a theme was immediately followed by four
comprehension questions speciic to the passage that students needed
to answer before continuing to the next passage. Each set of passages,
therefore, included 20 questions. Each set of questions for a passage
included two literal questions, one inferential, and one interpretive.
We conducted a pilot study to ensure the validity and reliability of
the comprehension questions and to ensure that the special Internet-based
application that had been created for the computer condition of the study
was student friendly. he pilot study sample consisted of two fourth-grade
classes with demographics similar to those in the main study. One class
of students (n = 19) was administered the full texts with comprehension
questions in the computer context. A second class (n = 21) responded
to the questions about the texts without exposure to the texts. he data
from the pilot study was used to reine both the computer program and
the comprehension questions. For example, questions that students in the
latter group could answer with high levels of success were eliminated from
the inal test set.
Students were assessed in spring of fourth grade. Computer
administration was conducted in the school’s computer lab with two
observers who read directions, assisted with technical problems, and
redirected students. he individualized paper-and-pencil administration
followed the same format and organization but added a third observer who
aided in recording students’ start and stop times for text sections.
Texts were counterbalanced for order of administration (i.e.,
computer vs. paper-and-pencil) and topic (i.e., nonverbal language vs.
posters). Comprehension scores were corrected for guessing. Reliability of
the 20-item comprehension items for each set of passages was established
using coeicient α. he reliability for both scales was 0.74, an acceptable

68 Are Students Really Reading in Independent Reading Contexts?

range for research measures.

Results
Outlier analysis showed that there was a group of students with
extremely high reading rates and very low comprehension performances.
he performances of the outlier students can be seen in Figure 3.1. he
observers who had been present during the task administration to ensure
students’ ease with the computer interface conirmed that particular
students appeared to move rapidly through the task. As a result of this
analysis, the data used in the subsequent analyses was limited to 65
students.
Descriptive statistics that appear in Table 3.3 indicate that silent
reading rates were precisely the same on the two diferent sets of passages.
his silent reading rate of approximately 154 wpm is similar to the average
of 158 wpm reported by Taylor et al. (1960) for fourth graders almost 50
years ago. Comprehension performances were slightly lower on the posters
text than that on nonverbal language.
A repeated-measures ANOVA was used to compare performances
in the paper-and-pencil and computer administrations. For reading
comprehension, there were no signiicant diferences: F(1, 77) = 1.19, p =
0.28 MSE = 6.32. For silent reading rate, there was a signiicant efect for
mode of presentation F(1,61) = 5.43, p = 0.02 MSE = 873. his diference
was not massive, but the context in which the slightly faster rate occurred
is of interest-the computer context as is evident in Figure 3.1. Further,
the lack of signiicant diferences in comprehension indicates that this
somewhat higher rate did not compromise comprehension.
he next set of analyses considered diferences across quartile
groups. Quartile groups were established on the basis of comprehension
scores. Repeated-measures ANOVA revealed that rates for diferent
comprehension quartiles were signiicantly diferent overall F(3, 72) = 2.7, p
= 0.05 MSE = 210035.
he interpretation of rates by diferent groups is diicult because of
diferent patterns of performance by the quartile groups on diferent parts
of the texts. hese patterns are provided for the irst text (Posters) in Figure
3.2. For the irst section of the assessment, the highest quartile performed
approximately 30 wpm faster than the other three quartiles. he rates
of Quartiles 1 and 2 were slightly lower than those of Quartile 3 but not
substantially so on the irst section of the text.

Hiebert, Wilson, & Trainin 69

 Figure 3.1: Average reading rate by group and context

Table 3.3. Descriptive Statistics for Comprehension and Silent Reading Rate for Texts
Mean SD
Corrected comprehension score Text A 6.3 4.1
(posters)
Corrected comprehension score Text B 7.9 3.7
(nonverbal language)
Silent reading rate Text A 153.5 63
Silent reading rate Text B 153.5 60

Figure 3.2: Silent reading rate for text A (posters) by section

70 Are Students Really Reading in Independent Reading Contexts?

 A repeated-measures ANOVA veriied the pattern that can be seen
in Figure 3.2 of performances of diferent quartile groups across sections
of the text. Although students in the two lower quartiles started out at a
reasonable rate, their rates changed dramatically over the sections of the
assessment (but not with in creases in comprehension). he efect was
nonlinear. he lowest quartile readers increased their speed ater one
passage (but without commensurate gains in comprehension). he second-
lowest quartile increased their speed ater two sections (again, without
commensurate gains in comprehension). he students in the top two
quartiles had stable rates that changed very little across sections of the text.
Further, their comprehension remained stable.

Some Conclusions About Silent Reading

Silent reading has been an area in which educational practices
have swung from one extreme to another (see Chapter 1, this volume).
At particular times, all reading—even for irst graders—was mandated
or advocated to be silent. he opposite swing of the pendulum has been
evident in the past decade, when oral reading has been emphasized as
the primary mode. When one solution is found wanting, it is replaced by
another solution. In a domain as complex as reading, single solutions will
always be found wanting. A single study on CBSRR cannot produce all of
the answers to a very complex set of issues. We can, however, give some
tentative answers to a critical set of questions. hese answers are ofered in
the spirit of continuing investigation, both by researchers and teachers, of
what works best with particular kinds of texts and at particular points in
development.
We begin by answering the question that we raised in the title
of this chapter—are students really reading in independent reading
contexts? he answer: Yes, most students are. Many students read at fairly
consistent rates across diferent sections of a text. hey comprehend at
a fairly consistent level as well. heir rate is somewhat faster when they
are reading digital text rather than a paper text, but with similar levels of
comprehension.
his pattern—where most students are reading consistently
in diferent silent reading contexts—is an important one to consider
when thinking about the design of instruction. We are in the midst of
the greatest knowledge revolution in human history. In a world where
knowledge is the critical commodity, reading is a primary means whereby
knowledge is acquired. We are not suggesting by any stretch of the

Hiebert, Wilson, & Trainin 71

 imagination that all reading should be silent reading (see the Conclusion
for an expansion on the functions of oral and silent reading). Oral
reading serves several essential roles, particularly at critical periods in
students’ reading acquisition. By the same token, to limit silent reading
opportunities of all students because a portion of a cohort struggles with
the task does a great disservice to all students. For struggling readers, such
prohibitions mean that there is no opportunity to develop capacity in silent
reading. For proicient readers, opportunities to learn are constrained
when silent reading is limited.
Consider the greater amount of new vocabulary that students
can acquire through silent rather than oral reading. If fourth graders
read orally for 30 minutes daily at a speed of 118 wpm, they will read
approximately 3,540 words daily or 637,200 words over a school year of 180
days. If they spend the same length of time reading silently, they will read
4,590 words daily or 826,200 words over the school year—approximately
189,000 more words. Based on existing research, it is estimated that 2-5%
of these words will be unknown to students (Stahl, 1999) and, of these
unknown words, students can be expected to remember approximately
5-10% from a single reading (Nagy, Anderson, & Herman, 1987). Using
estimates of 3.75% unknown words and 7.5% remembered words, students
will learn approximately 532 additional words in silent reading contexts.
In that it is estimated that fourth graders acquire approximately 2,000 new
words a year (Graves, 2006), this amount is signiicant. Further, because a
primary way in which oral reading occurs is through round robin reading
(Brenner et al., 2009), it is not at all clear that students will be attending to
the texts to the same degree during oral reading as in silent reading.
But not all students’ performances are consistent and reliable in
silent reading contexts. Approximately 20% of the students did not stay
“on the page.” Another group of students read the irst one or two texts
conscientiously but changed their strategy at that point, moving quickly to
answer the comprehension questions without careful reading of the text.
Considerable attention is required on the kind of experiences that underlie
consistency in silent reading, particularly the stamina that is required to
sustain interest and monitor comprehension through extended texts. We
hypothesize that stamina is part of the cycle of poor reading that Stanovich
(1986) describes. As poor readers read less, their skills become increasingly
inadequate for new developmental tasks such as reading chapter-long
texts. Even if the texts are not overly diicult (which was the case with the
texts in the present study), poor readers approach reading tasks with low
levels of motivation and interest. As Swan, Coddington, and Guthrie (see

72 Are Students Really Reading in Independent Reading Contexts?

Chapter 6, this volume) describe, these students have poor identities of
themselves as readers and low levels of intrinsic motivation.
Efective silent reading habits are not automatic outcomes of
proicient word recognition and oral reading luency. here are aspects
of silent reading that make it unique from oral reading: vocalization, the
need for self-monitoring, stamina, and interest. Numerous chapters in
this volume highlight the components of instruction that support these
components of efective silent reading. We will not review all of these
components, but we do underscore one point: Just as the development
of poor reading habits occurs over an extended period of time, so too
development of good reading habits likely relects many experiences over
an ex tended period of time.
For the students who engage in what Griith and Rasinski (2004)
have described as “fake reading” behaviors, eforts to develop proiciencies
such as self-monitoring, stamina, and interest are interwoven with
the need to develop students’ identities as readers and their intrinsic
motivation. Most students have acquired fundamental word recognition
by the end of second grade (Hiebert et al., 2010) and deinitely by the
middle of fourth grade (Pinnell et al., 1995). For a signiicant portion of
these students (approximately a third of a grade cohort), this recognition
is tedious and time consuming. hey have not developed perseverance or
stamina for the task. hey need considerable support if they are to sustain
attention to the texts and tasks of daily classroom life.
here are likely limits to what teachers can do—especially in
classrooms where large groups of students have such behaviors. Hiebert,
Menon, Martin, and Bach (2009), in considering the research on silent
reading, suggest that digital contexts may be one means whereby support
can be provided for struggling readers. In a computer context, the text
can be ine tuned. he length of time can be monitored. Content can be
chunked and periodic check-ins can be made. he architecture can be
designed so that the length of time, the accessibility of text, and the tasks
can be carefully adjusted to students’ growing capacity as readers. Not
much data have been gathered on current eforts, especially for struggling
readers, but there is suggestive evidence that digital technology may
provide the scafolding that supports struggling readers in becoming
stronger readers (Moran, Ferdig, Pearson, Wardrop, & Blomeyer, 2008).
At least in terms of our interest in providing classroom teachers
with authentic and reliable assessments, the indings of this study leave us
optimistic that digital contexts can serve as a means for providing teachers
and students with consistent and usable information. Students responded

Hiebert, Wilson, & Trainin 73

 well to the digital context with over-all reading rates higher in that context
than in the paper-and-pencil context. What we found to be particularly
encouraging about this result is that students’ faster rates did not
compromise comprehension. his inding of students’ somewhat superior
performances in the digital context also bodes well for their lexibility as
readers and their adaptation to a context that will be a critical one in their
futures.
he study that we report in this chapter ofers a window on
variations of silent reading rate and comprehension of fourth-grade
students when they are asked to read informational text. here are
numerous questions that remain: How does this relationship change when
similar assessments are administered to students in other elementary
grades? Will the rates level of, as has been observed with oral reading
luency as the grades increase? Will reading rates change when comparing
matched narrative and informational texts? When is it possible to gather
reliable data based on students’ developmental reading patterns? How
should meaningful benchmark reading rates across the grades be created
that are related to comprehension performance? Are students reading at
appropriate rates? Are there optimal silent reading rates? Does oral reading
practice improve CBSRR? Although this list of unanswered questions is
sizable, it is not exhaustive. It illuminates the need for much more work in
the area of silent reading assessment. Educators at all levels would beneit
from a more nuanced understanding of the factors that afect students’
learning when reading silently. Greater understanding of this little-studied
reading mode will help to inform the instructional choices teachers make
as students progress across the grades.

74 Are Students Really Reading in Independent Reading Contexts?

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Hiebert, Wilson, & Trainin 77

 II. INSTRUCTION AND PRACTICES THAT
FOSTER STAMINA AND SILENT READING

78
 CHAPTER 4

Stretching Elementary Students in Complex Text:

Why? How? When?

Heidi Anne E. Mesmer

Virginia Tech

S
tretching students in text? What does that mean? Put them on a rack?
A third-grade teacher mischievously made the comment at a recent
professional development workshop. I had to bite my tongue because,
in truth, I ind the phrase a little odd myself. I know that I certainly never
used the term “stretch text” when I thought about challenging students
with reading materials before the Common Core State Standards for the
English Language Arts in History/Social Studies, Science, and Technical
Subjects (CCSS) were established (National Governors Association Center
for Best Practices (NGA Center) & Council of Chief State School Oicers
(CCSSO), 2010a). Instead, like many other teachers, I might have spoken of
an instructional-level text but never a stretch text.
So where did this term come from? What does scholarship say
about how to stretch—or challenge—students in text? his chapter focuses
on these very questions. he chapter will begin with a discussion of the
meaning of complex text, both how the CCSS deine it as well as how it
is deined from other perspectives. he second section discusses what is
meant by stretch text in elementary school and how the introduction of
the stretch notion will inluence reader–text matching paradigms. he
brief third section presents a series of rationales, both good and bad, used
to bolster arguments to stretch students in text. Finally, the last section
is an extended discussion of the factors that may contribute to or inhibit
students being stretched in text. Each section pays attention to the gaps in
the literature and the type of information needed for students to reach the
high aspirations that the CCSS introduce.

What Is Complex Text?

he CCSS (NGA Center & CCSSO, 2010a) are unprecedented in
their focus on text. No other standards document in recent history has
addressed text with greater attention, speciicity, or energy than has the
CCSS. In some powerful ways, the CCSS thrust text into the spotlight and

Mesmer 79
 challenge teachers, publishers, and researchers to think more carefully
about students’ reading materials. According to the CCSS, text complexity
is “he inherent diiculty of reading and comprehending a text combined
with consideration of reader and task variables” (NGA Center & CCSSO,
2010b, p. 43). hus, the CCSS use the term “complexity” interchangeably
with “diiculty” (a point with which I difer later in this section).
In some respects, understanding the CCSS deinition of complex
text comes into focus better by reviewing the three-part assessment of text
complexity articulated in Appendix A (NGA Center & CCSSO, 2010b).
his model illustrates the elements of text and of the reader–text match
that the CCSS conceptualize as making a text diicult. he tripartite model
addresses qualitative tools, reader and task variables, and quantitative tools
that capture the complexity of a text to an individual student.
hrough qualitative means, a discernible and experienced human
reader applies professional judgment to evaluate a text in order to estimate
its complexity for target readers. According to the CCSS, the text features
best evaluated using human judgment include:
• Levels of meaning in literary texts and levels of purpose in
informational texts
• Text structures (e.g., simple, well-marked structures vs. implicit and
layered structures)
• Language conventionality and clarity (e.g., literal, clear language vs.
igurative, academic, or domain-speciic vocabulary)
• Knowledge demands (e.g., level of knowledge assumed by the text)
he qualitative leg of the CCSS tripod, while theoretically
interesting, has not been reliably established by research.
he second leg of text complexity relates to reader and task factors,
elements generally not inherent to the text itself. (From my perspective,
these are part of the reader–text match but not really an assessment of text
complexity.) Appearing to draw from the reader–text–task model found in
the RAND report, the CCSS remind the ield that reader variables, such as
motivation, background, knowledge, and experiences, will all render a text
more or less diicult to a group of readers (RAND Reading Study Group,
2002). Additionally, the CCSS address task variables, including purpose,
assignment requirements, and teacher levels of expectation, reminding the
reader that the analysis of text complexity as it relates to reader and task is
best done by teachers.
he third leg of the text complexity assessment is the one with
the most validation and reliability and the longest history, as it uses the
quantitative systems of readability formulas (Harrison, 1980; Mesmer,

80 Stretching and Complex Text

2008). hese traditional formulas (e.g., Dale-Chall, Flesch-Kincaid) and
their second-generation digitally calculated cousins (e.g., Lexiles, ATOS,
degrees of reading power) are theoretically the same. Both estimate
diiculty by using a word factor, usually an estimate of word frequency,
and a syntactic factor, usually the length of sentences. Labels such as
grades, Lexiles, or degrees of reading power are generated for texts and
used to estimate diiculty. he CCSS also identify the Coh-Metrix tool,
which measures text cohesion through a myriad of text features (e.g.,
anaphora, cross-sentence referents).
he quantitative guidelines for requisite text complexity across
six grade-level bands are speciied precisely in Appendix A of the CCSS
(NGA Center & CCSSO, 2010b, p. 8). he bands’ range has been extended
in a supplement to Appendix A (Nelson, Perfetti, Liben, & Liben, 2012).
he staircase of text complexity, as illustrated in Table 4.1, moves from
beginning reading to the college and career-readiness level (NGA Center
& CCSSO, 2010b, p. 8). At each step or grade-level band, a precise range
of text diiculty is prescribed in various readability formulas. Although
the CCSS special study by Nelson et al. (2012) evaluated six readability
systems to express text diiculty in grade levels, the Lexile Framework has
igured prominently in text complexity determination. he framework is
based on word frequency and sentence length, and it uses Lexiles (L) rather
than grade levels as a unit of text diiculty. One Lexile is “1/1000th of the
diference between the mean diiculty of mid-irst grade material and the
mean of diiculty of college and workplace passages” (Stenner, Burdick,
Sanford, & Burdick, 2007, p. 6).
Table 4.1: he Common Core Staircase of Text Complexity1
Common ATOS Degrees of Flesch- he Lexile Reading SourceRater
Core Band Reading Kincaid Framework® Maturity
Power®
2nd—3rd 2.75—5.14 42—54 1.98—5.34 420—820 3.53—6.13 0.05—2.48
4th—5th 4.97—7.03 52—60 4.51—7.73 740—1010 5.42—7.92 0.84—5.75
6th—8th 7.00—9.98 57—67 6.51—10.34 925—1185 7.04—9.57 4.11—10.66
9th—10th 9.67—12.01 62—72 8.32—12.12 1050—1335 8.41—10.81 9.02—13.93
11th— 11.20—14.10 67—74 10.34—14.2 1185—1385 9.57—12.00 12.30—14.50
CCR
1
From Coleman, D., & Pimentel, S. (2012). Supplemental Information for Appendix A of the
Common Core State Standards for English Language Arts and Literacy: New Research on Text
Complexity (p. 4). Washington, DC: National Governors Association & Council of Chief State
School Oicers. Retrieved from http://www.corestandards.org/assets/E0813_Appendix_A_New_
Research_on_Text_Complexity.pdf

Mesmer 81
 In the CCSS, kindergarten through irst grade levels are not
assigned a text diiculty range, but a default level is set by the entering
value for the band for second to third grade. First-grade children must
reach the minimal level at the bottom of that default entry by the end of
irst grade (420L level). Note that the levels of text complexity expected at
various grades are somewhat accelerated. While schools would typically
expect students at the end of the third-grade year to read at a fourth-grade
level, the CCSS staircase sets that level at about ith or sixth grade.
Lest anyone think the staircase is merely suggestive, the language
in English Language Arts Standard 10 indicates otherwise. he phrasing
within Standard 10 for any grade level indicates that the text ranges are not
loose guidelines but concrete expectations. For instance, the language in
the grade 3 informational text standard reads, “Comprehend information
texts…at the high end of the 2-3 band independently and proiciently”
(NGA Center & CCSSO, 2010a, p.12, emphasis mine). hus, although the
CCSS ofer three ways to assess text complexity, the quantitative tools are
the most speciic and the most translatable into classrooms.
Treating the terms “text complexity” and “text diiculty” as
interchangeable, however, as done in the CCSS, confuses causes with
efects. Mesmer, Cunningham, and Hiebert (2012) distinguished between
text complexity and text diiculty. Text complexity is simply the naturally
occurring textual elements in a passage or book that can be analyzed,
manipulated, or otherwise studied, and, as such, is an independent
variable. On the other hand, text diiculty is not one-dimensional but a
numeric expression of a relationship between text and readers, and it is not
a feature intrinsic to the text. As Mesmer et al. stated, “he diiculty of a
text or text feature always implies a dependent or criterion variable: the
actual or predicted performance of multiple readers on a task based on that
text or feature” (p. 236).
Text diiculty estimates, such as those created by readability
formulas, connect the complexity of a text (e.g., word frequency and
sentence length) to reader performance (i.e., readers’ comprehension of a
text) or predicted performance (e.g., a formula’s estimate of diiculty or a
teacher’s estimates of diiculty). herefore, the estimate of text diiculty is
only as good as the relationship upon which the estimate is based, and the
complexity of a text is simply what is there. herefore, if we are to “stretch”
students in text, we must depend on the very best estimates of text
diiculty that exist, and we must better understand the impact of various
text complexity features on readers.

82 Stretching and Complex Text

 What Is Stretch Text?
he theme of challenging text is replete throughout the CCSS, but
the term “stretch” appears only in Appendix A. In describing how students
need opportunities to both stretch their reading abilities and engage in
easy luency reading, the CCSS writers stated, “Students deeply interested
in a given topic, for example, may engage with texts on that subject across
a range of complexity. Particular tasks may also require students to read
harder texts than they would normally be required to” (NGA Center &
CCCSO, 2010b, p. 9). Scholars such as Roskos and Neuman (2013) and
Shanahan (2011) have endorsed the use of challenging texts that stretch
students’ reading abilities.
As the text staircase indicates, the Common Core will infuse more
challenging texts into U.S. classrooms. In fact, Common Core writers
already have produced a document to guide educational publishers in the
creation of materials (Coleman & Pimentel, 2012). his document clearly
speciies that the complexity of texts should be aligned with the staircase
in Appendix A (NGA Center & CCSSO, 2010b). hus, the Common Core
text parameters have clear and dramatic policy implications. As a country,
we have witnessed the abrupt translation of policies like this by educational
publishers in the past, such as the rapid swings from authentic or whole
language texts to decodable texts during the inal decade of the 20th
century (Hiebert & Martin, in 2015). Rapid—and dramatic—changes in
policy require a solid grounding in evidence. In the section that follows, I
consider the evidence that underlies the perspective on challenging texts in
the CCSS.
he emphasis on giving students challenging texts introduces a
paradigm shit in reader–text matching that contrasts with decades-old
emphases on the avoidance of frustration. he older paradigms focused
on inding the “just right” text as measured at a speciic point in time. he
guidelines that most elementary teachers use for reader–text matching are
the word accuracy and comprehension levels established by Betts (1946) in
inding independent, instructional, and frustrational texts. hese include
• independent: texts that students read without teacher support
(word accuracy: 99–100%; comprehension: 90–100%);
• instructional: texts that students read with teacher support (word
accuracy: 95–98%; comprehension: 75–80%); and
• frustrational: texts are inaccessible to students with or without
support (word accuracy: = /<94%; comprehension: = /<74%).
Within these guidelines, if teachers were to call any texts “stretch

Mesmer 83
 texts,” they would likely identify the instructional level text as such.
Inadvertently, the Betts’s labels and reader–text matching standards
may have shaped the views of many text researchers and teachers; however,
while these boundaries for text diiculty have become the essential
guidance through the present day, many questions have been asked across
the years about their empirical basis (Clay, 1985; Ehri, Dreyer, Flugman, &
Gross, 2007; Ekwall, Solis, & Solis, 1973; Halladay, 2012; Morgan, Wilcox,
& Eldredge, 2000; Pikulski & Shanahan, 1982; Stahl & Heubach, 2005). he
intense concern about avoiding frustration may not have been balanced
with the equally important message to encourage challenge and avoid
stagnation. It is indeed possible to build capacity for readers to handle
more diicult passages. Although the text complexity staircase introduces
many valid concerns, the theme of the Standard 10, to embrace challenge,
is a message long overdue.
Unfortunately, just as the reader–text standards of the previous
decades lacked empirical basis, so also does the stretch paradigm. We
simply do not have an empirically based paradigm for how to challenge
students in texts. We do not know exactly how far students can be
pushed before they break, reaching the point where reading becomes
incomprehensible and cognitively, psychologically, or emotionally
exasperating. We do not know which text features can be ramped up and
which must only be gently accelerated. We do not know at which points
students can be stretched developmentally and within which contexts. Of
course, this all begs the question why the text complexity standard and
surrounding verbiage were introduced to begin with. What exactly has
happened to cause standards writers to be concerned about the levels of
texts at which students are reading?

Why Stretch Text for Elementary Students?

A careful reading of the Common Core materials and analysis
of the themes and messages coming from the NGA Center suggests that
text diiculty or complexity was given focus in the standards overall and
speciically in Standard 10 for three reasons. First, and perhaps most
obviously, the United States has not been comparing well in literacy
performance internationally in the last 10 years (Martin, Mullis, &
Kennedy, 2007).
Second is what I call “the text complexity gap between high school
and college.” he 2006 ACT report Reading Between the Lines indicated
that the success of students in a college-level social science course (i.e.,

84 Stretching and Complex Text

grade of B or better) was predicted by the diiculty of texts to which they
were exposed in high school. In other words, the complexity of materials
in high school was watered down and limited students’ abilities to achieve
in college. Before the introduction of the Common Core’s text staircase,
the diiculty of materials required at the end of high school (1215L)
was much lower than the diiculty of materials required for college
and career (1355L). In Appendix A (NGA Center & CCSSO, 2010b), the
trend of dumbing down high school texts was further reinforced with a
citation of two studies (Chall, 1977; Hayes, Wolfer, & Wolfe, 1996). Both
of these studies conirmed the easing of text diiculty across secondary
schools over several decades. But, as demonstrated by Gamson, Liu, and
Eckert (2013) and Hiebert and Mesmer (2013), the elementary school
texts have not increased in diiculty. hrough grade three, texts appear
to have gotten more diicult during the 50-year period from 1960 to
2010 identiied by CCSS writers, and sixth-grade texts in the most recent
decades appear to be as diicult, if not slightly more so, than those of
earlier eras. hus, there is some evidence to support the need for increases
in text diiculty, but the evidence exists at the secondary level and not at
the elementary levels, where text complexity has increased.
A third reason why CCSS writers believed that accelerated text
levels are necessary stems from claims that typical texts are too easy for
many students. Evidence underlying this view comes from Williamson
(2006), who followed a cohort of more than 60,000 third graders,
beginning in 1999, through their eighth-grade year. Using the North
Carolina end-of-grade test in reading (measured in Lexiles), the study
tracked the progress of students in Lexile levels and contrasted this
progress with the levels of the typical textbooks. he results showed that
the achievement of students was close to, and perhaps limited by, the
diiculty of texts. he indings logically followed that, if text levels were
increased, student levels of achievement might also increase. he indings
do not indicate, however, the degree to which the student sample in North
Carolina matched national samples. During this period, North Carolina
was showing high levels of achievement on the National Assessment of
Educational Progress (NAEP), and it is possible that this sample was unlike
national populations.
In sum, the reasons provided for the CCSS move toward increasing
the text levels for students and stretching students in challenging text is
based on international literary performance progress comparisons, trends
in secondary schools, and a study conducted with a sample of students
in North Carolina. he empirical foundation for the CCSS text staircase,

Mesmer 85
 especially at the elementary levels, may not be strong but the guidelines
and recommendations regarding challenging texts at all grade levels
promises to have important consequences for teachers and students.

How and When to Stretch Students

How, then, do we go about focusing on challenge in reading in
elementary classrooms? When do we put the stretch concept into action?
I begin with reviewing the basics of reader–text matching because if there
is no system in place for this, then there is no basis upon which one might
stretch a student. Stretching or challenging students in text must be based
upon some starting point, and this is established through reader–text
matching. he remaining factors relating to stretching students in complex
text include text levels, text length, genre, and cohesion. In addition, I
address the importance of research that gives focus to the program of text
that students read across time longitudinally.

he Stretch Baseline: Reader–Text Matching

he irst steps toward stretching students in text must include the
basics of reader–text matching. When teachers challenge students in text,
they should not arbitrarily ask the whole class to read a single designated
stretch text. he reader–text matching process begins with knowing the
students’ reading levels and then having some estimate of the levels of the
texts. For example, if the reading level is obtained in grade levels (e.g., 2.1,
2.2, 2.3) through the Standardized Test for the Assessment of Reading
(STAR), then the estimate of text diiculty should be given in the same
units.
I use the word estimate very purposefully. Until the student is
actually reading the text, then both the reading level and the text diiculty
are estimates. Text diiculty measures, in particular, only provide a basic
approximation of text diiculty. Actual text diiculty emerges only when
an actual reader is reading that text. Although knowing a student’s reading
level and a text’s estimated diiculty level provides a good place to start, a
baseline on which to stretch students has yet to be conclusively established.

Stretching Students hrough Text Levels

Beyond the Betts (1946) criteria for word accuracy and
comprehension, little is known about exactly how much above a student’s
instructional level a text may reach before it becomes frustrational text

86 Stretching and Complex Text

(i.e., we do not know what the tipping point is). Several researchers have
experimented with the degree to which word accuracy levels can dip below
the accepted 90%. With a great deal of rereading and teacher support,
younger students can get as much as 85% word accuracy and still show
reasonable comprehension (Ehri et al., 2007; Stahl & Heubach, 2005).
Only a few studies have suggested the degree to which text levels
can surpass students’ instructional reading levels. Morgan et al. (2000)
used a partner reading intervention in which low-performing second
graders were randomly assigned to read at three diferent text levels: on-
grade level (i.e., their instructional level), two grades above instructional
level, and four grades above instructional level. Students read with
partners for 15 minutes per day for 95 days, and results showed the most
improvement for students reading two grades above instructional level.
he reading levels of students before and ater the intervention were not
provided. Below-level students starting out at a pre-primer level are likely
quite diferent from below-level students starting out at a irst-grade
reading level.
To more carefully consider the efects of difering text levels on
student proiciency, Mesmer and Hiebert (2011) analyzed a large data set
of 9,535 records of third-graders’ text comprehension, giving attention to
cases in which students were reading texts that were above or below their
targeted instructional reading level. Essentially, the diiculty of each text
read by each student was labeled relative to the student’s instructional level
(called “target” level). he target level was the point at which readers could
comprehend 70% of the material. hus, it was possible to identify cases in
which the texts read were speciic amounts above or below the student’s
target level. Because the Lexile Framework was used, we divided the
records into the following categories:
• Easy texts (101L to 250L below level)
• On-level texts (100L below to 50L above level)
• Stretch texts (51L to 100L above level)
• Diicult texts (101L to 250L above level)

he stretch text levels were one standard deviation above the targeted
on-level designation. We also separated students into two proiciency
groups: those whose targeted levels were on or above grade level, and those
whose targeted level was below the grade-level range. Below-level readers
were deined as those reading below 450L because the CCSS deine the
range of text diiculty for the second-to-third-grade band as 450L to 790L
(NGA Center & CCSSO, 2010a). Students reading at or above 450L were

Mesmer 87
 designated as on-level readers.
Means for comprehension are provided in Table 4.2 by reader level
(below vs. on or above level). here were main efects for the text diiculty
and reader levels (F (3, 9,531) = 207.34, p <.001, F (2, 9,532) =10.55, p <.001,
respectively). he reader by text diiculty interaction also was signiicant
(F (3, 9,532) = 15.03, p < .001). Pairwise comparisons were signiicant at
the .001 level for all text and reader combinations except for the diicult
texts. On average, all students achieved a 61% reading comprehension in
stretch texts that averaged 76L above their target levels. Below-level readers
comprehended at a lower level than did on-level readers at all text levels
except in the diicult texts, where all readers comprehended at about 53%.
Across reader levels, performance declined as text diiculty increased,
with comprehension levels dipping below 70% in the stretch texts.
Table 4.21: Comprehension of Below-Level vs. On- or Above-Level hird-Grade Students on Texts
of Diferent Levels
Text Levels Reader Level Comprehension:
(Lexile range relative to reader X (SD)
proiciency)
Easy (101L to 250L below) Below 80.65 (14.83)
On/above 84.23 (15.75)
On-Level (100L below to 50L Below 66.25 (19.56)
above On/above 71.88 (17.12)
Stretch (51L to 100L above) Below 58.76 (19.81)
On/above 63.95 (17.35)
Diicult (101L to 250L above) Below 53.63 (19.77)
On/above 53.70 (18.01)
1
From Mesmer and Hiebert (2011); used with permissions of the authors.

As illustrated in Figure 4.1, the patterns of response to text

diiculty changes difered somewhat for below- and on-level readers.
On- and below-level readers had nearly identical performance in diicult
texts, which were about 200L above level, but unlike on-level students,
below-level readers’ performance across text diiculty categories relected
a curvilinear pattern. heir performance dipped more sharply beginning
with the on-level texts and sloped more steeply than that of the on-level
readers. In fact, performance for below-level readers did not reach the
designated 70% for any texts except easy ones. his exploratory work
suggested that no readers could be stretched to 200L above their targeted
levels (about two grade levels). Because the levels of text were always
relative to the student’s own level, readers were not reading at the same
text levels but were reading texts that were harder or easier for them.
88 Stretching and Complex Text
Figure 4.1: Comprehension Rates for Below-Level vs. On- or Above-Level hird-Grade Students
on Texts of Diferent Levels
100 
95 
90 
Comprehension Rates 

85 
80 
75 
70 
65  Below  
60  On/above  
55 
50 
45 
40 
Easy  On‐Level  Stretch  Difficult 
Level of Text 

What happened was that below-level readers, even in on-level texts, were
still not performing well; therefore, in a sense, an on-level text was a
stretch text for them. hese preliminary results suggested that students’
reading proiciencies determined the upper limits of their performances.
In particular, students who had been designated as performing below-
grade level were not able to rise to the occasion to the same degree as did
students designated as at-grade level or above.

Stretching Students hrough Text Length

Although rarely mentioned in schemes about stretching, length
deinitely factors into text elements that make a text challenging. In fact,
the Common Core does not mention text length other than to suggest
to secondary teachers that short, dense texts are good exemplars for
supporting students in close reading and answering text-based questions
(NGA Center & CCCSO, 2010b). In the elementary grades, length is
particularly important because it changes signiicantly throughout the
grades. he average length of a passage, book, or text that students read in
irst grade is about 50–250 words. By fourth grade, the average length of
a textbook passage, chapter, or worksheet passage is 2,000 words, at least
an eightfold increase. Several authors have found text length (i.e., number
of words) to predict text level in the Reading Recovery scheme, suggesting
that length factors into challenge in the primary grades (Cunningham
et al., 2005; Hatcher, 2000). Certainly as length shits, so also do reading
behaviors. Students in the primary grades orally read short blocks of text
with supportive pictures in a matter of minutes; however, students in the
intermediate grades must read extended texts silently without pictures for
upwards of 20 minutes.
Mesmer 89
 Few studies examine text length (Calfee & Hiebert, 2011; Hiebert,
Wilson, & Trainin, 2010; Mesmer & Hiebert, 2013). Calfee and Hiebert
(2011) found, for example, that length could be a variable that explained
the diferent levels of achievement for California fourth graders on the
NAEP and the California State Test (CST). he percentage of students
who were proicient or higher on the CST was 38% higher than that of
the NAEP results. Signiicant length diferences characterize these two
tests, with the NAEP passages being about 800–1,000 words and the CST
passages running 350–400 words.
Hiebert et al. (2010) investigated how students of diferent
proiciency levels performed at diferent points within a lengthy passage.
Students in the two lower quartiles showed reasonable rates and levels
of comprehension in the beginning portions of the passage but had
signiicantly depreciated comprehension scores in the latter portions.
he indings suggested that stamina efects were at play, as students tired
during the lengthy passage.
Mesmer and Hiebert (2013) manipulated text length and diiculty
to identify the degree to which these factors interacted and how students
of difering proiciency levels (at level vs. below level) were afected by
this combination. hree diferent sets of text passages were designed at
three diiculty levels (400L, 600L, and 800L). Within each diiculty level,
one passage was 200 words and one was 1,000 words. Topics were kept
consistent across a diiculty level (e.g., schools and community helpers
for 400L-level texts; budgets and money for 600L-level texts; and natural
resources and oil for 800L-level texts). Using a within-subjects design,
researchers required all students to read all passages, with comprehension
being the outcome variable. As texts became more diicult and longer,
comprehension decreased. At every diiculty level, students comprehended
the short versions better than the long versions. he results suggested that
length compounded the efects of diiculty, rendering texts of the same
diiculty level harder.
As educators continue to explore how to stretch elementary
students, attention to text length is warranted. Especially important will be
understanding how to support students as they confront the length shits
at various developmental junctures. Clearly, one of these shits is in the
movement toward reading chapter books in late irst grade or early second
grade. Another shit comes in late third grade or early fourth grade, when
lengthy expository texts begin to prevail. Of course, at this point, genre is
also at play in presenting challenges to students. In a recent piece, Mesmer
et al. (2012) asked, “How can research be designed to distinguish the

90 Stretching and Complex Text

relative contributions to text length efects of reader fatigue and cumulative
deicits in memory?” (p. 245). he key to understanding the impact of
length is its inluence on readers’ stamina and fatigue.

Stretching Students hrough Text Genre

Although a great deal of debate exists in the ield about exactly
where to draw the genre lines, it appears that a convenient way to think
about genre is to divide passages into narratives or expository pieces
(Mesmer et al., 2012). What is known about genre is that expository texts
are oten dense, with new, unknown vocabulary, oten the type of domain-
speciic Tier 3 words that represent complicated concepts or processes
(Beck, McKeown, & Kucan, 2013; Fang, 2006). In narrative texts, students
are introduced to new vocabulary, but frequently the words are Tier 2
words that enhance the meaning of the text, express degree, or modify the
core of a sentence. Note the examples of texts in Table 4.3. he words in the
excerpt from Boy are, in some cases, easily inferred, as they are compound
words or ancillary to the passage. In the expository text sample, however,
the concepts of poaching as either a process or an action and the noun
ivory are essential to understanding the text. If one does not know the
meaning of these words, getting the gist of the passage is not possible.
Table 4.3: Examples of Difering Vocabulary Patterns in Expository and Narrative Texts
Expository Text1 Narrative Text2
DOZENS OF AFRICAN ELEPHANTS My four friends and I had come across a
SLAUGHTERED3 loose loorboard at the back of the classroom,
hat headline has become all too common. and when we pried it up with the blade of a
Last month, poachers killed at least 86 pocketknife, we discovered a big hollow space
elephants in Chad and in Cameroon. Both underneath. his, we decided, would be our
countries are in a region of Africa that has own secret hiding place for sweets and other
lost more than 60% of its elephants to illegal small treasures such as conkers, and monkey-
hunters in the past decade, according to a nuts, and birds’ eggs. Every aternoon, when
recent study from the Wildlife Conservation the last lesson was over, the ive of us would
Society. In 2012 alone, experts say, 30,000 wait until the classroom had emptied, then we
elephants were killed in countries across would lit up the loorboard and examine our
Africa. “We’re seeing the highest levels of secret hoard, perhaps adding to it or taking
poaching since our record-keeping began,” something away.
Crawford Allan, of the World Wildlife Fund,
told TFK. Why are so many elephants being
killed?
1
he Price of Ivory (April 19, 2013). Time for Kids. Retrieved from http://www.timeforkids.com/
news/price-ivory/89921
2
From Roald Dahl (1984). Boy. New York, NY: Puin Books.
3
Boldfaced words are ones that appear rarely in written English (as deined by Hiebert (2005).

Mesmer 91
 Both Hiebert (2008) and Mesmer (2008) write about how
readability formulas can artiicially inlate the diiculty of expository
texts due to the repetition of infrequent words. When readability formulas
are used, they count each infrequent word, whether or not it is repeated
elsewhere in the passage, as an occurrence of a “hard” word. hus, in the
expository passage example in Table 4.3, the word ivory would be counted
as a diicult word each time it occurred, despite the fact that repetition
of the word actually provides the student with support and practice. his
artifact of the formulas especially should cause teachers to carefully review
expository texts before completely trusting the estimates delivered by the
formulas.
As Mesmer et al. (2012) concluded in their review, a great deal
more research must be conducted to understand exactly how genre
operates within text complexity models, and this is true of models for
stretching or challenging students as well. Genre may be best represented
by multivariate approaches that characterize the many text features that
represent the label. In addition, the text features that present challenges
in each genre may diferentially apply to various outcomes. For instance,
prior knowledge may operate more in the expository format than in the
narrative format. Clearly, a second generation of research is needed to
move the typical diet of text in elementary classrooms beyond simply
including various genres to challenge students appropriately.

Stretching Students hrough Text Cohesion

he estimation of text diiculty has only recently gone beyond
evaluating the diiculty of individual words and individual sentences. he
classic readability formulas, and even the second-generation formulas,
theoretically treat each word and sentence separately, as if each word
and sentence were derived from a separate source. heir frequencies and
lengths are only joined when entered into the equations, and the newer
formulas give no consideration to the ways that the words and sentences
in a text relate to each other. But recent work on text cohesion using a
tool called Coh-Metrix has changed all this (Graesser, McNamara, &
Kulikowich, 2011).
Text cohesion is the degree to which the words and ideas are
represented both within and across sentences (Givón, 1995). When a
text is cohesive, there is a thread that runs through it that allows readers
to construct a connected gist of the main ideas. Texts with coherence
marking have ideas repeated and introduced at a pace that optimally mixes

92 Stretching and Complex Text

new and previously stated information. Table 4.4 illustrates elementary-
level texts with diferent levels of cohesion. Note that in the most cohesive
example, words and phrases are repeated oten across sentences. In the
least cohesive example, there is almost no repetition of words, and in the
medium-cohesion text, there are repetitions, but their spacing is across
paragraphs more than across sentences.
Table 4.4: Examples of Expository Texts from CCSS Exemplars at hree Levels of Referential
Cohesion1
Low Cohesion Medium Cohesion High Cohesion
his island is covered with Horses move in four natural Most plants make seeds. A
snow. No trees grow. Nothing ways, called gaits or paces. seed contains the beginning of
has green leaves. he land is hey walk, trot, canter, and a new plant. Seeds are diferent
white as far as you can see. gallop. he walk is the slowest shapes, sizes, and colors. All
hen something small and gait and the gallop is the seeds grow into the same kind
round and black pokes up out fastest. of plant that made them.
of the snow. When a horse walks, each Many plants grow lowers.
A black nose snifs the air. hoof leaves the ground at a Flowers are where most seeds
hen a smooth white head diferent time. It moves one begin.
appears. hind leg irst, and then the A lower is made up of many
front leg on the same side. parts.
(From Where Do Polar Bears (From Seed to Plant, Gibbons,
Live? homson, 2010) (From Horses, Simon, 2006) 1991)

1
Boldfaced words illustrate repetition of words across sentences within texts.

Graesser et al. (2011) treated cohesion marking as a multivariate

variable, including many factors in its calculation. hey visually
demonstrated how the levels of ive text cohesion factors—narrativity,
syntactic simplicity, word concreteness, causal cohesion, and referential
cohesion—unfold across the grades in the texts of language arts, social
science, and science. he indings suggest, among other things, that
narrativity is highest in the language arts text of the earliest grades and
that referential cohesion is highest in science texts. As one might expect,
syntactic simplicity is highest in the earliest texts, particularly in the
science genre.
he introduction of cohesion to the estimation of text diiculty
contributes greatly to the theoretical foundation upon which a paradigm of
challenge might be based. What has been established is that text cohesion
interacts with prior knowledge and student ability (Graesser et al., 2011).
But current tools are quite complicated, and there is not a great deal of
information about how diferences in cohesion marking afect elementary-
grade students. Much more must be learned about how cohesion can be
pragmatically applied in classrooms.

Mesmer 93
 Conclusions: Programmatically Addressing Challenge
he Common Core text complexity standard and overall focus on
challenging text (NGA Center & CCSSO, 2010a) and the need for students
to “stretch their reading abilities,” as outlined in Appendix A to the
standards (NGA Center & CCSSO, 2010b), have introduced a major shit
in reader–text matching paradigms that promises to balance the intense
focus on the avoidance of frustration with the importance of challenge.
Nonetheless, this introduction raises some important issues. Shanahan
(2011) expressed the following:
We have tended to overgeneralize from younger readers (for whom easier
text allows a more systematic focus on decoding) to older readers (who may
do better with more intellectually challenging texts). Now, I fear that the
Common Core is over-generalizing in the other direction. Harder beginning
reading books may stop many young readers in their tracks. (p. 21)

I have this same fear, especially in light of the fact that the rationale
for increasing text diiculty is based on studies of secondary students.
When carefully examined, patterns in the data that are frequently cited
to support claims of textbook simpliication do not actually hold true for
elementary students (Chall, 1977; Hayes et al., 1996).
Existing research is scant and simply not suicient to support the
increases in text levels required in the elementary grades by the CCSS’s
staircase of text complexity. here is not enough empirical data to suggest
exactly how students should be stretched in text; however, in this piece I
identify text and other factors that may be considered in future research.
In the past, classroom reactions to inappropriate text standards have been
extreme. Either teachers (or, more likely, district supervisors) knuckle
down and insist that every student in a given grade reads texts of a certain
level or teachers abandon ship altogether and default to reading aloud
anything that might be considered challenging. But I caution schools and
teachers to resist what I call the “read-aloud solution”; instead, a blend of
scafolded challenge reading with some reading aloud should characterize
stretching students in the elementary school.
At a basic level, teachers must know the reading levels of their
students and estimates of the diiculty of the texts they wish to use.
Although this is a basic tenet of reader–text matching, frequently the
obvious is overlooked. While the reader–text matching standards of Betts
(1946) should indeed be questioned, I caution educators to remember
that stretch text should not cause frustration. Stretch texts, whatever
the research ultimately decides they may be, should represent optimal
challenge, not gut-wrenching exasperation. Shanahan (2011) notes the
94 Stretching and Complex Text
opposite response to challenge that might occur: “When the books get
hard, the usual responses have been to move kids to easier books, to stop
using textbooks, or to read the texts to the students” (p. 20). How very
ironic it would be if the text standards designed to challenge students in
actuality water down their exposure to challenging texts.
As identiied in this chapter, additional factors that may afect
students’ abilities to be stretched include text levels, text length, genre, and
cohesion. All of these are malleable factors that can be manipulated and
designed into text. In presenting a framework for texts in the early grades,
Mesmer et al. (2012) proposed four elements: content (e.g., words, concepts,
sentences, ideas, genre), sequence in which the content is presented, pace of
presentation, and repetition of content. As researchers develop a theory of
challenge that contributes to the important notion of stretching students,
each of these elements of a text program must be addressed. A paradigm
for understanding how to stretch students in text must move beyond
an isolated, drive-by approach to a more consistent, programmatic one.
Stretching students cannot and should not be relegated only to a Friday
aternoon read-aloud and discussion. It must be infused into the text
choices made over weeks, months, and years. Certainly, the arguments put
forth for challenge in the Common Core suggest that it is the accumulated
efects of text that resulted in lower ACT scores or grades in college (ACT,
2006). So then must the approach to stretching students in text also be
longitudinal, across days, weeks, months, and years. How text length,
diiculty, genre, cohesion, and text levels are balanced and introduced
across a unit of study or a developmental period will support or inhibit
fruitful “stretching.” Focused and consistent eforts at presenting students
with challenging texts that stretch their capacity will ultimately have the
kinds of efects intended by the Common Core writers.
Are we going to lower the fences or teach kids to climb? asks
Shanahan (2011) in the title of a recent Reading Today article. he message
is important. For too long we have been overly concerned about the height
of the fences and not concerned enough about teaching kids to climb. I
think that stretching students in texts might be like adjusting the uneven
bars in the gym. When gymnasts are at a certain level in their training,
they are expected to mount the bars using a springboard or other device
to begin their routines. his means that the bar is typically above their
head and several feet ahead of them. hey must run and bounce on the
springboard and reach for the bar to begin the routine. Sometimes they
fall on the dense 12-inch mats beneath them, but eventually they can
consistently make it. hroughout a meet or workout, you will see coaches

Mesmer 95
 raise and lower the bars to accommodate diferent heights because, even
though the mount is challenging—and, in fact, over the heads of the
gymnasts—there are still limits placed on the gymnast by factors such
as height and arm length. No one expects the bar to be set the same for a
gymnast who is four feet and three inches tall as it is for a gymnast who
is four feet and eight inches tall. he same is true with stretch students.
We want them to leap and grab, but we should set the bar relative to their
characteristics. As argued in another piece, stretching students in text is a
dynamic activity that cannot be dictated by static text diiculty standards
(Mesmer & Hiebert, 2013). he duty of researchers is to continue to create
knowledge to support teachers as they work to develop stronger readers in
elementary school.

96 Stretching and Complex Text

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(PIRLS): PIRLS 2006 Technical Report. diiculty: Testing their predictive value
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on comprehension. Paper presented at Roskos, K., & Neuman, S.B. (2013).
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community in teaching reading. he
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Mesmer 99
 CHAPTER 5

he Relationship Between a Silent Reading Fluency

Instructional Protocol on Students’ Reading
Comprehension and Achievement
in an Urban School Setting1

Timothy V. Rasinski
Kent State University

S. Jay Samuels
University of Minnesota

Elfrieda H. Hiebert
TextProject & University of California, Santa Cruz

Yaacov Petscher
Florida Center for Reading Research

Karen Feller
Reading Plus

R
eading luency has been deined as the ability to simultaneously
process written texts accurately, automatically, and with appropriate
prosody and comprehension (NICHD, 2000; Rasinski, 2006,
2010). Although it has been relatively neglected in reading curricula and
instruction for years (Allington, 1983; Rasinski & Zutell, 1996), recent
reviews of empirical research have identiied reading luency as a critical
element in successful literacy instruction (Chard, Vaughn, & Tyler, 2002;
Kuhn & Stahl, 2003; NICHD, 2000; Rasinski & Hofman, 2003).
Chall’s (1996) model of reading development posits reading luency
as a task to be mastered in the primary grades, and indeed most research
on luency to date has focused on the primary grades. For example, several
1 his chapter was previously published in Reading Psychology, (v32, n1, p75-97). he
deinitive publisher-authenticated version published in 2011: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/
abs/10.1080/02702710903346873#.VYLxEOf7LDE
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without
permission.

100 Silent Reading Fluency

studies report signiicant correlations between and predictive ability of
measures of oral reading luency and third-grade student performance
on the reading portion of the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test
(FCAT), a criterion-referenced test (CRT) of reading achievement
that aligns with Florida’s Sunshine State Standards (Buck & Torgesen,
2003; Roehrig, Petscher, Nettles, Hudson, & Torgesen, 2008). Similarly,
instructional research into luency has generally focused on the primary
grades (e.g., Rasinski, Padak, Linek, & Sturtevant, 1994; Rasinski &
Stevenson, 2005; Stahl & Heubach, 2005). his research has consistently
found positive efects for luency instruction not only on students’ reading
luency but also on their word recognition, comprehension, and overall
reading achievement.
More recently, scholars have suggested that reading luency also
may be an important concern for students beyond the elementary grades
(Schatschneider et al., 2004; Torgesen, Nettles, Howard, & Winterbottom,
2004). Rasinski, Padak, McKeon, Wilfong, Friedauer, and Heim (2005),
for example, report a robust and signiicant correlation between a measure
of high school students’ reading luency (automaticity) and a measure
of silent reading comprehension. Moreover, signiicant numbers of high
school students in the study were found to be substantially below norms
of acceptable performance in reading luency and also comprehension.
Rasinski, Rikli, and Johnston (2009) reported signiicant and substantial
correlations between measures of luency (prosody) among upper
elementary and middle school students and a standardized test of silent
reading comprehension. Additionally, the magnitude of the correlation
is roughly the same at the three grade levels studied—grades 3, 5, and 8.
Reading luency, it appears, is not an issue solely for the primary grades, as
luency is associated with reading achievement beyond the primary grades.
Furthermore, signiicant numbers of students beyond the primary grades
have yet to achieve appropriate levels of luency in their reading, and, as
a result, these students also experience diiculties in comprehension and
general reading achievement.
Most deinitions of reading luency tend to associate it with oral
reading. Prosodic or expressive reading, for example, one aspect of luency,
is most oten associated with and observed in oral reading. When an
individual reads orally, prosody, or a lack of prosody, becomes clearly
apparent. However, prosody is not observable during silent reading.
Moreover, most instructional methods for fostering luency in students
involve some form of oral reading.
Despite the overt focus on oral reading for luency development, all

Rasinski, Samuels, Hiebert, Petscher, & Feller 101

 luency instruction presupposes a link to silent reading and silent reading
comprehension (Rasinski, 2006, 2010). More to the point, oral luency
instruction presumes that improvements in oral luency and oral reading
comprehension will also be manifested in silent reading luency and silent
reading comprehension. Because silent reading is such a ubiquitous form
of reading beyond the elementary grades, instruction in oral reading is
worthwhile primarily to the extent that it can positively impact readers’
silent reading comprehension.
Oral reading instruction does pose some serious practical
limitations, however. Since oral reading is not as common a form of
reading as silent reading beyond the primary grades, oral reading may not
have the same degree of face validity or authenticity as silent reading. In
group instructional settings, oral reading is most oten conducted with
one student at a time; other students in the group usually do not read
while another student is reading. Eiciency in the use of time for reading
is, thus, diminished. In addition, oral reading by one student may cause
disruptions for other students. Listening to classmates reading orally
may cause students in a classroom to become distracted and devote less
attention to their own reading or learning task. Finally, by the middle
grades, fear and embarrassment as a result of miscues made while reading
orally can further diminish the efectiveness of oral reading activities and
students’ conidence in their own reading.
hese limitations beg the question, then: Is it possible to promote
luency in reading, and thereby improve comprehension, through silent
reading instruction? In an initial study into this question, Reutzel,
Jones, Fawson, and Smith (2008) reported positive results with silent
reading luency instruction. Using an instructional method called
Scafolded Silent Reading (ScSR) with third-grade students, Reutzel and
his colleagues found gains in word recognition, reading rate, prosody,
and comprehension that were essentially equal to gains typically found
through repeated guided oral reading instruction. ScSR was designed to
counter concerns and limitations that have been raised about independent
or sustained silent reading (NICHD, 2000). Embedded in the ScSR
instructional framework are the following:
• Teacher guidance in selecting appropriately challenging materials
• High levels of engagement in reading during time allotted for
reading
• Teacher interaction with students ater reading
• Feedback given to students about the quality and quantity of their
reading

102 Silent Reading Fluency

 • Student accountability for the time spent in silent reading
he present retrospective study extends the work of Reutzel and
colleagues (2008) by testing the efects of a program designed to teach
and improve silent reading luency on the reading comprehension and
overall reading achievement of elementary, middle school, and high school
students (grades 4 through 10) in a large urban school district.

Background
his study was conducted in cooperation with Miami-Dade County
(Florida) Public Schools to determine the relationship between student
participation in a silent reading instructional program and overall student
reading achievement in grades 4 through 10, as measured by the FCAT
with selected schools in Regions II and III of the Miami-Dade County
Public Schools. he experimental treatment employed in the study was
Reading Plus (RP), a computer-based reading luency and comprehension
intervention system that is designed to develop silent reading luency and
overall reading proiciency.

Method
Participants
A total of 16,143 students from grades 4 through 10 in 23 schools
in Regions II and III in the Miami-Dade County Public School System
participated in the study; 5,758 students made up the treatment group,
while the remaining 10,385 students constituted the control group. Both
regions of the district had signiicant populations of minority students
with 34% African American and 56% Latino American.
Subpopulations in the sample included the following:
• Learning disabled (LD; 6% of total; 541 participating, and 491
nonparticipating)
• English language learners (ELLs; 3% of total; 176 participating, and
286 nonparticipating)
he 23 schools were distributed across elementary (11) and middle
and high schools (12). In a number of schools, only those students who
scored achievement level 1 or 2 (nonproicient) on the 2006 Reading
portion of the FCAT were assigned to RP. In other schools, students
from speciic grade levels or subpopulations were assigned. Most
nonparticipating students who engaged in alternative interventions
were assigned to Scholastic’s Read 180 and/or Renaissance Learning’s

Rasinski, Samuels, Hiebert, Petscher, & Feller 103

 Accelerated Reader. Elementary-level students (grades 4 and 5) received
reading and language arts reading instruction in their regular curriculum.
In all cases, treatment students were those who had: (a) completed
one or more RP lessons during the 2006 to 2007 school year and (b) had
valid 2006 and 2007 FCAT Reading scores as recorded in the Miami-Dade
County Student Information System. As the data in Table 5.1 indicate,
students who were chosen for the RP intervention were performing at
signiicantly lower levels than their classmates in the control condition.

Procedures
At the beginning of the 2006-2007 school year, teachers in the two
regions of the school district were trained on the intent and use of the RP
program and were guided in identifying appropriate students from their
classes to participate in the intervention. Implementation began soon ater
and continued until administration of the 2007 FCAT in early March of
2007.
Prior to the implementation of the intervention, students completed
the Reading Placement Appraisal assessment to establish their initial
placement level in RP. he 20-minute placement test assessed independent
reading rate, comprehension, and vocabulary to determine the most
appropriate starting level. he placement assessment consisted of three
parts. Part I presented students with 100-word selections followed by a set
of literal-recall questions. Content diiculty was automatically adjusted
by the program according to a student’s reading rate and comprehension
to ascertain the independent reading level. Part II presented 300-word
selections followed by a set of diverse comprehension questions to conirm
the independent reading level. Part III assessed a student’s vocabulary.
From these, an instructional reading level was established, and students
were placed at appropriate levels within each component of the program.
Students continued to be assessed on similar tasks throughout the
program with appropriate adjustments made to the level of activities as a
result of their performances on these formative assessments.
he RP intervention involved students in a series of lessons that
were provided on a digitized network platform in individual computer
environments. A speciic sequence of activities was followed during the
lesson period, and the diiculty level of the activities was adjusted as a
function of a student’s progress. Each RP lesson required approximately
30 minutes to complete. Treatment schedules varied within the 23 schools,
but most schools followed a schedule of either two 45-minute sessions per

104 Silent Reading Fluency

week or three 30-minute sessions per week for approximately six months.
Students who were part of the 45-minute session schedule generally
completed more than one guided reading lesson per session.
Each lesson began with a perceptual accuracy and visual eiciency
(PAVE) warmup. his activity consisted of two parts, Scan and Flash. In
the Scan portion of the activity, students scanned the computer screen
to count the number of times a target letter or number appeared on the
screen. he target and other letters or numbers were lashed in a let-to-
right presentation. he presentation speed increased in accordance with
the student’s proiciency. In the second part of the activity, Flash, a series
of letters or numbers ranging in length from 2 to 12, depending on the
student’s placement level, was lashed across the screen (at 1/6 of a second
per lash). he length of the lash increased in response to the student’s
ability to correctly recreate the sequence. his warm-up activity aimed to
increase students’ visual perception, attention skills, and automaticity in
the recognition of print. Research (e.g., Torgesen & Hudson, 2006) suggests
that one of the deining characteristics of a proicient reader is the ability
to sustain attention. According to Pikulski (2006), “instant, accurate, and
automatic access to all these dimensions of a printed word is the needed
luency that will allow readers to focus their attention on comprehension
rather than on decoding” (p. 90).
he next RP activity, Guided Reading, provided students with
extensive structured silent reading practice in order to build luency within
an authentic reading experience where students read for meaning. During
Guided Reading sessions, students read texts selected from a diverse
collection of narrative and expository stories at their instructional reading
level, a practice that research has supported. he work of O’Connor,
Harty, Larkin, Sackor, and Zigmond (2002) showed that providing daily
intervention lessons using grade-level texts was not nearly as successful as
providing daily lessons using texts matched to the instructional reading
levels of the individual students. O’Connor et al. argue that selecting texts
of appropriate complexity should be a irst step in the design of efective
instruction and intervention.
RP selections were leveled using several readability formulas
(e.g., Spache, Dale-Chall, and Fry). he RP program was designed to
automatically, continually, and dynamically monitor student performance
and progress, adjusting the reading content level to match each student’s
achievement. Once students were able to read passages at their current
levels with grade-appropriate rates and good comprehension, they would
be able to advance to subsequent levels. In addition, the program used a

Rasinski, Samuels, Hiebert, Petscher, & Feller 105

 mix of instructional formats and scafolds to further match individualized
needs and rates of progress. hese included variation of the length of
reading segments, number of comprehension questions, use of repeated
readings, and assignment of prereading techniques, as research on luency
development has demonstrated that struggling and developing readers
are the least likely to engage in the efective practice that would provide
them with the opportunity to integrate the varied reading instruction
they receive (Allington, 2006; Chinn, Waggoner, Anderson, Schommer &
Wilkinson, 1993; Hiebert, 1983).
he RP program contained approximately 600 reading selections,
ranging from preprimer to adult-level texts, including high-content,
low-readability selections for older struggling students. A wide range of
genres was featured, including selections such as “he Lighthouse Visitor,”
a mystery on a third-grade level; a ith-grade noniction selection about,
“How Basketball Was Born”; and a tenth-grade noniction selection on
“Peer Counseling.” As students progressed through the levels, the content
became increasingly informational. Lesson texts were presented in either
a guided or independent manner, each within controlled presentation
formats and rate parameters.
Following each reading selection were comprehension questions
coded for speciic comprehension skills, including literal understanding,
interpretation, analysis, evaluation, and appreciation. he rate at which the
text was presented was incrementally increased as a function of students’
comprehension performance on these questions. As students progressed
through the levels, the texts became progressively more challenging.
he intent of the Guided Reading activities was to provide students with
authentic reading experiences that would build comprehension and
luency and that would be presented at a level of diiculty that would
provide the maximum acceleration of progress. Additionally, given that
the diiculty of texts was established using the Spache (for primary
grade–level texts), Dale-Chall (for middle grade–level texts), and Fry (for
primary- and middle-level texts) readability formulas, all of which rely
on high-frequency word lists, students had considerable opportunities
to develop luency with a core group of high-frequency words. his is an
essential skill, as Torgesen and colleagues (Rashotte, MacPhee, & Torgesen,
2001; Torgesen & Hudson, 2006) argue that limited sight vocabularies
are a principle characteristic of students who continue to have reading
disabilities beyond the initial phase of learning to read.
he Guided Reading component was followed by a cloze
comprehension activity that used structured context-analysis tasks to

106 Silent Reading Fluency

develop comprehension competency. It employed a dual approach that
combined foci uses on both improving students’ comprehension as well
as vocabularies. Each cloze activity required students to use context
to complete the meaning of sentences and passages, thus enhancing
comprehension. Students also were required to derive the meaning
of diicult or unfamiliar words by analyzing the information in the
surrounding context, thus enhancing vocabulary.
he vocabulary component of the RP lesson focused on 240
vocabulary words per grade level. Students completed contextual word-
meaning activities on words that they missed on the pretest. Each word
was irst presented in a sentence that the computer program provided
orally. Next, the word was used in the context of a paragraph. Finally,
students were asked to select from choices provided the sentences that
demonstrated proper usage and meaning of the target word. he passage
was available for rereading, with clues from the passage highlighted ater
an incorrect response.

Assessments
he FCAT was part of a statewide initiative to raise academic
standards for students in the state of Florida. he FCAT consisted of two
kinds of tests. he irst was a CRT, which measured how well students were
meeting the Sunshine State Standards in reading, writing, mathematics,
and science. he second was a norm-referenced test (NRT), which
permitted a comparison of Florida student performance on reading and
mathematics with the performance of students nationwide. he NRT
used during the time of this study was the Stanford Achievement Test–10
(SAT–10). he reading section evaluated students’ ability to understand
the meaning of informational and literary passages. Both portions of the
FCAT were administered to all students in grades 3 through 10, and results
were reported publicly in summary form. Pretesting occurred during the
spring 2006 administration of the FCAT. Posttesting occurred during the
spring 2007 administration of the FCAT.

Results
Data Analysis
A 3 x 7 x 3 x 2 x 2 (Group x Grade x Minority x ELL x LD) analysis
of variance (ANOVA) was used to test if diferences existed in the simple
diference score of the posttest minus the pretest among the groups

Rasinski, Samuels, Hiebert, Petscher, & Feller 107

 receiving diferent levels of treatment. Contrasts were conducted in the
ANOVA pertaining to the main efects of grade level, minority status, and
ELL and LD identiication to examine if groups difered in their mean gain
score across levels of the intervention. To control for multiple statistical
tests being employed on the FCAT CRT and NRT on the same sets of
students, Benjamini and Hochberg’s (1995) Linear Step-Up procedure
was employed. his procedure difers slightly from other type 1 error
control procedures in that, in its simplest form, it attempts to control the
false discovery rate by aiming to keep the ratio of false rejections to total
rejections at 5%. Speciically, when all null hypotheses are true, the Linear
Step-Up procedure will control the experiment-wise error rate at .05 (just
as other traditional approaches attempt). However, when some of the null
hypotheses are false, the Linear Step-Up will ensure that the false rejection
rate does not go above 5%. he beneit to this approach is that it appears
to be more powerful than traditional approaches, such as the Bonferroni
correction (Maxwell & Delaney, 2004). In addition to hypothesis testing
of means among groups, a standardized efect size (i.e., Cohen’s d) was
used to express the distributional diferences in standard deviation units.
Cohen (1988) has provided guidelines that suggest that an efect size of
0.20 is small, 0.50 is medium, and 0.80 is large; however, he is quick to note
that the qualitative designation for the magnitude of the efect is largely
contextual. his has been echoed more recently by Hill, Bloom, Black, and
Lipsey (2008), who argued that these guidelines are somewhat ineicient
for interpreting achievement or intervention efects in education.
It is important to note that in instances where random assignment
does not occur, covarying preexisting diferences on the pretest is not
necessarily the most appropriate procedure, since variability on baseline
scores may be attributed to the lack of random assignment and relect
meaningful initial values (Maxwell & Delaney, 2004). While some opt to
use a posttest-only approach to the analyses of group diferences, doing so
ignores the value of the baseline score. An alternative strategy is to utilize
initial performance to calculate a gain score that allows a meaningful
comparison of change between two time points. hough the diference
score has been oten maligned as a poor index of change (e.g., Cronbach
& Furby, 1970), Rogosa (1995) has shown that gain scores are as reliable
as a covariance adjusted score and are more appropriate than posttest
scores only for use in quasi-experimental studies. Moreover, it has been
well established that results from an ANOVA of gain scores are identical to
results from a repeated measures ANOVA with two time points and two
groups (Huck & McLean, 1975; Maxwell & Delaney, 2004).

108 Silent Reading Fluency

 A summary of the ANOVA results for the FCAT CRT and NRT
are reported in Table 5.1, with subsequent post-hoc data reported for
subgroups in Tables 5.2 through 5.7. Results indicated that signiicant
main efects existed for grade level, ELL status, and LD identiication;
with interactions between grade and group, ELL status and group, and LD
identiication and group also statistically signiicant for the FCAT Reading
CRT measure. Somewhat similar indings were observed for the NRT
analyses, whereby signiicant efects occurred for grade, ELL status, grade
X group, and ELL X group.
Table 5.1: ANOVA Results for Florida CRT and NRT Outcomes
Measure Source df F p-value
CRT Grade 6 68.94 <0.001
Minority 2 3.35 0.035
ELL 1 88.31 <0.001
LD 1 3.89 0.032
Group 2 4.14 0.160
Grade X Group 12 3.29 <0.001
Minority X Group 4 0.62 0.649
ELL X Group 2 8.92 <0.001
LD X Group 2 3.11 0.044
Error 7538
NRT Grade 6 133.79 <0.001
Minority 2 0.69 0.503
ELL 1 6.61 0.010
LD 1 3.22 0.079
Group 2 0.33 0.721
Grade X Group 12 2.07 0.016
Minority X Group 4 1.55 0.184
ELL X Group 2 4.50 0.011
LD X Group 2 2.54 0.095
Error 7897
Note. p-values relect Linear Step-Up adjustments.

Table 5.2 presents FCAT Reading (CRT) Developmental Scale

gain scores and SAT–10 (NRT) gain scores by grade level for all students
who participated in 1 to 39 RP lessons, students who received 40 or more
RP lessons, and students who received no RP lessons. RP students had
signiicantly greater gains than non-RP students in grades 5, 6, 7, 8, and
9 on the CRT and in grades 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, and 10 on the NRT. Students
receiving the RP intervention experienced signiicantly greater reading
Rasinski, Samuels, Hiebert, Petscher, & Feller 109
 110

Table 5.2: Gain Scores on the FCAT Reading (CRT) Developmental Scale Scores and SAT–10 (NRT) for All Students
Silent Reading Fluency

Measure Grade No Lessons 1–39 Lessons 40+ Lessons Contrast Efect Size
N M SD N M SD N M SD F p-value d1 d2 d3
CRT 4 529 158.75 224.69 461 162.18 220.81 340 181.42 200.85 2.05 0.160 0.02 0.09 0.10
5 449 71.43 216.53 393 78.37 200.07 364 117.46 209.16 9.32 0.006 0.03 0.20 0.21
6 1423 48.03 216.19 563 80.45 237.77 217 130.06 240.08 28.60 0.002 0.15 0.21 0.38
7 1256 46.27 199.35 508 109.19 212.73 307 157.78 212.40 88.25 0.002 0.32 0.23 0.56
8 1546 44.76 180.50 502 128.45 195.77 403 137.20 185.51 113.58 0.002 0.46 0.04 0.51
9 2803 66.48 190.09 406 84.31 202.17 328 107.23 203.30 14.85 0.002 0.09 0.11 0.21
10 2379 33.78 215.55 521 22.70 207.14 445 20.39 182.12 2.16 0.160 -0.05 -0.01 -0.06
NRT 4 528 5.05 26.17 459 7.04 24.07 337 11.74 21.82 14.76 0.002 0.08 0.19 0.26
5 445 13.60 22.10 391 20.33 25.03 360 21.19 23.40 21.94 0.002 0.30 0.03 0.34
6 1416 11.36 24.35 560 11.77 23.05 217 17.60 23.62 8.78 0.006 0.02 0.25 0.26
7 1239 5.06 23.21 497 5.64 22.60 303 9.22 22.37 6.66 0.024 0.02 0.16 0.18
8 1530 7.46 25.13 482 10.20 25.68 393 11.97 22.57 12.25 0.002 0.11 0.07 0.18
9 2719 13.06 28.12 383 7.12 31.47 324 14.17 27.01 0.86 0.363 -0.21 0.22 0.04
10 2267 0.45 29.29 465 6.60 28.15 415 8.24 24.16 35.95 0.002 0.21 0.06 0.27
Note. p-values relect Linear Step-Up adjustments.
 Table 5.3: Gain Scores on the FCAT Reading (CRT) Developmental Scale Scores and SAT–10 (NRT) for African American Students Receiving 40+ Lessons of
the RP Intervention Versus Students Receiving No RP Lessons
Measure Grade No Lessons 1–39 Lessons 40+ Lessons ANOVA Efect Size
N M SD N M SD N M SD F p-value d1 d2 d3
CRT 4 236 147.01 243.59 234 133.40 224.47 162 176.31 211.79 1.19 0.310 -0.06 0.19 0.12
5 158 69.93 229.94 193 60.77 194.51 235 90.20 204.82 1.14 0.310 -0.04 0.15 0.09
6 480 12.77 203.35 267 38.50 223.58 113 89.80 229.47 11.87 0.003 0.13 0.23 0.38
7 310 34.55 160.09 234 100.80 199.30 167 143.91 211.69 40.30 0.003 0.41 0.22 0.68
8 447 28.85 172.17 211 95.86 201.78 208 126.10 180.07 45.38 0.003 0.39 0.15 0.56
9 760 52.08 182.64 110 50.77 235.27 113 85.08 217.77 2.22 0.200 -0.01 0.15 0.18
10 465 16.62 227.29 195 13.69 221.68 226 -4.59 186.62 1.33 0.310 -0.01 -0.08 -0.09
NRT 4 236 7.47 27.75 232 4.78 24.69 161 13.39 21.77 3.96 0.092 -0.10 0.35 0.21
5 155 14.92 22.40 193 20.77 25.26 232 19.43 24.11 1.62 0.172 0.26 -0.05 0.20
Rasinski, Samuels, Hiebert, Petscher, & Feller

6 475 10.46 24.18 266 9.25 21.70 113 17.12 22.76 3.69 0.093 -0.05 0.36 0.28
7 311 1.64 22.63 228 6.25 22.11 165 10.20 21.58 16.84 0.030 0.20 0.18 0.38
8 439 7.37 24.22 200 7.70 23.96 205 14.61 21.35 11.42 0.003 0.01 0.29 0.30
9 740 13.53 25.38 108 8.58 30.08 110 14.54 24.47 0.10 >.500 -0.19 0.20 0.04
10 436 1.56 27.89 170 10.72 27.63 210 8.13 22.40 11.67 0.003 0.33 -0.09 0.24
Note. p-values relect Linear Step-Up adjustments.
111
 112

Table 5.4: Gain Scores on the FCAT Reading (CRT) Developmental Scale Scores and SAT–10 (NRT) for Latino American Students Receiving 40+ Lessons of
Silent Reading Fluency

the RP Intervention Versus Students Receiving No RP Lessons

Measure Grade No Lessons 1–39 Lessons 40+ Lessons ANOVA Efect Size
N M SD N M SD N M SD F p-value d1 d2 d3
CRT 4 261 172.09 208.66 206 194.28 206.21 160 183.09 192.18 0.46 0.500 0.11 -0.05 0.05
5 257 63.47 204.15 189 93.24 207.88 110 181.68 215.96 22.63 0.002 0.15 0.43 0.58
6 842 70.66 217.61 271 124.06 240.62 94 167.21 248.43 23.34 0.002 0.25 0.18 0.44
7 802 49.42 217.78 218 118.21 226.99 120 171.46 223.43 42.11 0.002 0.32 0.23 0.56
8 935 58.07 186.99 245 165.63 184.04 175 151.53 195.10 66.74 0.002 0.58 -0.08 0.50
9 1686 70.17 198.09 259 95.46 188.81 178 120.52 202.56 12.93 0.002 0.13 0.13 0.25
10 1553 35.92 218.24 288 21.57 193.29 190 45.94 176.45 0.01 0.500 -0.07 0.13 0.05
NRT 4 260 3.89 24.78 206 9.68 22.80 158 10.46 22.11 8.87 0.007 0.23 0.03 0.26
5 256 12.34 22.45 187 19.80 24.74 109 25.79 20.77 28.89 0.002 0.33 0.24 0.60
6 839 11.69 24.49 269 14.45 23.09 94 17.13 24.54 6.01 0.061 0.11 0.12 0.22
7 786 6.80 23.64 215 5.17 23.54 119 8.66 23.44 0.07 0.500 -0.07 0.15 0.08
8 927 7.52 25.64 237 11.96 26.98 168 8.93 23.04 2.18 0.163 0.17 -0.11 0.06
9 1626 11.95 29.26 238 6.82 32.10 177 13.59 28.49 0.20 0.651 -0.18 0.21 0.06
10 1484 1.42 29.70 259 5.31 28.53 178 8.08 25.68 10.84 0.002 0.13 0.10 0.22
Note. p-values relect Linear Step-Up adjustments.
 Table 5.5: Gain Scores on the FCAT Reading (CRT) Developmental Scale Scores and SAT–10 (NRT) for Caucasian Students Receiving 40+ Lessons of the RP
Intervention Versus Students Receiving No RP Lessons
Measure Grade No Lessons 1–39 Lessons 40+ Lessons ANOVA Efect Size
N M SD N M SD N M SD F p-value d1 d2 d3
CRT 4 20 120.05 220.68 15 180.47 299.45 9 216.89 201.07 1.11 0.500 0.27 0.12 0.44
5 25 101.68 200.66 9 116.78 129.20 11 118.27 115.22 0.09 0.500 0.08 0.01 0.08
6 65 53.82 249.75 21 11.76 273.90 6 307.33 165.52 1.70 0.500 -0.17 1.08 1.02
7 131 49.97 166.95 35 67.26 212.11 18 189.72 141.61 8.08 0.032 0.10 0.58 0.84
8 118 6.92 156.06 33 81.88 214.94 16 113.19 148.35 8.90 0.032 0.48 0.15 0.68
9 302 78.11 158.26 31 107.10 178.94 32 132.28 149.32 3.98 0.185 0.18 0.14 0.34
10 300 38.62 177.59 30 39.43 176.71 22 50.50 172.80 0.07 0.500 0.00 0.06 0.07
NRT 4 20 -3.65 22.59 15 4.53 26.40 9 5.11 22.03 1.07 0.500 0.36 0.02 0.39
5 25 14.88 16.64 9 17.22 25.34 11 19.91 19.19 0.55 0.500 0.14 0.11 0.30
Rasinski, Samuels, Hiebert, Petscher, & Feller 113

6 66 14.15 24.81 21 7.24 30.40 6 29.17 27.62 0.35 0.500 -0.28 0.72 0.61
7 130 2.93 21.40 33 3.61 21.67 17 1.82 22.28 0.01 0.500 0.03 -0.08 -0.05
8 119 7.01 23.67 32 6.78 23.02 16 7.69 25.38 0.01 0.500 -0.01 0.04 0.03
9 298 16.92 28.46 30 0.80 33.94 32 16.69 29.11 1.20 0.500 -0.57 0.47 -0.01
10 288 -4.87 28.03 27 -4.11 22.11 20 11.80 23.36 5.41 0.032 0.03 0.72 0.59
Note. p-values relect Linear Step-Up adjustments.
 114

Table 5.6: Gain Scores on the FCAT Reading (CRT) Developmental Scale Scores and SAT–10 (NRT) for Learning Disabled Students Receiving 40+ Lessons of
Silent Reading Fluency

the RP Intervention Versus Students Receiving No RP Lessons

Measure Grade No Lessons 1–39 Lessons 40+ Lessons ANOVA Efect Size
N M SD N M SD N M SD F p-value d1 d2 d3
CRT 4 32 275.44 242.57 39 134.69 383.83 24 166.25 287.98 1.93 0. 500 -0.58 0.08 -0.45
5 23 60.52 399.07 19 53.84 260.44 29 100.72 204.83 0.26 0.500 -0.02 0.18 0.10
6 67 109.82 243.18 78 -10.95 298.95 20 148.70 288.44 0.48 0. 500 -0.50 0.53 0.16
7 51 131.02 317.02 17 43.82 272.88 18 127.44 276.30 0.08 0.500 -0.28 0.31 -0.01
8 80 92.93 297.24 74 157.54 206.27 31 117.03 249.77 0.76 0. 500 0.22 -0.20 0.08
9 149 48.01 256.80 62 42.37 279.07 22 75.91 130.70 0.09 0.500 -0.02 0.12 0.11
10 89 -29.31 276.77 85 -18.89 284.61 23 -47.74 217.10 0.01 0.500 0.04 -0.10 -0.07
NRT 4 90 -3.52 27.86 44 -1.20 26.27 7 -1.43 17.16 0.30 0.500 0.08 -0.01 0.08
5 69 12.39 25.22 51 18.12 27.19 28 28.71 26.90 1.21 0. 500 0.23 0.39 0.65
6 282 11.83 28.00 40 8.05 24.37 7 19.71 31.92 0.11 0.500 -0.14 0.48 0.28
7 270 5.45 23.36 115 1.80 21.94 11 17.18 16.35 0.57 0. 500 -0.16 0.70 0.50
8 384 7.49 25.39 58 4.31 32.33 12 7.75 21.35 6.35 0.083 -0.13 0.11 0.01
9 414 20.30 30.30 20 9.85 22.93 5 17.20 28.01 0.02 0.500 -0.35 0.32 -0.10
10 445 -9.16 25.75 22 13.55 28.10 19 2.63 26.49 0.67 0. 500 0.88 -0.39 0.46
Note. p-values relect Linear Step-Up adjustments.
 Table 5.7: Gain Scores on the FCAT Reading (CRT) Developmental Scale Scores and SAT–10 (NRT) for English Language Learners Receiving 40+ Lessons of
the RP Intervention Versus Students Receiving No RP Lessons
Measure Grade No Lessons 1–39 Lessons 40+ Lessons ANOVA Efect Size
N M SD N M SD N M SD F p-value d1 d2 d3
CRT 4 25 466.72 388.73 27 296.81 284.58 14 276.79 162.04 4.18 0.043 -0.44 -0.07 -0.49
5 16 284.38 504.17 37 137.76 316.82 23 247.74 278.86 0.01 0.500 -0.29 0.35 -0.07
6 65 308.68 315.45 18 184.39 364.18 11 164.18 214.91 3.22 0.102 -0.39 -0.06 -0.46
7 89 263.81 286.30 7 247.00 390.93 15 253.00 261.51 0.03 0.500 -0.06 0.02 -0.04
8 91 198.20 274.16 7 129.57 250.81 17 252.71 176.50 0.36 0.500 -0.25 0.49 0.20
9 26 24.12 24.97 27 23.81 15.30 14 17.00 20.70 0.01 0.500 -0.01 -0.45 -0.28
10 16 8.69 24.48 37 22.70 27.43 22 32.68 21.70 0.77 0. 500 0.57 0.36 0.98
NRT 4 64 25.59 28.55 18 21.61 19.48 11 24.18 30.11 0.24 0.500 -0.14 0.13 -0.05
5 89 19.87 24.03 7 33.57 27.57 15 12.07 15.99 2.53 0. 500 0.57 -0.78 -0.32
Rasinski, Samuels, Hiebert, Petscher, & Feller 115

6 92 15.20 31.13 6 -6.33 20.87 16 10.06 28.65 0.23 0.500 -0.69 0.79 -0.16
7 270 5.45 23.36 115 1.80 21.94 11 17.18 16.35 0.57 0. 500 -0.16 0.70 0.50
8 384 7.49 25.39 58 4.31 32.33 12 7.75 21.35 6.35 0.083 -0.13 0.11 0.01
9 414 20.30 30.30 20 9.85 22.93 5 17.20 28.01 0.02 0.500 -0.35 0.32 -0.10
10 445 -9.16 25.75 22 13.55 28.10 19 2.63 26.49 0.67 0. 500 0.88 -0.39 0.46
Note. p-values relect Linear Step-Up adjustments.
 achievement gains than non-RP students at all grade levels on at least one
reading achievement measurement (and at grades 5, 6, 7, and 8 signiicantly
greater achievement gains were found on both tests). Efect sizes by grade
level ranged from .03 to .34 (small to moderate in magnitude). None
of the gain score comparisons of all students (Table 5.2) demonstrated
signiicantly greater gain scores in favor of the non-RP students. Moreover,
the trends in gain scores are worth noting. Students receiving the
intermediate number of RP lessons (1 to 39) tended to have gains that were
greater than students receiving no lessons but had gains that were less than
students receiving 40 or more lessons. his suggests that the efects of the
RP lessons are cumulative—more instruction using RP led to greater gains
in reading achievement.
Tables 5.3 through 5.7 report FCAT Reading (CRT) Developmental
Scale gain scores and SAT–10 (NRT) gain scores by grade level for students
who were African American (Table 5.3), Latino American (Table 5.4),
Caucasian (Table 5.5), LD (Table 5.6), and ELLs (Table 5.7). Aside from
the ELL students, the data indicate that students receiving RP instruction
made generally greater gains on the FCAT CRT and the NRT than
students not receiving RP.
Table 5.8 presents statewide and district mean developmental scale
scores for the CRT for grades 4 through 10 statewide and for the individual
school district from which the RP schools were drawn. Mean gain scores
for the statewide and district-level CRT are also presented. he mean gain
scores for students engaged in the RP intervention for 40 or more lessons
(Table 5.2) were greater than the statewide and district-level gains (Table
5.8) at every grade level for which a comparison was possible. Moreover,
mean gain scores for students engaged in the RP intervention for 1 to 39
lessons (Table 5.2) also were greater than the statewide and district-level
gains (Table 5.8) at every grade level except for grade 5.
Table 5.8: Dade County Reading CRT and Statewide Mean Development Scale Scores (DSS)
Grade Mean 2006 DSS Mean 2007 DSS Mean DSS Gain
4 1554 (1573) 1393 (1420) 161 (154)
5 1618 (1659) 1537 (1557) 81 (101)
6 1644 (1694) 1583 (1624) 61 (70)
7 1773 (1801) 1694 (1722) 79 (78)
8 1814 (1862) 1730 (1786) 84 (76)
9 1851 (1912) 1789 (1844) 62 (68)
10 1881 (1947) 1864 (1931) 17 (16)
Note. Values in parentheses are statewide mean reading developmental scale scores.

116 Silent Reading Fluency

 Discussion
he present retrospective study examined the efects of a silent
reading luency and proiciency intervention system on the comprehension
and overall reading achievement of students in grades 4 through 10 in a
large urban school district. Results indicated that students participating in
the program for a minimum of 40 lessons (20 hours of instruction) over
approximately six months made signiicantly greater gains on both the
reading CRT and NRT that were part of the FCAT than students who did
not participate in the program. Students participating in the program also
demonstrated gains on the CRT that were greater than the mean gains
for the state and district level. he gains were found generally in all grade
levels studied and in all subpopulations except for ELLs. Moreover, greater
involvement in the RP intervention was associated with greater gains for
students.
In many cases, the gains were not only statistically signiicant
with substantive efect sizes, but also the contrasts between RP and non-
RP groups provided interesting information regarding the magnitude
of performance diferences. For example, in grades 6, 7, and 8, the mean
gains on the CRT portion of the FCAT were more than double the gains
of nonparticipating students. For the same grade levels, gains on the
NRT (SAT–10) by the RP intervention students were 55%, 82%, and 60%,
respectively, greater than nonparticipating students.
Comments made by principals, teachers, and other educators in the
schools that participated in the study were close to universally positive in
support of the intervention system. Teachers and administrators using RP
noticed the positive impact the program had on student achievement and
attitudes toward learning.
he results of the study suggest that reading programs such as RP
that are aimed at improving silent reading luency and proiciency through
extensive, focused, wide, and repeated reading in which students are held
accountable for their work can have a signiicant and substantial positive
efect on student reading comprehension and overall reading achievement.
Positive results were also demonstrated for various subpopulations
that are oten considered to be at risk for reading diiculties. African
American, Latino American, special education, and learning disabled
students who participated in the RP intervention generally demonstrated
signiicantly and substantially greater gains in measures of reading
achievement on both the CRT and NRT portions of the FCAT than
students not participating in the intervention.

Rasinski, Samuels, Hiebert, Petscher, & Feller 117

 he only students who did not appear to beneit from the RP
intervention were ELL students in grades 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8 (see Table
5.7). he best explanation for this lack of positive efects may lie in the
fact that ELL students more than any other subpopulation of students
are in the process of learning a new language, particularly the sounds
of the language. Until the oral form of English becomes familiar and
word decoding skills are mastered, ELL students may ind oral reading
where they hear and decode the written language into its oral form most
beneicial. It is also worth noting that in the present study the sample size
of ELL students was relatively small.
Aside from ELL students, however, the RP intervention, and, we
assume, similar silent reading luency and comprehension programs, hold
great potential for signiicantly improving student reading achievement at
a variety of grade levels.
he results of the study also suggest that although luency is
normally considered to fall within the domain of oral reading, silent
reading luency is a salient concept in reading. Moreover, the study further
suggests that instruction aimed at improving silent reading luency can
have positive efects on reading achievement that are similar to those found
with oral reading instruction, without some of the limitations that are
associated with oral reading.
An additional inding from the study supports previous work by
Rasinski and colleagues (Rasinski et al., 2005; Rasinski, Rikli, &Johnston,
2009) indicating that reading luency is an important goal for reading
instruction beyond the primary grades. In the previous work cited,
Rasinski and his colleagues note that reading luency continues to be
an important predictor of reading achievement in the upper elementary
through secondary grade levels and that signiicant numbers of students
have not attained suicient levels of luency in their reading. he present
study demonstrates that instruction in luency, albeit silent reading luency,
for students beyond the primary grades can result in positive outcomes in
reading comprehension and overall reading achievement. While current
interest in reading seems to be shiting to helping middle and secondary
school students improve their reading comprehension and achievement,
the present study suggests that luency-oriented instruction has great
potential for making this goal a reality.

118 Silent Reading Fluency

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we should measure “change”: Or should automaticity, and prosody. he Reading
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Hiebert, E.H. (1983). An examination of
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Oral and silent reading strategies for “Myths about longitudinal research”
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Association (pp. 237–246). Florida Center for Reading Research.
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343–366.

120 Silent Reading Fluency

 CHAPTER 6

Exploring the Added Value of a

Guided Silent Reading Intervention:
Efects on Struggling hird-Grade Readers’
Achievement1

D. Ray Reutzel
Utah State University

Yaacov Petscher
Florida Center for Reading Research &
Florida State University

Alexandra N. Spichtig
Reading Plus

R
eading research has produced an emerging consensus on several
essential elements of beginning reading instruction, and luency is
widely agreed to be one of the key components, as reading luency
creates the bridge between word recognition and reading comprehension
processes (National Institute of Child Health, & Human Development
(NICHD), 2000; Rasinski, 1989; Reutzel & Hollingsworth, 1993; Samuels &
Farstrup, 2006). he initial stages of reading luency occur when students
are able to automatically recognize words. As luency develops, automatic
word recognition eventually leads to the achievement of the ultimate goal
of reading: comprehension (Torgesen & Hudson, 2006; Samuels, 2007).
Topping (2006) described this later stage of luency development, when
word recognition bridges comprehension processes, as “the extraction of
maximum meaning at maximum speed in a relatively continuous low,
leaving spare, simultaneous processing capacity for other higher order
processes” (p. 107).
In its report, the National Reading Panel (NRP; NICHD,
2000) reviewed 77 studies of guided repeated oral reading (GROR)
1 his chapter was previously published in he Journal of Educational Research (v105, n6, p404-415,
2012). he deinitive publisher-authenticated version published is available online at: http://www.tandfonline.
com/doi/abs/10.1080/00220671.2011.629693
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

Reutzel, Petscher, & Spichtig 121

 with feedback. his approach to reading luency practice includes oral
repeated readings of a single grade- or instructional-level text, while the
reader simultaneously receives feedback from a teacher or from other,
more proicient readers. he NRP found substantial scientiic evidence
to support the eicacy of GROR with feedback for increasing students’
reading luency.
However, the NRP report (NICHD, 2000) sparked considerable
controversy when it reported a lack of research supporting independent
silent reading practice in the classroom as an efective means for
developing students’ reading luency, referring to the types of silent
reading that are included in activities like Sustained Silent Reading
(SSR) or Drop Everything and Read (Allington, 2002; Coles, 2000;
Cunningham, 2001; Edmondson & Shannon, 2002; Krashen, 2002). hus,
one of the unintended consequences of the NRP’s report was to suppress
the previously prevalent use of silent independent reading practice in the
classroom to develop students’ reading luency. Although silent reading
practices such as SSR had been already generally criticized, sharp critiques
of independent silent reading increased signiicantly ater the report
was released in 2000. In today’s world of high-stakes accountability,
it is increasingly diicult for classroom teachers to justify the use of
instructional practices that do not have the imprimatur of the NRP or are
not sanctioned as evidence-based by the federal government.
Consequently, since the turn of the new millennia, GROR with
feedback has become the dominant way in which teachers encourage
students to practice their reading in classrooms in order to develop
luency. Yet once GROR with feedback became the dominant method of
classroom instruction used to develop luency, it became more and more
apparent to teachers, administrators, and researchers that this particular
mode of reading instruction used in school for luency practice—oral
and guided—was unrelated to the most common way in which most
accomplished adolescent and adult readers actually read—independently
and silently. Although guided repeated oral reading may be useful as a tool
for reading luency practice in school, the long-term goal of any luency
development should be, in fact, to help students become avid, competent,
and independent silent readers. here is little question that the opportunity
to read is strongly associated with gains in students’ reading achievement,
regardless of whether that reading is conducted silently or orally
(Allington, 2002; Guthrie, Schafer, & Huang, 2001; NICHD, 2000). Also, in
addition to the strong correlation of evidence between time spent reading
and reading achievement, causal evidence for the eicacy of engaging

122 Value-Added Silent Reading Intervention

students in independent silent reading practice has been steadily growing.
In a large-scale experiment that provided students with an
additional 20 minutes of independent silent reading of trade books per
day, Block, Cleveland, and Reed (2006) found that the additional practice
led to signiicant annual gains in students’ vocabulary, comprehension,
and luency. Similarly, Samuels and Wu (2004) reported results of
a quasi-experiment that compared the reading comprehension and
reading achievement gains of third- and ith-grade students who read
independently and silently for either 15 or 40 minutes. Students in the
40-minute group evidenced signiicantly better reading achievement
and comprehension than the group that read for 15 minutes. hese and
other studies over the past decade (e.g., Hiebert & Reutzel, 2010; Kamil,
2008; Kelley & Clausen-Grace, 2006, 2010; Kuhn & Schwanenlugel,
2008; Reutzel, Fawson, & Smith, 2008; Reutzel, Jones, Fawson, & Smith,
2008; Reutzel, Jones, & Newman, 2010) have begun to provide a causal
research base showing that students’ reading comprehension, luency,
and achievement can beneit from the opportunity to read independently
and silently when speciic conditions of reading luency practice are
implemented. It also appears that using independent silent reading as the
means to practice luency makes more sense both developmentally and
empirically for students who are older than age 8, or who are at least in
second grade (Wright, Sherman, & Jones, 2004, 2010; Kuhn, 2004, 2005).
Today’s educational culture of increased accountability has
compounded teacher concerns regarding the use of independent silent
reading to practice luency, especially when this method is used with low-
achieving, struggling students. A persistent fear among classroom teachers
is that some students may not keep their eyes on their text when they are
assigned silent independent reading tasks (Donovan, Smolkin, & Lomax,
2000; Fresch, 1995; Hiebert, Wilson, & Trainin, 2010). Guidance within
silent reading contexts is key, as students achieving in the bottom quartile
of their class frequently attend less well when they read silently in an
unguided context as compared to a guided context (Hiebert et al., 2010). As
reported in several studies, when the challenge level of texts and the task
of reading independently and silently were carefully scafolded and guided
by the teacher, even primary-level, struggling readers were able to engage
in the practice successfully (Bryan, Fawson, & Reutzel, 2003; Kamil, 2008;
Kelley & Clausen-Grace, 2006, 2010; Reutzel, Fawson, & Smith, 2008;
Reutzel, Jones, Fawson, & Smith, 2008; Reutzel, Jones, & Newman, 2010).
In addition, Brenner and Hiebert (2010) recently reported research
related to a professional development program intended to help teachers

Reutzel, Petscher, & Spichtig 123

 increase the amount of time students’ eyes were on text during silent
reading. hese researchers, among others who have recently examined
the independent silent reading process, discovered that previous
explanations of the “eyes on text” phenomenon had seemingly overlooked
a fundamental contributor to that process—the eyes (Samuels, Hiebert, &
Rasinski, Chapter 2, this volume).
Rasinski, Samuels, Hiebert, Petscher, and Feller (Chapter 5,
this volume) reported on research conducted with students in grades
4 through 10 using the computer-based guided silent reading luency
intervention Reading Plus, the same intervention used in this study.
heir study, conducted with students in grades 4 through 10, showed a
strong relationship between the use of the Reading Plus program for silent
reading practice and subsequent gains in reading comprehension. Use of
the program was also shown to improve general literacy achievement on
a state criterion-referenced and normative-referenced national reading
achievement test.
Although these researchers found a relationship between
students’ guided silent reading practice with the Reading Plus program
and the students’ gains in reading comprehension and general reading
achievement, much less is known about how such a supplementary
intervention program may inluence the reading behaviors and
achievement of younger struggling readers. In today’s environment of
high accountability, there is a need for carefully constructed evaluations of
commercially available supplementary intervention programs by credible
organizations such as the U.S. Department of Education’s What Works
Clearinghouse. hus, studies such as the one reported by Rasinski et al.
(Chapter 5, this volume) are of evaluative and practical importance for
classroom teachers and administrators who are seeking guidance and
evidence to support the selection and use of available reading interventions
for challenged readers.
Although previous studies have shown silent reading to be an
efective way to improve reading skills, more recent studies have shown
that the conditions for silent reading practice in school oten result in
students acting like they are reading when they are not (Hiebert & Reutzel,
2010). As a result, this study sought to determine whether a computer-
based guided silent reading luency intervention, using a combination of
scafolded reading passages and comprehension questions, could reliably
increase struggling students’ reading achievement and comprehension
by helping these readers keep their eyes on the text during silent reading.
Speciically, the research question addressed by this study was the

124 Value-Added Silent Reading Intervention

following: How does the guided silent reading luency intervention Reading
Plus afect struggling third-grade students’ performance on criterion-
referenced and norm-referenced tests of reading comprehension and reading
achievement?

Method
Research Design
his study used a matched quasi-experimental research design. he
study’s quasi-experimental control and treatment groups were constructed by
the use of a propensity score sampling and matching process. A propensity
score, as deined by Rosenbaum and Rubin (1983), has a conditional
probability of assignment to a particular treatment given a vector of observed
covariates. Put simply, a propensity score is the probability of being in the
treatment group derived from a logistic regression when accounting for
important matching variables. he primary objective for researchers using
propensity scores is to select a series of variables that would be considered
important for matching students. In traditional reading research, these
variables might include race/ethnicity, socioeconomic status, English learner
status, primary exceptionality status, gender, and some type of baseline
measure of achievement (e.g., a pretest). he main efects and interactions
among these and other variables are then included in a logistic regression
to determine the probability of being in the treatment when controlling for
these important matching covariates (Shadish, Cook, & Campbell, 2002).
he probabilities resulting from the logistic regression may then be used to
match students who actually received the intervention with those who did
not, creating matched treatment and control groups. In this way, students are
more probabilistically matched at the pretest, allowing for stronger causal
inferences regarding diferences on the posttest or on gain scores than a
simple comparison of all available students in a sample.
here are several limitations that should be noted in regard to using
propensity scores to construct an experimental sample such as the one
used in this study: (a) propensity scores tend to be most practically used
with larger samples; (b) missing data can be problematic for propensity
analyses, as the techniques are still relatively new; and (c) propensity scores
assume that no further confounds exist that may predict the propensity.
Nevertheless, despite these acknowledged limitations, propensity scores are
now viewed as one of the strongest quasi-experimental methods for assessing
relationships between treatments and outcomes (Shadish et al., 2002).

Reutzel, Petscher, & Spichtig 125

 Participants
hree criteria were used to select students for the control and
treatment group samples. First, students who were selected were age 9 or
older. Second, students were also selected if they were identiied as being
struggling readers if the results from their end-of-year, high-stakes third-
grade achievement test (the FCAT) identiied that they were at risk for not
being promoted to fourth grade. Finally, retained third-grade students who
were re-enrolled in third-grade classrooms during the implementation
period, which ran from the beginning of the school year through the
administration of the FCAT and SAT-10 in early March, were selected.
We selected struggling third-grade readers for participation in this
study for two reasons. First, age 9 (or third grade) has been shown to be
an age and stage of reading development where independent silent reading
becomes both possible and advisable based upon recent research indings
(Hiebert & Reutzel, 2010). Second, the stage of reading development
that occurs as third graders transition into fourth grade has been long
associated with what Chall, Jacobs, and Baldwin (1990) described as the
fourth-grade reading slump.
he archival full student sample ile available to researchers
consisted of records on 1,253 third-grade students enrolled in a large,
urban public school system in the state of Florida. Of these 1,253 students,
158 represented the required special case of students at age 9 retained at
the end of third grade. hus, all 158 third-grade students in the study’s
sample population were not promoted to fourth grade due to their
performance on the FCAT. hese 158 retained third-grade struggling
readers attended 11 diferent elementary schools within this Florida
urban school district. he inal propensity score sample constructed for
this study’s matched, quasi-experimental research design consisted of 40
students in the control and 40 students in the experimental treatment
group, for a total of n=80 retained third-grade students.

Instrumentation
At the time of this study, the FCAT was a major component of
Florida’s testing efort to assess student achievement in reading, writing,
math, and science as represented in Florida’s Sunshine State Standards
(SSS) (Florida Department of Education [FDE], 2007). he SSS reading
portion of the FCAT is a group-administered, criterion-referenced test
consisting of 6 to 8 narrative or informational reading passages, wherein
students respond to between 6 and 11 multiple-choice items per passage.
126 Value-Added Silent Reading Intervention
Embedded within these 6 to 11 multiple-choice questions are four content
clusters: (a) reference and research, (b) words and phrases in context, (c)
the main idea, and (d) comparison/cause and efect.
Based on their scores, students are placed into one of ive
performance levels on a scaled score ranging from 100 to 500. Levels 1 and
2 relect below grade-level performance in reading, with Level 1 being the
lowest indication of reading performance. Levels 3 and above represent
proiciency in reading comprehension at or above grade-level standards.
Students who score below Level 1 proiciency on the FCAT in
third grade must be retained for another year, according to Florida law.
If they can demonstrate the required reading level or proiciency through
the approved alternate test (the SAT-10) or through a student portfolio,
they can be granted an exemption and be promoted to fourth grade.
hus, the students selected for this study represented the highest-risk
segment of the overall third-grade population. he internal-consistency
reliability for the FCAT-SSS has been shown to be 0.90 (Cronbach’s alpha);
moreover, test score content and concurrent validity have been established
through a series of expert panel reviews and data analyses (Florida State
Department of Education, 2007). he construct validity of the FCAT-SSS
as a comprehensive assessment of reading outcomes recently received
strong support in an empirical analysis of its relationships with a variety
of other reading comprehension, language, and basic reading measures
(Schatschneider, Fletcher, Francis, Carlson, & Foorman, 2004).
he SAT-10 is approved for use by the U.S. Department of
Education and is constructed to determine if students in kindergarten
through grade 12 are meeting national or state standards in reading,
mathematics, and language. he reading section of the SAT-10 has an
alpha reliability coeicient of 0.87, the math section 0.80 to 0.87, and the
language section 0.78 to 0.84. Alternate forms of reliability coeicients
ranged in the low 0.90s for the total reading section. he SAT-10, by design,
evidences content and criterion-related validity since its development is
tied very closely to assessing progress toward meeting state and national
standards in reading, mathematics, and language (Berk, 1998; Carney &
Morse, 2005).

Control and Treatment Groups

All 80 retained third-grade students in both the control (n=40)
and treatment (n=40) groups followed the state-approved Comprehensive
Core Reading Program (CCRP) adopted by this large, urban Florida

Reutzel, Petscher, & Spichtig 127

 school district. he CCRP delineated speciic protocols unique to the
third-grade retained students requiring schools to provide a dedicated and
uninterrupted two-hour block of classroom instructional time for reading
instruction for all students. Whole-group explicit reading instruction
was provided daily for the irst 30 to 40 minutes using Houghton
Milin’s Reading Treasures comprehensive core reading program. hirty
minutes of the 2-hour block were dedicated to writing instruction.
For the remainder of the 2-hour reading instructional block, teachers
diferentiated instruction using small groups and center rotations, during
which time students practiced, demonstrated, and extended skills that
were previously taught during the teacher-led explicit reading instruction.
Approved supplemental reading intervention programs could be used at
this time. Some of these included QuickReads (repeated oral readings of
the same passage), Elements of Reading: Vocabulary (an oral vocabulary
instructional program), and the supplemental activities provided with
Houghton Milin’s Reading Treasures. Retained students were required to
receive intensive intervention in areas of their demonstrated deiciencies
during the mandated 2-hour reading instructional block.
In addition to the dedicated 2-hour block instructional time that all
control and treatment students received, all of the participating students
received an additional 30 minutes of supplemental reading instruction
every day. Supplemental reading programs included: Soar to Success,
Essential Elements of Reading and Voyager Passport (Essential Elements),
Earobics, and Reading Plus. Treatment group students engaged in Reading
Plus, while the control group used one of the other three supplementary
reading interventions. he alternative interventions difered from
Reading Plus as well as from one another in their curricular emphasis.
According to program developers, Soar to Success provides instruction in
four of the essential components of reading outlined by the NRP report
(NICHD, 2000) and Reading First (phonics, luency, vocabulary, and
comprehension), whereas Essential Elements and Earobics address ive of
the components (phonemic awareness, phonics, luency, vocabulary, and
comprehension). Reading Plus focuses on three of the components: luency,
vocabulary, and comprehension. Another essential diference between
Reading Plus and the alternative interventions is the mode of the reading
experience. Within Reading Plus, the emphasis is on guided, silent reading,
while the three alternative interventions emphasize guided oral reading.

128 Value-Added Silent Reading Intervention

Reading Acceleration Programs (Control Group)
Selected struggling third-grade students (n=40) received one of
three accelerated reading treatments during three weekly 30-minute
sessions. he key elements of each of these interventions are summarized
below, drawing on a report from the Florida Center for Reading Research
(2007).
• Soar to Success is designed to accelerate students’ reading ability
and help them quickly and easily apply comprehension and
decoding strategies to other content area texts through the use of
reciprocal teaching, an instructional technique that uses teacher–
student dialogue to teach students to use cognitive strategies
of summarizing, clarifying, questioning, and predicting. Each
30-minute lesson consists of ive parts: (a) Revisiting (students
reread self-selected Soar to Success books for luency development),
(b) Reviewing (students review strategies and summarize what was
read using graphic organizers), (c) Rehearsing (a teacher-guided or
independent preview of the daily reading is presented), (d) Reading
and reciprocal teaching—students read silently and then engage
in four reciprocal teaching strategies (summarizing, clariication,
questioning, and predicting), and (e) Responding/relecting—
students complete written relections and engage in discussions to
bring closure to the daily activity.
• he Essential Elements program is designed to accelerate reading
growth and assist students in reaching grade-level expectations
through the use of teacher modeling, guided and independent
practice, and immediate corrective feedback. he program
consists of daily lessons that are taught in small groups. A typical
30-minute lesson for third-grade students consists of advanced
vocabulary word analysis, luency-building passage reading,
and comprehension strategies. hird-grade students in need
of additional support in word study may engage in an optional
Targeted Word Study component.
• Earobics is designed to help striving readers develop foundational
skills through the use of sotware, teacher-directed activities,
manipulatives and books. he program consists of two parts: Part
one is designed for irst- and second-grade students, and part two
is designed for second-grade students and older who are struggling
with luency. Students may engage in sotware games that target
phonemic awareness and phonics skills, or teachers may provide

Reutzel, Petscher, & Spichtig 129

 explicit instruction in language enrichment, phonemic awareness,
letter-sound correspondences, decoding, and early reading and
writing.

Guided Silent Reading Fluency Intervention (Treatment Group)

An equal number of selected struggling third-grade students
(n=40) received the comparison treatment: Reading Plus, a supplementary
guided silent reading intervention. Students involved in this guided silent
reading intervention participated in a series of online, computer-based
sessions that included a speciic sequence of daily activities. As struggling
students participated in this guided silent reading intervention, the
diiculty level of the reading material was adjusted automatically as a
function of a student’s progress based upon reading comprehension and
reading rate analyses.
Students began the intervention by completing the Reading
Placement Appraisal (RPA) assessment to establish their initial placement
level within the supplementary guided silent reading intervention
program. his 20-minute placement test assessed independent reading
level, reading rate, comprehension, and vocabulary to determine the most
appropriate practice starting level. he RPA consisted of three parts. Part
I presented students with several 100-word selections, each followed by a
set of literal-recall questions. Content diiculty was adjusted according
to a student’s comprehension performance and reading rate mastery to
ascertain a student’s tentative independent reading level. Part II, with
its 300-word selections and diverse comprehension questions, served
to conirm the independent reading level. Part III assessed a student’s
vocabulary level. From the three-part RPA assessment, an instructional
reading level was established for individual students, who were then placed
at appropriate levels within each component of the program. Students
continued to be assessed on similar tasks throughout the intervention
period, with appropriate adjustments being made to the level of the
reading selections as a result of students’ performance on these formative
assessments. As students participated in this supplementary silent reading
luency intervention, they were provided with reading lessons and
continuous feedback about their silent reading in an individual, computer-
based, online environment.
Each lesson began with a perceptual accuracy and visual eiciency
warm-up. his activity consisted of two parts, Scan and Flash. In the Scan
activity, students scanned the computer screen to count the number of

130 Value-Added Silent Reading Intervention

times a target letter or number appeared on the screen. he target letter
and other letters or numbers were lashed in a let-to-right presentation.
he presentation speed increased in accordance with the student’s
proiciency. In the second activity, Flash, a series of letters or numbers—
ranging in length from 2 to 12 characters, depending on the students’
placement level—were lashed (1/6 of a second per lash, which does not
permit moving of the eyes and thus provides single ixation training).
he amount of numbers or letters increased in response to the students’
ability to correctly recreate the sequence. his warm-up activity aimed
to increase students’ visual perception, attention, and automaticity in the
discrimination and recognition of print. Studies conducted by numerous
researchers (e.g., Brenner & Hiebert, 2010; Mirsky, 1996; Torgesen &
Hudson, 2006) suggested that one of the deining characteristics of
proicient readers is the ability to sustain attention and keep their eyes on
the text. According to Pikulski (2006), “instant, accurate, and automatic
access to all these dimensions of a printed word is the needed elements of
luency that will allow readers to focus their attention on comprehension
rather than on decoding” (p. 75).
he next part of the guided silent reading session provided students
with extensive structured silent reading practice to build luency within
an authentic reading experience where students read for meaning. his
activity involved timed, guided, let-to-right reading practice, in which
students read texts selected from a diverse collection of narrative and
expository texts at each student’s independent instructional reading level.
his is noteworthy because the work of O’Connor and colleagues (2002),
as reported by Allington (2006), showed that providing daily intervention
lessons using grade-level texts was not nearly as successful as providing
daily lessons using texts matched to the instructional reading levels of
struggling readers. O’Connor and colleagues argued that selecting texts
of appropriate challenge should be a irst step in the design of efective
supplementary reading instruction and intervention. In fact, this is no less
true when designing efective silent reading practice for regular education
students in elementary classrooms (Reutzel, Jones, Fawson, & Smith, 2008).
Lesson text selections were matched to struggling readers’
independent reading levels using Spache, Dale-Chall, and Fry readability
formulas. he supplementary guided silent reading intervention computer
environment was programmed to continuously and dynamically monitor
students’ performance using both reading rate measures and responses
to comprehension questions, adjusting the reading content level to
match each student’s progress. In addition, the guided silent reading

Reutzel, Petscher, & Spichtig 131

 intervention program used a mix of instructional formats and scafolds to
further match individualized needs and rates of progress. hese included
variation in the presentation of text, the length of reading segments, the
location and number of comprehension questions, and the use of repeated
readings. hus, students were able to progress through increasingly
challenging levels of readings in this intervention based on several factors.
Students had to be able to read passages at their current levels with grade-
appropriate rates and good comprehension before they were advanced to
subsequent levels.
his supplementary guided silent reading intervention provided
approximately 600 reading selections, ranging from pre-primer to adult-
level texts, including high-interest/low-readability selections for older
struggling students. Selections represented a wide range of genres, such
as “Miguel’s Big Day,” a family life story; “he Lighthouse Visitor,” a
mystery; and “Looking at Clouds,” a science/nature story. As students
progressed through the varied guided silent reading levels, the texts
became longer and more challenging, and content choices became more
informational. Lesson texts were presented within both a guided silent
reading format (a moving window guided students’ eyes across lines of
print from let to right) and an independent reading format without any
let-to-right guidance. Regardless of the nature of the lesson or activity,
text was presented within a controlled format and rate parameter for each
student in the online environment. Dynamically controlled by individual
student performance, comprehension questions were either interspersed
among individual reading segments or were found at the conclusion of
the story. All comprehension questions were electronically coded by the
system to continuously track student performance with 25 comprehension
skills based on Bloom’s (1956) taxonomy, including literal understanding,
interpretation, analysis, evaluation, and appreciation. he format (wide
vs. repeated readings) and rate at which text was presented on screen was
then incrementally increased as a function of students’ performance on
these comprehension questions and reading rate performances during the
reading events.
he lessons provided students with authentic reading experiences
that build comprehension, luency, and stamina at a level of diiculty
that supports an increase in reading capacity. Additionally, given that the
diiculty of texts was established using the Spache (for primary-level texts)
and Dale-Chall (middle-grade-level texts) formulas—both of which rely
on high-frequency word lists—students had considerable opportunity to
develop luency with a core group of high-frequency words while reading

132 Value-Added Silent Reading Intervention

these texts. his is important because Torgesen and colleagues (Rashotte,
MacPhee, & Torgesen, 2001; Torgesen & Hudson, 2006) argue that limited
sight vocabularies are a principal characteristic of students with reading
disabilities beyond the initial phase of learning to read.
he guided silent reading component of the intervention was
also followed by the cloze vocabulary component, which used structured
contextual analysis activities to assist struggling students in developing
comprehension competency. hese cloze exercises were intended to
encourage students to use context clues to complete the meaning of
sentences as well as longer passages. Students also practiced deriving the
meanings of diicult or unfamiliar words by analyzing the surrounding
context in these cloze activities, thus potentially enhancing wide-reading
vocabulary-learning strategies and skills.
Several factors informed just-in-time instructional decisions
that were sensitive to student characteristics, such as age, reading level,
performance, progress, and instructional trajectory: performance scores
within each practice module, the interconnectedness of the various
practice modules, integrated formative assessments following each
lesson, and a highly sophisticated operating system. he system not only
dynamically adjusted each student’s diferentiated lesson format within
each practice module, but it also provided unique adjustments for daily
practice sessions. he integration of these modules allowed the system to
provide each student with a practice environment that uniquely addressed
his or her individual silent reading development needs at any moment in
time during the implementation period.

Data Analysis
In order to assess the added value of this silent reading luency
intervention with third-grade struggling readers, a propensity score
analysis was used in this study to match the 40 students from the sample
of 158 who did not receive this supplementary silent reading luency
intervention to a group of 40 students who were similar with regard to
demographics, prior FCAT achievement, and performance on the SAT-
10. he 40 struggling students completed an average of 71 lesson units
during the study. he logistic regression used in this study to construct
the propensity scores predicted group membership with race/ethnicity,
limited English proiciency status, primary exceptionality status, and
reading performance on the previous year’s FCAT-SSS and the SAT-10.
Prior technical reports have indicated that the correlation between FCAT

Reutzel, Petscher, & Spichtig 133

 scores from year to year is approximately 0.75 in elementary schools (FDE,
2005); moreover, the correlation between the FCAT-SSS and the SAT-10
in grade 3 is 0.78. As such, while a strong correlation exists between the
two assessments of reading comprehension, it was important to capture
the unexplained covariance in scores. By using both measures in the
propensity score matching, greater speciicity could be attained. Resulting
propensity scores were used in a secondary analysis to match students
based on their designation as having received treatment or not. Once
students were appropriately matched, they were designated to receive or
not receive the supplementary silent reading luency intervention (control
vs. treatment group). Ater a full year, the resulting student scores were
analyzed using a one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) with a linear step-
up to control for the false-discovery rate (FDR) (Benjamini & Hochberg,
1995).

Results
Summaries of the demographics and descriptive statistics for the
FCAT and SAT-10 scores for the treatment and matched controls groups
are reported in Tables 6.1 and 6.2. As can be seen by the reported indices,
the two groups were reasonably matched from the propensity analysis.
he mean pretest score for the matched control group on the FCAT-
SSS was 814.90 (SD=217.92) compared to the treatment groups’ mean of
845.50 (SD=117.69), corresponding to a standardized coeicient of g=0.17.
Similarly, the mean pretest score on the SAT-10 for the treatment group
was 575.75 (SD=16.04), compared to the control groups’ mean of 570.73
(SD=18.90), and corresponded to a standardized coeicient of g=0.28.
Because students who participated in the program were from diferent
classes and schools, and the analysis was based on available archival
data, the ratio of students to classes was small, precluding a mixed-efects
modeling of the data to account for clustering at the classroom and school
levels.
Table 6.1: Demographic Comparison of Treatment and Matched Control Students
Demographics Treatment Control
(n=40) (n=40)
% Black 65 58
% White 0 8
% Latino 35 35
% ELL 15 13
% ESE 5 25

134 Value-Added Silent Reading Intervention

Table 6.2: Descriptive Statistics for the Control and Treatment Groups on the FCAT and SAT-10
Pre- and Posttest Scores
Measure Control Group Treatment Group
Mean SD Mean SD
FCAT Pre 845.50 117.69 819.90 217.92
FCAT Post 1,012.33 357.46 1,322.63 171.24
SAT-10 Pre 570.03 18.90 575.75 16.04
SAT-10 Post 597.93 34.95 608.53 24.43

ANOVA was used to assess the extent to which the treatment and
matched control students were statistically diferentiated on the posttest
scores for both the FCAT-SSS and the SAT-10. In order to control for the
FDR, a linear step-up procedure was used for any statistically signiicant
inding.
FCAT-SSS results indicated that a signiicant efect existed for
treatment (F [1,79]=24.52, p < 0.001), suggesting that treatment students’
scores on the posttest were signiicantly higher than the matched control.
he mean posttest score for the silent reading luency intervention students
was 1,322.63 (SD=171.24) compared to the matched control’s mean of
1,012.33 (SD=357.46). A more appropriate way to contextualize these
results is to calculate an efect size, which communicates, in standard
deviation units, how large the diferences were between the means of the
two groups, regardless of sample size. A standardized efect size value
g=1.09 was estimated, indicating that the mean for the students who were
receiving the silent reading luency intervention were performing one full
standard deviation above the mean for the matched controls. In context,
Cohen (1988) provided guidelines stating that an efect size of 0.80 would
be considered large. In practical terms, 80% of the treatment students who
received the supplementary guided, silent reading luency intervention
in this study achieved reading proiciency as measured by the FCAT
(achievement level of 3 or higher) and were promoted to the next grade
level, as compared to 32% of the of the matched control students.
Conversely, no statistically important indings were observed for
the SAT-10 diferences in the ANOVA (F [1,79]=2.59, p=0.11), despite a
higher posttest SAT-10 score for students receiving the supplementary
guided, silent reading intervention (M=608.53, SD=23.43) compared to
the matched controls (M=597.83, SD=34.95). Two important components
to consider in these seemingly conlicting indings are the issues of power
and baseline equivalence. Given the present total sample size in the
design (n=80), a potential reason for the lack of statistical signiicance in

Reutzel, Petscher, & Spichtig 135

 the SAT-10 analysis is due to a small efect size that could be observed,
and not a suicient sample size to detect it. Indeed, a power analysis
with n=80, alpha=0.05, and power=0.80 indicates that the minimum
detectable efect size would be 0.63. As such, in the case of the FCAT,
a statistically signiicant inding was observed with an estimated efect
size diference of over 1.0. With the SAT-10 data, a quick calculation of
the posttest mean diferences would yield a standardized coeicient of
0.30, yet with minimum detectable efect size of only 0.67, it would not be
possible to obtain a statistically meaningful inding with this group. his
does not imply, however, that if the sample size were larger or the baseline
efect were smaller, a statistically signiicant efect would be obtained,
as the pretest diferences suggest that a more diverse sample could be
used to provide a more accurate match. Notwithstanding this limitation,
these results represent preliminary evidence that a moderate to strong
relationship between the added value of the guided silent reading luency
intervention (Reading Plus) and student performance in reading exists for
retained third-grade students in Florida, given the measured outcomes.

Discussion
Providing the highest quality of reading instruction for all students
is a central focus of current educational reforms and practices. Such an
emphasis is particularly critical in the era of the Common Core State
Standards (National Governors Association Center for Best Practices &
Council of Chief State School Oicers, 2010). Much of the past research
on silent reading has focused upon comparing the results obtained from
silent independent reading versus oral, guided reading practice, and
such studies have typically found that guided oral reading practice is
more efective for students and is also preferred by teachers. However, we
believe this is largely due to the fact that guided oral reading provides a
check on whether students are actually reading and how well they do so
when that check is not possible with silent reading conducted by students
independently. herefore, prior to the turn of the millennia, these studies
comparing guided, oral reading versus independent silent reading practice
contributed little to an understanding of how silent reading practice might
become more efective.
Instead of providing yet one more comparison of independent
silent reading versus a largely guided oral approach to reading practice,
this study examined how changing silent reading practice conditions from
silent, independent reading to silent, guided reading afected the reading

136 Value-Added Silent Reading Intervention

comprehension and reading achievement of struggling third-grade readers.
his study compared the reading comprehension and achievement of
third-grade struggling readers who received guided practice during silent
reading using Reading Plus with a group of matched control students who
received a combination of other school district-approved supplementary
reading interventions—Early Success, Soar to Success, Earobics, and a
combined program of Essential Elements of Reading: Vocabulary and
Voyager Passport—using largely guided oral reading practice. he goal
of using the treatment intervention was to provide struggling third-
grade students with suicient guidance, intensity, consistency, and
appropriateness of silent reading practice in an online, computer-based
environment to substantially increase their reading comprehension and
reading rate achievement. Guided silent reading practice as provided in
the treatment intervention was continuously adapted for format of reading
practice (repeated vs. wide readings, short or long passages), pace and level
of structure during reading (guided vs. independent reading), and level
of reading challenge (readability and genre types) via the use of reading
eiciency measures and comprehension assessments during online silent
reading practice with leveled texts. Using guided silent reading practice
not only frees the teacher to provide more instruction and assistance to
targeted students during reading practice sessions but also assures that
when the teacher is not present, struggling readers who read silently are on
task and have their eyes on the page.
Statistically signiicant diferences were identiied in favor of the
guided silent reading treatment group on struggling third graders’ reading
comprehension and reading achievement scores on the FCAT test. he
efect sizes were large, slightly greater than a full standard deviation,
favoring the supplementary guided silent reading intervention as compared
to other school district-approved supplementary reading interventions for
use with these retained third-grade struggling readers.
he statistically signiicant indings and large efect sizes favoring
the guided silent reading practice provided to struggling third-grade
readers can be at least partially explained by turning to other research
on efective approaches for providing silent reading practice to students
in schools. First, one possible reason this type of guided silent reading
intervention was successful because the intervention increased this
sample of third-grade struggling readers’ opportunities to read. It did
so in a number of ways. Second, in past research on silent reading,
struggling readers oten selected books that were too diicult for them
to read luently. he supplementary guided silent reading intervention’s

Reutzel, Petscher, & Spichtig 137

 computer environment monitored students’ comprehension of texts and
then automatically and continuously adjusted the format of practice,
genre, and level of challenge to match the students’ abilities to comprehend
the texts they were reading silently. his is essential to success because
when students cannot read the texts they have selected for silent reading,
they do not read much. In the title of a classic article, Allington (1977)
reminded us that “if they don’t read much, how are they ever gonna get
good?” When students do not read much during silent or oral reading
practice time, they do not beneit in terms of achievement from the time
allocated. Further, when struggling readers cannot or do not read silently,
they ind it diicult to keep their eyes on the text and focus their attention
(Hiebert et al., 2010). he guided silent reading intervention used in this
study assured that students’ eyes were on the text by providing visual and
perceptual modeling practice, monitoring their comprehension responses
to the reading of increasingly challenging and longer text selections, and
continuously adjusting the level of text and question challenge based upon
these indicators.
he supplementary guided silent reading intervention used in this
study also promoted student motivation because students were provided
with a selection of appropriately leveled texts from which they could
choose stories that most interested them (Fawson, Reutzel, Read, Smith,
& Moore, 2009; Swan, Coddington, & Guthrie, 2010). Studies have shown
that students who read widely, as was the case in this intervention, learn
more vocabulary word meanings through their reading and increase
their abilities to manage and comprehend a variety of text structures
and genres (Cunningham & Allington, 2010; Pressley, 2002). In this
study, providing struggling students with continuous feedback on their
reading performance in terms of rates and comprehension was also
helpful to students as a part of designing efective guided silent reading
practice conditions. Adjusting passage and lesson diiculty also seemed
to help struggling students make signiicant progress. Holding students
accountable for their time spent reading by measuring students’ reading
rates as well as their responses to comprehension questions and cloze
passages lets them know they are going to be monitored for the time spent
in reading practice. In our study, accountability assured that students’
eyes were on the text, which has been shown to predict students’ reading
achievement (Brenner & Hiebert, 2010). Finally, the supplementary guided
silent reading intervention tested in this study focused more time and
practice on developing students’ luency, vocabulary, and comprehension
skills than did the control programs that gave considerable time and

138 Value-Added Silent Reading Intervention

practice to increasing students’ word-recognition automaticity through
decoding practice. Focusing students’ practice on luency, vocabulary, and
comprehension may have transported students more eiciently over the
luency bridge from decoding to comprehension than did more decoding
practice.
No signiicant diferences were found between the control and
treatment groups of retained struggling third-grade readers on the SAT-
10 nationally norm-referenced reading achievement text and reading
comprehension subtest. With respect to the SAT-10 indings, locating a
sample size of retained third-grade struggling readers suiciently large
enough to power the analysis of SAT-10 reading scores proved to be
daunting, even with an initial sample of more than 1,200 third-grade
students. A post hoc power analysis of the sample size for this study,
n=80, determined that the obtained sample size was too small to provide
suicient statistical power to detect a diference in third-grade students’
SAT-10 reading comprehension and achievement scores. As a result, we
cannot be sure that this guided silent reading intervention was any more
or less efective than other supplementary reading interventions provided
to this sample of struggling third-grade readers as measured by the SAT-
10, although posttest SAT-10 reading comprehension mean scores trended
higher for the supplementary guided silent reading intervention treatment
group than for the control group. However, these results can also be used
to argue that the guided silent reading intervention used in this study was
at least as useful as were the other school district-approved supplementary
reading interventions provided to this group of struggling readers.
As a result, the evidence presented in this study demonstrates
that providing struggling third-grade readers with a guided silent
reading intervention in an online, computer-based environment via the
Reading Plus supplementary reading intervention yielded large efects on
reading achievement and comprehension scores on a high-stakes, state-
administered test, the FCAT, which is used by Florida schools to determine
both individual student progress and school progress toward meeting the
requirements of adequate yearly progress (AYP).

Limitations
he results of this study comparing a matched sample of struggling
third-grade readers who were retained in grade level for poor reading
performance were limited by the total sample size (n=80). he criteria
used to select struggling readers for this study was poor performance

Reutzel, Petscher, & Spichtig 139

 on the FCAT test at end of third grade, resulting in retention in that
grade for another year. hese criteria were fairly narrow as compared to
those used in other research focused on struggling readers. Very oten,
struggling readers are selected based upon performance that is at least one
standard deviation below the mean on traditional reading or achievement
measures. he study was also limited to a comparison of a single guided
silent reading intervention, Reading Plus, with a variety of other nationally
marketed supplementary reading programs. It was not the purpose of
this study to compare Reading Plus with any other speciic interventions.
herefore, nothing can be said about this individual intervention’s eicacy
in comparison to other interventions not evaluated in this study.
he study was also limited by its geographical location and
demographics. he study took place in a large, predominantly Hispanic,
southeastern, urban school district environment. herefore, the results
of this study may not be generalizable to other regions, types, or sizes
of school districts, or to other ethnic groups across the nation. he tests
used in this study were also a limitation. Although the use of criterion-
referenced state reading tests has become the standard by which most
schools are judged as achieving AYP, the FCAT represents only one of
many such tests used nationally and may be more or less technically and
psychometrically sound in comparison to other such tests used across
the nation. Similarly, the SAT-10 is only one of many psychometrically
sound, nationally distributed, and norm-referenced reading achievement
tests available and sold nationally. Finally, the design of the study was
a limitation as well. Even though the use of propensity scores provides
a more exacting approach for matching student characteristics to form
experimental groups, it is nevertheless limited by the characteristics
selected by the researchers for doing so. It is not as strong a research
design for making inferences as would be a true, randomized, controlled
experimental study.

Implications
his study provided emerging evidence supporting the use of a
guided silent reading intervention known as Reading Plus for improving
the reading comprehension and achievement scores of struggling third-
grade readers on the FCAT. It did not provide similar evidence for the
use of this guided silent reading intervention for improving the reading
comprehension and achievement scores of struggling third-grade readers
on the SAT-10. Future researchers may want to broaden the criteria used

140 Value-Added Silent Reading Intervention

to select struggling readers in order to enlarge the sample size. To increase
the ability to generalize indings to other groups in others schools and
classes across the nation, struggling readers should be selected from more
than a single grade level, a single school district, and a single region of
the country. In future research, a randomized, controlled trial would
provide stronger evidence for making inferences about the potential
eicacy of this guided silent reading intervention for struggling readers.
Other supplementary intervention programs could also be used in future
comparisons of the eicacy of the Reading Plus guided silent reading
intervention used in this study. Additionally, future evaluations of this
intervention’s eicacy could also be assessed with varied reading and
achievement assessment instruments that would provide a more sensitive
measurement as well as multiple, converging data points. Future research
may also investigate the use of wave or growth modeling to examine the
build-up efects for this intervention in order to determine optimal length
of use to achieve maximum improvements in reading comprehension and
achievement.
Despite these improvements and the previously noted limitations,
this study provides important evidence supporting the eicacy of a
supplementary guided silent reading intervention with a sample of
matched third-grade struggling readers who were retained at grade level.
he guided silent reading intervention not only aforded this group of
struggling third-grade students with appropriately challenging and varied
reading genres to be both motivating and within their reach, but it also
resulted in the great majority of these students making suicient enough
progress to be promoted to the next grade level. he guided silent reading
intervention in this study provided students with guidance in terms
of visual and perceptual modeling and rate management during silent
reading; formatted their reading practice individually; adapted the text to
be read by type, genre, and level of challenge; and continuously monitored
their performance during silent reading practice. his combination of
guided silent reading intervention elements nested within an adaptive
online presentation environment was efective with this group of
struggling third-grade readers on the FCAT test ater a full year trial. hus,
the results of this study indicate that a guided silent reading intervention
employing a suite of instructional elements as described in this study
can ofer classroom teachers a potentially useful and eicacious tool for
providing struggling third-grade students with efective supplementary
guided silent reading practice at school.

Reutzel, Petscher, & Spichtig 141

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Reutzel, Petscher, & Spichtig 145

 III: LOOKING AHEAD

146
 CHAPTER 7

Comprehension-Based Silent Reading Rates: What Do

We Know? What Do We Need To Know?1

Elfrieda H. Hiebert
TextProject, Inc. & University of California, Santa Cruz

S. Jay Samuels
University of Minnesota

Timothy V. Rasinski
Kent State University

A
s has been the case with many aspects of reading instruction,
an emphasis on oral versus silent reading activities has varied in
particular educational eras (Allington, 1984). During the whole
language period of the 1990s, silent reading experiences were emphasized
(Hagerty, 1999). Some oral reading occurred during guided reading and
for obtaining running records, but occasions for monitored, repeated oral
reading were few, even for beginning and struggling readers. However, in
2000, when the National Reading Panel (NRP; NICHD, 2000) concluded
that guided, repeated oral reading but not sustained silent reading (SSR)
facilitated luency, comprehension, and vocabulary, the pendulum swung
to an almost-exclusive emphasis on oral reading. An emphasis on oral
reading went beyond the primary grades since the NRP had concluded
that the luency of all students through the fourth grade and struggling
readers through high school was enhanced with guided, repeated oral
reading. Evidence of the dominant role of oral reading can be seen in the
prominence of the Dynamic Indicators of Basic Essential Literacy Skills
(DIBELS)—a test of oral reading tasks—in the implementation of Reading
First (Gamse, Jacob, Horst, Boulay, & Unlu, 2009).
Oral reading serves many critical functions, especially during
the early stages of reading development. However, when the reading diet
is no longer a balanced one, with oral reading dominating the menu, as
1 his chapter was previously published in Literacy Research and Instruction (v51, n2, p110-124,
2012). he deinitive publisher-authenticated version published is available online at: http://www.tandfonline.
com/doi/abs/10.1080/19388071.2010.531887
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

Hiebert, Samuels, & Rasinski 147

 we believe is now the case, the prospects of “the poor getting poorer”
(Stanovich, 1986) are likely. When the emphasis is on oral reading speed
without attention to comprehension, as has been the case with DIBELS
(Good & Kaminski, 2002) and similar oral reading assessments that
have been prominent in Reading First implementations, beginning and
struggling readers may come to perceive reading as nothing more than
word calling (Samuels, 2007). Especially for the students whose reading
experiences occur primarily in school, a diet heavy on oral reading with
an emphasis on speed is unlikely to lead to the levels of meaningful,
silent reading that are required for full participation in the workplace and
communities of the digital-global age.
Proicient silent reading is the means whereby individuals access
the ever-increasing stores of knowledge within texts that are required
for the workplace and community. Silent reading rates and processing
are limited by capacities such as eye movements (Samuels, Hiebert, &
Rasinski, 2010), but oral reading rates are even more constrained by
the speed of speech production. Very early in the acquisition of reading
proiciency, silent reading rates exceed oral reading rates. Data on oral and
silent reading norms (Hasbrouck & Tindal, 2006; Taylor, Frackenpohl,
& Pettee, 1960) show that silent reading rates exceed oral reading rates
by at least 30%, even for students who are at the 50th percentile in
the primary grades. Once speech production becomes stable in early
adolescence, the amount of words that can be read silently becomes
substantially greater than can be read orally. As the indings of the NRP
(NICHD, 2000) indicate, simply creating silent reading venues will not
guarantee that students’ time will be used productively. However, under
the right conditions where students read texts at appropriate diiculty
levels, they process many more words in silent than in oral reading.
In this context, our focus is on a construct that has been described as
comprehension-based silent reading rate (Hiebert, Wilson, & Trainin,
2010). As this term implies, the emphasis on silent reading rate is always a
function of appropriate levels of comprehension. herefore, in considering
comprehension-based silent reading rate, comprehension and rate are
inseparable.
In this chapter, we review existing research on the silent reading
performances of students and the nature of opportunities to read in
classrooms that support meaningful, silent reading. In addition to a review
of descriptive research on levels of performance and opportunities to read,
we highlight several empirical studies that illustrate a new era of research
on meaningful, silent reading where the efects on comprehension are

148 Comprehension-Based Silent Reading Rates

established. In the inal section of the chapter, conclusions are summarized
and questions are raised that require the attention of researchers if students
are to be provided with the experiences that engender the kinds and levels
of silent reading proiciencies that are needed in the 21st century.

Current Evidence on Comprehension-Based

Silent Reading Rates
In this section, we examine three areas of descriptive research
related to comprehension-based silent reading rate: (a) typical patterns of
development and performance, (b) the relationship between oral and silent
reading, and (c) attention to comprehension-based silent reading rates
within most current instructional programs.

Typical patterns of development and performance

Whereas there are several sets of oral reading norms (e.g., Good
& Kaminski, 2002; Hasbrouck & Tindal, 2006), information on silent
reading norms is limited. Carver (1989) identiied only two sets of norms
that extended across the school years: those he had developed (Carver,
1982) and those of Taylor (1965). Carver chose the Taylor data to establish
grade-equivalent norms because they were adequate on the following
dimensions: sample size, sampling technique, range of grades represented,
rates estimated in words per minute (wpm), and reliability. According to
Carver’s extrapolations of the Taylor norms, rate in wpm ranges from 0 to
81 at grade 1 to 333+ in grade 18 (graduate-level/proicient adult). here is a
gain with each successive grade in school of about 10 to 20 wpm.
Even with Carver’s (1989) additions, it should be remembered that
the original data for these norms were gathered in the late 1950s (Taylor
et al., 1960). he data that Carver (1983) gathered approximately 20 years
ater Taylor (1965) would suggest that reading rates stay fairly constant, but
the technological changes even since Carver gathered his data have been
substantial. Further, the silent reading norms that are currently available
are provided for only the 50th percentile. How students do at the 10th,
25th, 75th, and 90th percentiles is also important information.
Despite these limitations, the silent reading norms have a
signiicant component that the various oral reading norms that have
proliferated over the past 20 years do not: he silent reading norms (Taylor
et al., 1960) are based on comprehension. his distinction is an important
one. We do not know how today’s American students’ comprehension-
based silent reading rates compare to those of their counterparts 50 years
Hiebert, Samuels, & Rasinski 149
 ago. here is data available, however, that can serve as a baseline for
comparison.
While there are no data to indicate how current students’
development of comprehension-based silent reading rates changes over
time, there are data on how well students at particular levels perform on
silent reading tests. he National Assessment of Educational Progress
(NAEP; National Center for Education Statistics, 2009) shows that
approximately 35% of a fourth-grade cohort fails to attain the basic level,
while an additional 32% fails to reach the proicient level that is the goal
for all students. Our analyses of the texts that have been used on these
assessments indicate that they are at approximately a 3.5 grade-level
according to conventional readability formulas. he text on the NAEP,
then, is not the complex text that is emphasized within the Common Core
Standards (National Governors Association for Best Practices & Council of
Chief State School Oicers, 2010).
When follow-up studies have been conducted on the NAEP where
students read aloud texts that they have read silently, data indicate that
it is the speed with which students read, not their word accuracy, that
distinguishes students who achieve diferent standards. While there
are diferences in word accuracy across levels, these diferences are not
statistically signiicant (Pinnell et al., 1995). hese diferences in speed
have been used as added justiication for an emphasis on oral reading
in instruction and assessment, as will be discussed shortly. However,
it appears that many students, even those in the bottom quartile, can
recognize almost 90% of the words in grade-level texts (Jenkins, Fuchs,
van den Broek, Espin, & Deno, 2003; Wise, Ring, & Olson, 1999).
his word recognition is slow, however. In the Jenkins and colleagues
study, fourth graders who had been classiied as reading disabled read
approximately 100 fewer words in a one-minute reading of a text than their
same-age, skilled-reading peers.

he relationship between oral and silent reading

here has been a large amount of literature documenting the
relationship between oral reading performances (without comprehension
and measured as words correct per minute [wcpm]) and performances
on silent reading tests, which have included standardized reading tests
and state standards-based tests (Good, Simmons, & Kame’enui, 2001;
McGlinchey & Hixson, 2004; Schatschneider et al., 2004). In Marston’s
(1989) review of such studies, the correlations were between .63 and

150 Comprehension-Based Silent Reading Rates

.90, with the most clustering around .80. In Good and Jeferson’s (1998)
review of the correlations within a single grade (grade 3), the correlations
ranged from .60 to .80. Wiley and Deno (2005) and Pressley, Hildren, and
Shankland (2005) have reported lower correlations (.40 to .50).
he inding of a high correlation between wcpm in oral reading
and comprehension has had a strong inluence on policy and practice in
reading education. Underlying the mandates for instructional practice,
assessment, and curricular materials regarding oral reading, there appears
to be an implicit assumption that practice in oral reading will carry over
to proicient silent reading rates and comprehension. Even with struggling
adolescent readers, the luency interventions reviewed by Wexler, Vaughn,
Edmonds, and Reutebuch (2008) concentrated on oral reading. his
emphasis, even when it has produced higher reading oral rates (which
was not always the case), has typically not been relected in improved
comprehension on silent reading tasks.
Critical questions need to be asked, as Valencia and colleagues
(2010) point out, about the use of wcpm as the basis for instructional
assignments (e.g., who gets particular tiers of an intervention and
who doesn’t) and for instructional practices (i.e., an emphasis on oral
reading activities). As Valencia and colleagues (2010) have shown, even
including a measure of prosody within a wcpm assessment or varying
the length of time produced stronger predictors of comprehension. he
indings of Valencia and colleagues also point to the need for considering
the changing relationship between wcpm and comprehension with
developmental and proiciency levels. Within their study of second, fourth,
and sixth graders, they found that the correlation between wcpm and
comprehension decreased as students’ proiciency increased.
In addition, the limitations of correlations need to be remembered.
A high correlation does not necessarily impute a causal relationship
between two variables. Further, when a variable (as is the case with wcpm)
has a deviant range, the magnitude of correlations is afected (Valencia
et al., 2010). In particular, a high correlation does not mean that two
processes are identical. While there are shared processes, such as automatic
recognition of words, there are signiicant and not-so-subtle diferences
between oral and silent reading processes. he most obvious is the role
of vocalization. Whereas overt vocalization can be an impediment in
silent reading, it is the outcome in oral reading. Every word needs to be
read in an oral reading context, whereas readers can use context to grasp
the meaning of words that they cannot pronounce while reading silently
(Nagy, Anderson, & Herman, 1987).

Hiebert, Samuels, & Rasinski 151

 Another signiicant diference lies in support for staying with
the task. Oral reading involves external supports such as the teacher or a
recording device. hese external supports mean that students’ attention
to the text is ensured. hey can’t move their eyes away from the text for
several minutes and daydream. hey cannot skip over a page or two that
looks disinteresting or too diicult. In silent reading, individuals do not
have external supports. Students need to learn to persevere as well as
monitor what they are reading if they are to comprehend texts that they are
reading silently. Monitoring strategies become particularly critical when
background knowledge is limited, a circumstance that is oten the case for
less proicient readers (McKeown, Beck, & Blake, 2009).
As scholars have observed (e.g., Pearson, 2006; Pressley et
al., 2005; Rasinski, 2006; Samuels, 2007), instruction that aims at
increasing students’ wcpm without attention to comprehension has the
potential to adversely afect comprehension and knowledge acquisition.
he development of proicient silent reading strategies and habits,
including comprehension-based silent reading rates, likely require
unique experiences and instruction. We move next to studies of the
nature of current reading instruction to determine attention given to
comprehension-based silent reading rates.

Attention to comprehension-based silent reading rates within

most current instructional programs
he presence (or lack thereof) of opportunities to read silently
in school predicts reading achievement (Foorman et al., 2006; Guthrie,
Schafer, & Huang, 2001; Taylor, Frye, & Maruyama, 1990). Most students,
however, do not spend substantial periods of their school day reading. In
the 1980s, Gambrell (1984) reported that students read approximately 14
minutes daily. Close to a decade later, Foertsch (1992) documented similar
amounts of reading. A decade ater that, a survey by Donahue, Finnegan,
Lutkus, Allen, and Campbell (2001) showed that fourth graders reported,
on average, reading 10 or fewer pages per day in school and for homework,
which translates into approximately 8 to 12 minutes of daily reading.
In a recent analysis of how much time during a 90-minute reading
block was spent reading texts, Brenner, Hiebert, and Tompkins (2009)
found that students spent an average of 18 minutes reading text—20% of
the reading period. Half of this time was spent reading orally, and half
was spent reading silently. he 90-minute reading periods were spent
on a variety of activities, such as lessons on elements of texts or words,

152 Comprehension-Based Silent Reading Rates

playing word games, and completing workbook pages. Students’ time in
engaged reading, however, was limited. Even within the time that students
spent reading in a single school day, the time devoted to any one text
was typically short. Students might read a story about a boy writing to
his grandmother in Korea in the large-group, teacher-directed period,
an excerpt of text about a basketball player in the small group directed
by their teacher, and a fantasy about woodland creatures during partner
reading.
Since the teachers in the Brenner and colleagues study (2009)
were expected to speciically follow the guidance in the teachers’ guides
of the core reading programs, Brenner and Hiebert (2010) examined
recommendations for opportunities to read within these guides. he third-
grade editions of six leading core reading programs provided an average
of 15 minutes of reading volume per day, ranging from approximately 10
to 24 minutes. he indings of the observational study, then, relected the
recommendations in the teachers’ guides.
When students do have opportunities to read silently, there appears
to be little scafolding of the task. Consequently, as the report of the NRP
(NICHD, 2000) concluded, opportunities to read that lack structure and
support oten fail to produce the hoped-for outcomes. Without appropriate
structure and support, students oten engage in what some teachers have
called “fake reading” during SSR (Griith & Rasinski, 2004). While the
structuring of recreational reading is critical to its success, scafolding the
processes of proicient silent reading would be expected to occur during
reading periods, not recreational reading times.
In their examination of the opportunities to read that are
recommended in these programs, Brenner and Hiebert (2010) also
analyzed teachers’ guides for diferences in types or amounts of reading
opportunities for students of diferent proiciency levels. We might expect
that at the third-grade level—the focus of that analysis—particular forms
of scafolding might be provided for struggling readers. For example,
students who are not adept at reading on their own might be assigned
accessible texts and monitored more frequently by the teacher. However,
that was not the case in the core reading programs. Low-performing
students were given the same texts for the same periods of time as their
higher-performing peers.
When diferentiations are made within interventions, it appears
that practices can discourage attention to comprehension-based silent
reading rate. Rather, an underlying assumption appears to be that it is
decoding skills, especially as represented by phonological deicits, that

Hiebert, Samuels, & Rasinski 153

 require attention (see, e.g., Wexler et al., 2008). he assumption that low-
performing students lack decoding abilities leads to mandates such as that
of the California State Board of Education (2007). Curricular materials
adopted by that state for interventions aimed at struggling readers in
grades four through eight must provide approximately 9,000 words of
decodable text, including two decodable reading selections for each of the
44 sound-spelling correspondences. Such texts are typically short, and the
instructional routines emphasize oral reading (Wexler et al., 2008). For
example, in one of the currently approved programs for struggling middle-
school readers in California, the texts in the comprehension component
are typically 60 to 80 words long (Engelmann, Osborn, & Hanner, 2002).
Participation with such texts is unlikely to develop the strategies of
proicient, independent reading. When reading is tedious, students are
less likely to read outside of school as well (Anderson, Wilson, & Fielding,
1988). At the same time, their more proicient peers are enriching their
knowledge and vocabularies. As Stanovich (1986) describes it, the rich get
richer, and the poor get poorer.

Experimental Evidence on the Instruction of

Comprehension-Based Silent Reading Rates
here are increasing indications of the kinds of scafolds that can
support the development of efective silent reading habits among readers.
his research literature is not extensive by any means, but over the last
several years a handful of studies have been conducted. We have chosen
three of these studies—one from each of three developmental levels:
primary, middle and high school, and young adult/college—to illustrate
the emerging evidence of how silent reading proiciencies can be guided
through instruction.

Study with primary-level students

A study by Reutzel, Fawson, and Smith (2008) indicates that
guidance in silent reading in the primary grades can have eicacious
efects on luency, vocabulary, and comprehension. Conducted in the
wake of the NRP (NICHD, 2000), Reutzel and colleagues were interested
in whether a well-designed silent reading treatment could produce
comparable results to the guided repeated oral reading (GROR) that
the NRP had identiied as the gold standard for promoting luency,
comprehension, and vocabulary. Because the studies within the meta-
analysis had primarily used oral reading measures in establishing efects
154 Comprehension-Based Silent Reading Rates
on students’ rate, comprehension, and vocabulary, Reutzel and colleagues
used oral reading measures as outcomes. his emphasis on oral reading
measures seems like an appropriate one at this transition point in the
primary grades when students move from predominantly oral reading to
silent reading. Further, this study is the only experiment with a focus on
reading modes that has been conducted since the NRP’s report.
he study involved 4 third-grade teachers and their 72 third-
grade students. he schools had approximately 35 to 50% African, Asian,
and Latino American students, and more than half of the students in
the schools qualiied for free or reduced lunch. Students were randomly
assigned to one of two treatment conditions: scafolded silent reading
(ScSR) with monitoring and a wide reading of diferent genres at students’
independent reading levels, or GROR of grade-level texts with feedback
from teachers and peers.
he ScSR and GROR treatments were similar in four ways. First, an
equivalent amount of time was spent on core reading instruction and in
the experimental conditions. Second, teachers in all four classrooms used
the same instructional materials and procedures. hird, all four classrooms
used a take-home reading library, records for which were reviewed by
teachers weekly to ensure that students were reading 15 minutes daily
outside of school. Finally, teachers in both conditions began daily sessions
by modeling luent reading of a text and discussing with students various
characteristics of luent reading.
he two treatments in this study, ScSR and GROR, were
diferentiated on six dimensions, as illustrated in Table 7.1.
Table 7.1: Diferences between ScSR and GROR Treatments on Six Dimensions
Dimension ScSR GROR
Mode of reading silent oral
Nature of reading wide repeated
Frequency of feedback/monitoring weekly daily
Social nature isolated collaborative
Source of texts student-selected teacher assigned
Text Diiculty independent grade level

Quantitative results indicated no signiicant diferences between

these two forms of reading practice on third-grade students’ luency,
accuracy, comprehension, or expression with the exception of one
signiicant diference favoring ScSR on expression of a single passage. For
these primary-level students, then, silent reading experiences that had been

Hiebert, Samuels, & Rasinski 155

 carefully designed and executed could produce results as eicacious as the
guided, repeated oral reading that the NRP (NICHD, 2000) recommended
as the means for increasing reading proiciency.
hese efects cannot be attributed only to the mode of reading in
that ive additional variables distinguished the two interventions. Other
variables, such as self-selection versus teacher-assignment of texts, have
been shown to inluence students’ interest in reading and their sense of
agency as readers (Guthrie et al., 2006) and wide reading has been shown
to be more eicacious than repeated reading (Kuhn, 2005; Kuhn et al.,
2006). At the same time, the silent reading condition had components
that could be argued to be potential challenges for primary-level students,
such as less teacher monitoring and less opportunity for social interaction.
Overall, the components of the silent reading condition describe the
typical act of silent reading where readers choose texts to read that are
appropriate for them (including text diiculty) and then read them a single
time in a solitary fashion and without continual monitoring. In contexts
where teachers worked to ensure that the expectations and conditions were
appropriate, primary-level students were able to beneit from time devoted
to typical silent reading venues to the same degree as students who spent
equivalent amounts of time in highly prescribed reading contexts.

Study with middle- and high-school students

he Reutzel and colleagues (2008) study provides information on
the eicacy of silent reading scafolds that are provided at an appropriate
developmental time. his support can be provided in classrooms. As
the review of the NAEP data indicated, there are many students who
have passed this transition point and have less-than-eicacious patterns.
Research indicates a variety of programs in digital contexts that have been
ofered as providing scafolding for struggling middle- and high-school
readers. Features of digital contexts, such as the ability to instantaneously
change the diiculty of the text in response to comprehension
performances, allow for precision in scafolding that is diicult to achieve
in a classroom setting or even a tutoring one. While the claims of these
programs, by and large, have not been validated, studies are beginning to
be conducted, as illustrated by Rasinski, Samuels, Hiebert, Petscher, and
Feller (2011). his Rasinski and colleagues study indicates that consistent
participation in a digital context over a school year can result in improved
performances on high-stakes assessments—both a norm-referenced test
(NRT) and a criterion-referenced test (CRT).

156 Comprehension-Based Silent Reading Rates

 he study was conducted in a large, urban school system. To
deal with the historically poor performances of students in this district,
schools were ofered several supplementary reading programs. he study
was conducted in 23 schools with students in grades 4 through 10 where
a web-based reading intervention, Reading Plus (RP), was implemented.
In some of these schools, only the low-performing students were assigned
to RP. Other schools chose to use RP with speciic sub-populations or
grade levels. Students not assigned to RP may have used Scholastic’s Read
180 and/or Renaissance Learning’s Accelerated Reader. he study had a
signiicant portion of African American (46%) and Latino American (50%)
students. Sub-populations in the sample included learning disabled (6%)
and English language learning students (3%).
Over the six months of the study, students participated in either
two 45-minute sessions or three 30-minute sessions weekly. Since students
moved through lessons in individual computer environments, diferences
in length of the individual sessions did not inluence content coverage.
During their irst RP session, students completed an assessment with texts
at varying diiculty levels that determined their independent silent reading
rates, comprehension, and vocabulary. Performances on these assessments
formed the basis for the instructional paths that students then followed in
the intervention.
A typical lesson contained two warm-up activities that were
intended to build foundational skills such as attention, let-to-right
tracking, perceptual accuracy, and visual memory. he heart of each
lesson was a structured silent reading activity where students read texts
at their instructional reading level from a database of 600 selections
ranging from preprimer to adult-level texts. Each reading of a text was
followed by comprehension questions (focusing on literal understanding,
interpretation, analysis, evaluation, and appreciation). he digital
environment ensured that adjustments in instructional experiences were
made continually based on student performances. For example, the lengths
of segments within texts were increased or decreased based on a student’s
comprehension and silent reading rate.
Since the aim was for students to participate in the program for
a minimum of 30 hours (approximately 40 45-minute sessions), students
were divided into two groups: those who received 40 or more lessons over
the course of the school year, and those who received 39 or fewer. While
there are serious limitations to employing gain scores to test for diferences
between groups, Rogosa (1995) has shown that the gain score is as reliable

Hiebert, Samuels, & Rasinski 157

 as a covariance-adjusted score, and it is more appropriate to use in quasi-
experimental studies than posttest only. For all grades but grade 9, students
with the 40+ lesson interventions had signiicantly higher performances on
the NRT, and for all grades but 4 and 10, signiicantly higher performances
on the CRT. Efect sizes were established in relation to performances of
students within the same schools who did not participate in this particular
intervention. Efect sizes by grade level ranged from .03 to .34 (small to
moderate in magnitude [Cohen, 1988]).
In relation to the CRT, mean gain scores for students who received
40+ RP lessons were greater than the statewide and district-level gains at
each of the seven grade levels. In several cases, the gains were substantial
in their magnitude, as was the case in grades 6, 7, and 8, where mean
gains on the CRT were more than double the gains of nonparticipating
students. Typically, low-achieving students’ growth for a year’s worth of
instruction is less than what is expected for average and high-achieving
students. Middle- and high-school students who are struggling readers
are oten inconsistent in their performances on transfer measures ater an
intervention (Torgesen et al., 2007; Wexler et al., 2008). However, that was
not the case with this intervention, where students performed substantially
better on the high-stake tests of their state that were conducted in typical
paper-and-pencil, large-group contexts. It is noteworthy that the yearlong
gains made by the primarily low-achieving students in this silent reading
intervention were substantially larger than the mean overall gains at the
state and district levels.

Study with college students

he inal study that we present as evidence for the thesis that
comprehension-based silent reading skills can be supported was conducted
with college students. Radach, Vorstius, and Reilly (2010) initiated this
study ater identifying a proliferation of speed-reading programs promoted
on the internet but inding that the few available studies on these programs
typically had arrived at unfavorable conclusions (e.g., McNamara, 2000).
he proliferation of programs, Radach and colleagues argue, illustrate a
fascination by the general populace with improving their reading rates.
Of claims within 12 programs promoted on the Internet, Radach and
colleagues identiied two that have some substantiation in research on
reading processes and designed an intervention around these processes:
decreasing inter-word regressions and attending to meaning units.

158 Comprehension-Based Silent Reading Rates

 he experimental group received acoustic feedback following
inter-word regressions. To support attending to meaning units, a word
group (typically a phrase) of two to three words was highlighted by
alternating the color of the text on the computer screen. A comparison
group was simply told to increase their reading speed. Ater a session
of establishing baseline comprehension-based silent reading rates, the
two groups participated in four training sessions. Each session consisted
of two cycles of learning and practice. In the learning part of the cycle,
students received feedback (acoustic feedback and phrasing support
in the experimental group, and encouragement to slow down or speed
up in the comparison group). he feedback was intended to support a
20% speed increase during each of the four sessions. his feedback was
provided during the learning cycle at the end of each page of text when
comprehension questions were also provided. In the practice phase of a
cycle, feedback was not provided.
he pre- and posttest consisted of eight passages of texts, each
about 400 words long (3,200 words in all). All were noniction pieces on
popular science topics. To assess comprehension, eight statements per
passage (64 in all) were presented for veriication of three levels of text
representation: verbatim, paraphrases, and inferences.
On average, participants had baseline reading rates of
approximately 198 wpm (comparison) and 185 wpm (experimental). In
the posttest, wpms were 365 (comparison) and 350 (experimental). he
comprehension of the experimental group increased approximately 3%,
while the comprehension of the control group decreased about 6%. In the
speciic training group, regressive saccades back to earlier words dropped
by 50%, indicating that this aspect of the training was very efective.
However, the speciic speed training techniques produced no advantage
over the group with the unspeciied luency training (i.e., “read faster”).
A point to be emphasized is that reading speed of even the fastest
reader in the sample did not exceed 700 words. Approximately one in
ive of the participants (22%) read at 400 wpm or higher. But overall,
the students read at approximately 350 wpm. Another observation is
that the college students’ baseline rates of approximately 190 wpm was
considerably lower than the average rate reported by Taylor, Frankenpohl,
and Pettee (1960) for college students—280 wpm—and considerably
below the optimal rate that Taylor and colleagues claimed could be
attained with training—480 wpm. he training brought the college
students in 2010 to the range of college students before training in 1960.

Hiebert, Samuels, & Rasinski 159

 Comprehension-Based Silent Reading Rates:
Emerging Answers and Remaining Questions
Comprehension-based silent reading rates, Radach and colleagues
(2010) argue, represent a nexus in understanding the roles of and
relationships between word recognition and comprehension. Knowledge
about this topic is of more than theoretical interest. his knowledge is
also critical in understanding how students can be brought to the levels
that are required for careers and community participation. he review
of research shows that answers are emerging on this topic. Even so,
information is limited on how comprehension-based silent reading rates
develop and also on the nature of comprehension-based silent reading
performances of students of diferent proiciency levels. he only consistent
form of evidence on the latter comes from the NAEP (National Center for
Education Statistics, 2009). Since that assessment provides only a single
text level and does not distinguish across diferent kinds of tasks in the
report of results, we know what it is that below-basic and basic students
cannot do, but we do not know what it is that they can do. To create viable
instructional programs that support readers’ silent reading capacities,
descriptions of the tasks and texts with which students are successful also
require attention.
Another consistent inding from the research is a consistently
high correlation between wcpm from oral reading assessments and
performances on silent reading tests. his inding has been the justiication
for a heavy emphasis on oral reading activities and assessments in
instruction. While oral and silent reading share processes, there are also
distinctions in the two processes. Further, the heavy emphasis on oral
reading has not resulted in the needed increases in comprehension-based
silent reading rates.
Systematic instruction that supports students’ capacities as readers
who comprehend texts at optimal reading rates is not evident in typical
classrooms or in the guidance for teachers that is found within the core
reading programs that have been promoted as part of state and federal
mandates. A recent, albeit small, group of studies is beginning to show
how such systematic instruction can be provided. While the evidence is
limited in scope and size at this point, these studies indicate that there
are instructional mechanisms that can support students in developing the
comprehension-based silent reading rates needed for the 21st century.
While the handful of studies that have emerged over the past
several years point to potential solutions, the questions regarding

160 Comprehension-Based Silent Reading Rates

comprehension-based silent reading rates far outweigh the answers.
hese questions need to be addressed before widespread changes in
practice can occur. While there is clearly a serious gap in current levels
of comprehension-based silent reading rates relative to the demands of
the digital-global age, moving switly to implement solutions such as
increased silent reading time or interventions that encourage students to
“read faster” are unlikely to make the changes that are needed. While most
students would likely beneit from higher allocations of time devoted to
silent reading during the school day, silent reading events require careful
design. In the Reutzel and colleagues (2008) study, students were not
simply told to sit at their desks and to read silently for extended periods of
time. heir teachers made numerous shits in the design of reading events
to support students’ silent reading. Further, the intervention in the Reutzel
and colleagues study took a very diferent form than that of the Rasinski
and colleagues study (2011) with middle- and high-school students. he
struggling readers in the Rasinski and colleagues study participated in
a program with an underlying platform that made it possible to change
levels of text within a single session based on students’ comprehension and
reading rate. his pattern is quite unlike the “one size its all” perspective
that is oten promoted by mandates or guidelines, as was the case with the
SSR model of Hunt (1970), where students, regardless of developmental or
proiciency level, were given the same treatment.
While the research to date is insuicient to provide guidelines
for practices, the initial indings suggest questions on which research
programs can be built. We describe the basis and potential directions for
two critical questions: (a) what are optimal comprehension-based silent
reading rates that are fairly consistent across tasks and texts? and (b) when
and in what contexts should comprehension-based silent reading rates be
developed?

What are optimal comprehension-based silent reading rates?

here appears to be a strong tendency among people to want
to “break the barrier” in tasks where speed is involved, as is the case
with silent reading. Evidence from well-designed studies by reputable
researchers can help to guard against this tendency in instruction on
silent reading proiciencies. In the digital-global age where the amount of
information has increased incredibly, the ability to sustain comprehension-
based silent reading rates over extended text is a necessity. But the
emphasis needs to be on sustaining meaningful comprehension at

Hiebert, Samuels, & Rasinski 161

 appropriate rates across numerous settings, not simply the rate at which
students are reading. Carver (1990) emphasized the need for considering
how readers adapted processes and rates to diferent kinds of texts and
in diferent tasks. However, few deinitive descriptions are available,
particularly in the form of norms.
Levels of comprehension with diferent texts and tasks also
require attention. he level of acceptable comprehension in the Rasinski
and colleagues (2011) study was 70%. If students fell below that level,
the architecture of the digital platform was such that they were moved
to somewhat easier text or text was presented at a slower speed. In the
Radach and colleagues (2010) study, the students in the “read faster” group
fell below this percentage. Comprehension levels of 70%, for some tasks,
may be insuicient, while for other texts and tasks entirely adequate. he
sacriices in comprehension as a function of rate is, as Radach et al. have
noted, a critical area that requires further study.

When and in what contexts should comprehension-based silent

reading rates be developed?
In a domain such as playing the piano, which, like reading
words, involves both a cognitive and physical component, practice and
development occurs over an extended period of time and as a result of
substantial experience. Similarly, support for optimal comprehension-
based silent reading rates needs to be viewed as a long-term endeavor
with diferent emphases at diferent points. In this section, we speculate
about when and where scafolds might be put in place for such a long-term
endeavor. We use Chall’s (1983) six reading stages, provided in Table 7.2, as
the basis to distinguish between diferent phases in reading development.
Table 7.2: Chall’s (1983) Reading Stages
Stage Primary Task Grade Span
0 Prereading hrough kindergarten
1 Initial reading or decoding Grades 1–2
2 Conirmation, luency, Grades 2–3
ungluing from print
3 Reading for learning the new Grades 4–8
4 Reading for multiple High school
viewpoints
5 Construction and College
reconstruction: A world view
Source: Chall, J.S. (1983). Stages of reading development. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill.

162 Comprehension-Based Silent Reading Rates

 During Chall’s stage zero, frequent conversations between adults
(e.g., parents, kindergarten and preschool teachers) and children about
reading likely occur, including the reading of literacy-focused books, such
as I Can Read with My Eyes Shut! (Dr. Seuss, 1978). However, systematic
experiences in attending to silent reading strategies and rates would not be
expected to be a focus until children begin formal instruction. As students
move into the irst of Chall’s stages, short periods of time would be devoted
to reading “just with your eyes.” hese periods would be carefully paced
and monitored and would not be expected to stretch for the long periods
of time that advocates of readers’ workshop (Hagerty, 1999) or SSR (Hunt,
1970) recommend. As students’ reading proiciency increases in stage two,
silent reading episodes would be expected to increase somewhat (although,
again, not to the extremes recommended in the readers’ workshop and
SSR literature). As Reutzel and colleagues (2008) demonstrate, there are
numerous elements of these events that require attention, including (but
not limited to) the length of time, teacher monitoring, appropriate texts,
and clarity about the anticipated outcomes of the event.
It is in stages 3 and 4 where the careful orchestration of silent
reading events in classrooms is likely to have the greatest pay-of in terms
of supporting optimal reading rates. hird to fourth grade has been
described as the point where silent reading processes have developed
suiciently to be more eicient than oral reading (Juel & Holmes, 1981).
For students who are vulnerable as readers, earlier in this span of time is
likely to support their development of appropriate comprehension-based
silent reading rates rather than later. In addition to the careful crating of
texts and tasks in classroom settings, the digital contexts that have added
demands on literacy proiciencies may be one of the primary means for
supporting more eicacious silent reading proiciencies. he architecture
of digital programs can be designed so that the length of time, the
accessibility of text, and the tasks can be carefully adjusted to students’
growing capacity as readers.
While, to date, it is frequently the struggling readers who
participate in digital contexts, the efects of such participation for students
who are proicient readers require attention, particularly when silent
reading rates are beginning to stabilize. Once individuals reach stage 5,
making changes to baseline comprehension-based silent reading rates is
likely challenging and diicult. Consequently, projects that determine
diferent conigurations of experiences in such contexts, especially at stages
3 and 4, should be a priority in research on reading for understanding.
Such an emphasis is particularly needed during a time when a theme

Hiebert, Samuels, & Rasinski 163

 within the private and public sector is to increase the preparedness of
individuals for the marketplace and communities of the digital-global
economy (National Governors Association for Best Practices & Council of
Chief State School Oicers, 2010).

Conclusion
he need for eicient silent reading habits for success in the digital-
global age is unarguable. here is emerging evidence that these habits can
be enhanced through scafolding, both on the part of teachers and from
digital supports. hese supports look quite diferent than the SSR that
Hunt (1970) advocated. his structuring can begin when students are in
the early stages of reading (Reutzel et al., 2008). Further, it is highly likely
that the process is an ongoing endeavor, extending through the elementary
grades and into middle and high school as students encounter new genres
and content. At least for the students who depend on schools to become
literate, good silent reading does not just happen as a result of an emphasis
on oral reading luency training. For many students, good silent reading
habits require that they participate in structured silent reading experiences
that model eicient reading.

he authors acknowledge their role as members of an advisory board to the publisher of

the program described in the second study of the empirical section of this review. For
their role on the advisory board, the authors receive an annual, lat honorarium that is
not tied to sales of the product.

164 Comprehension-Based Silent Reading Rates

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168 Comprehension-Based Silent Reading Rates

 CHAPTER 8

Revisiting Silent Reading in 2020 and Beyond1

Elfrieda H. Hiebert
TextProject, & University of California, Santa Cruz

D. Ray Reutzel
Utah State University

A
s the title of this book indicates, our interest lies in addressing
how the current knowledge base about silent reading practices can
provide a foundation for future instruction and research. Based on
what we know in 2015, we might ask the question, what changes in reading
instruction and practice need to be made now to positively inluence
students’ literacy proiciencies ive years from now? We have chosen the
year 2020 not only because it directs us into the future but also because it is
the year that President Obama (Dillon, 2010) has targeted as the point when
the majority of high school graduates should have the literacy skills that
successfully prepare them for college and a later career.
his goal is ambitious, but if even modest movement is to be made
toward achieving it, increased attention needs to be directed toward the use
of efective silent reading in classrooms. In the digital-global world of the
21st century, accessing, organizing, creating, sharing, and using knowledge
are critical commodities. he acquisition and use of knowledge requires
that students and employees develop the ability to read silently with skill
and stamina in a variety of texts for a variety of purposes, because these
texts are increasingly presented to the reader using a variety of traditional
and digital media. For the necessary shit from oral repeated reading with
feedback to efective silent reading to occur, literacy educators need to be
relective and strategic going forward. If the researchers who revisit the
topic of silent reading in 2020 are to see movement toward greater literacy
capacity among elementary students and high school graduates, literacy
educators will need to recognize the unique contributions and roles of both
oral and silent reading in developing proicient lifelong readers.
1 his chapter was previously published in Revisiting Silent Reading: New Directions for Teachers and
Researchers. he deinitive publisher-authenticated version published in 2010 and in 2014 is available online
at: http://www.reading.org/general/Publications/Books.aspx & http://textproject.org/library/books/revisiting-
silent-reading/
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

Hiebert, & Reutzel 169

 In this conclusion, we summarize and synthesize themes from this
volume to describe the roles of both oral and silent reading in balanced
and thoughtful reading instruction. We close with descriptions of three
sources for efective silent reading practices that are ofered in this book:
(a) instructional techniques and practices, (b) teacher support, and (c)
digital contexts.

Clarifying the Role of Oral Reading

In the decade since the publication of the National Reading
Panel (NRP) report (National Institute of Child Health and Human
Development [NICHD], 2000), reading practice has been largely conined
to repeated oral reading. An overemphasis on either oral or silent reading
at particular points in time is not a unique phenomenon, as described
by Hiebert, Wilson, and Trainin in Chapter 3 of this volume. When
viewed from the perspective of the digital age in which the selection,
evaluation, and interpretation of information is paramount, however, an
overemphasis on oral reading seems particularly out of sync with the needs
of individuals who are prepared to participate fully in the communities
and marketplace of the 21st century.
We hasten to emphasize that the near-singular attention given to
repeated oral reading practice with feedback has relected an underlying
misinterpretation of the indings of research related to the role and use
of silent reading in classrooms. hat is, the near-exclusive emphasis on
oral reading seen in many of today’s classrooms resulted from several
inappropriate practice conditions associated with or embedded within past
silent reading and self-selected reading practice routines.
An appropriate response to the observed overemphasis on oral
reading practice in the past decade in classrooms is not to overreact by
moving in the opposite direction and eliminating oral reading in favor
of silent reading. Oral and silent are not competing forms of reading.
Rather, they are complementary forms of reading that relect students’
developmental growth as readers. When reading educators revisit
the topic of silent reading in a decade or two, we would expect to see
particular kinds of oral and silent reading practices used in classrooms in
developmentally responsive ways (e.g., oral repeated reading with younger,
less proicient readers and silent wide reading with older, more proicient
readers). It is clear that most adults read silently, whereas younger readers
initially enjoy reading aloud to show of their new and emerging abilities as
readers.

170 Revisiting Silent Reading in 2020 and Beyond

 Among several important roles that oral reading can play in
the initial and later stages of reading instruction is the teacher’s use of
oral reading to model luent reading and guide younger readers toward
increasingly luent oral reading. By reading aloud to younger students,
teachers make an otherwise mysterious and largely invisible process more
concrete and accessible. Oral reading also provides a means whereby
teachers can assess and monitor students’ silent reading and give them
timely feedback. A well-balanced reading program ofers students
numerous opportunities for reading, both oral and silent. As students
evidence the ability to remain involved with reading for long periods of
time (i.e., stamina) and increase their reading luency, oral reading skills
can be scafolded through gradual release by knowledgeable teachers who
help students move successfully into silent reading. In the study by Reutzel,
Fawson, and Smith (2008), teachers carefully scafolded third-grade
students’ silent reading to ensure an efective silent reading experience.
Similarly, we would hope that upper primary and middle-grade
students and beyond are not spending sizable chunks of their school days
in oral round robin reading or listening to their teachers read portions
of a textbook aloud. Although these uses of oral reading are typically
aimed at compensating for some students’ struggles in reading, such
practices tend to constrain individual students’ reading practice time in
ways that undermine long-term reading progress. If a suicient number of
students in a class cannot read a textbook, teachers would do well to access
alternative texts that struggling students can read. Neither teacher read-
alouds nor oral round robin reading of textbooks is likely to lit middle
school and high school students’ reading achievement and prepare them
for college or a career.
Oral reading is also considered by many classroom teachers to
be an essential part of monitoring student progress for the purpose of
designing efective instruction and interventions to increase student
reading luency and achievement. Oral reading provides teachers with
a window to understand struggling students’ knowledge and use of
underlying systems of written language (Goodman, 1969). Classroom
teachers have for decades kept running records of their students’ oral
reading (Clay, 1985). However, in the past decade, the assessment of oral
reading has been largely founded on curriculum-based measurement
models (CBM; Deno, 1985, 2003).
For oral reading, a CBM assessment consists of one-minute
samples of students’ rate (i.e., how many words they read) and accuracy
in reading a passage. For silent reading, the task involves reading a text in

Hiebert, & Reutzel 171

 which words have been systematically deleted and several choices given
for the deleted word. his latter design is intended to establish students’
rate of reading with comprehension. For classroom teachers faced with
many students and limited time, CBM assessments are an eicient way of
gathering information on students’ oral and silent reading.
Unfortunately, the data drawn from the CBM assessments have
been used in inappropriate ways, such as to designate students in diferent
risk status levels—benchmarked, strategic, or intensive. Sadly, these one-
minute CBM assessments have led to an overemphasis on reading speed at
the expense of developing expression and comprehension with both native
English speakers and English learners.
To ensure good student performance on such assessments,
teachers may have students spend an excessive amount of instructional
time reading short paragraphs and texts to increase reading speed. his
inevitably leads to students who lack reading stamina because they are
used to practicing their reading in a sprint-like fashion for short periods.
Of course, oral reading norms obtained from these one-minute samples
are also likely to overestimate real sustained reading speeds orally or
silently, because long-distance runners pace themselves diferently
compared with sprinters (see Chapter 3 by Hiebert et al.). Emphasizing
sprinting over long-distance reading can have particularly devastating
consequences on the reading development of those students who have
reading disabilities.
Even more disappointing is the fact that these quick CBM
assessments have also displaced more intensive and comprehensive
examinations of struggling readers’ oral reading miscues and behaviors.
We argue that high-quality reading assessment should not be dismissed
or displaced because of inappropriate applications of CBM and overuses
of oral reading luency measures during the past decade. Whether the
displaced assessment was an informal reading inventory with leveled
texts or a running record taken while students read everyday texts in the
classroom, sampling students’ oral reading for insight into their linguistic
knowledge and their use (or lack) of monitoring and ix-up strategies was
part of the assessment repertoire for many past generations of teachers
(Pikulski & Shanahan, 1982).
Oral reading plays yet another role in classroom reading
instruction in that it is the means whereby students can enjoy literary
favorites and classics through teacher read-alouds. Digital texts have
increased student access to performances by great story readers such
as Jim Dale reading the Harry Potter books. To create community,

172 Revisiting Silent Reading in 2020 and Beyond

ofering a setting for expression and presenting a stage for performing
and entertaining, oral reading is central (Rasinski & Griith, 2008).
Opportunities for students to select portions of texts or poems to read
aloud or participate in Reader’s heater contribute to the development
of a classroom literacy community that is vibrant and alive (Wolf, 2004).
Teacher read-alouds allow students to experience language and vocabulary
they may not yet be able to process on their own. Some research has
shown that oral reading luency correlates well with speciic forms of silent
reading comprehension (Schatschneider, Torgesen, Buck, & Powell-Smith,
2004). Although oral reading serves several critical functions as described
previously, it is erroneous to assume that oral reading proiciency equals
silent reading proiciency. here are signiicant diferences between the two
processes. hese diferences are especially pronounced when students read
texts presented in digital formats. Siting through information, deciding
what is credible, and choosing how to communicate one’s response to
information are not typically oral reading processes.

Clarifying the Role of Silent Reading

For almost 40 years prior to the NRP report (NICHD,
2000), teacher educators and staf development specialists routinely
recommended independent silent reading practices such as those promoted
by Hunt (1970) under the aegis of sustained silent reading (SSR). When
using these models of silent reading, teachers were advised to allow
students to read silently for extensive periods of time, regardless of their
grade level or their proiciency levels. Even though evidence supporting
the beneit of spending large chunks of class time on students’ self-selected
reading was anything but convincing, whole-language proponents in the
mid-1980s began advocating for independent silent reading practice to
replace core reading instruction programs and oral reading (Hagerty,
1999). In readers’ workshops that extended SSR practices to classroom
instruction, students—even irst graders—were encouraged to choose
their own books, oten without much teacher guidance or assistance.
Reading instruction consisted of brief, randomly sequenced, or incidental
whole-class mini lessons and, in rare cases, individual teacher–student
conferences.
Recommendations such as these ignored research on silent reading
practices that existed at that time. Several projects in the 1980s pointed
to the need to adapt silent reading practices to increase greater student
accountability and monitoring by teachers in book selection and purpose

Hiebert, & Reutzel 173

 setting (Anderson, Wilson, & Fielding, 1988; Manning & Manning,
1984). However, as Stahl (1999) observed, these recommendations were
oten ignored in whole-language classrooms. Many teachers did not hold
conferences with students during independent silent reading, opting
instead to read independently and silently themselves, thereby believing
themselves to be a model of engaged silent reading.
Ater nearly 40 years of continuously recommending independent
silent reading, the NRP report (NICHD, 2000) cast a shadow of doubt over
the practices associated with it, such as SSR. In a meta-analytic review of
the research on SSR within classroom settings, NRP members were able
to identify 10 SSR studies that met their criteria of rigorous research. In
ive of those studies, researchers found efects that favored SSR. However,
the efect sizes were relatively small. Subsequent analyses of the 10 studies
(Lewis, 2002; Reutzel et al., 2008; Wu & Samuels, 2004) noted limitations
in their designs and executions. For example, the studies as a group did
not report precisely how much time was spent in reading. he die was cast,
however, when NRP members (e.g., Shanahan, 2006) strongly suggested,
independent of the report, that evidence for time spent on independent
silent reading in classrooms—compared with other reading approaches
such as guided, repeated, and oral reading with feedback—was not as
efective.
Rather than constructively addressing the misinterpretations
of the NRP’s (NICHD, 2000) concerns, advocates of independent silent
reading sharply criticized the conclusions drawn by the NRP (Coles,
2000; Krashen, 2001, 2005). Since that time, several research groups (most
represented by chapters in this volume) have reconsidered what it takes to
get and keep students’ eyes on the page during silent reading. From this
sustained research, we describe three features of independent silent reading
practice that require attention to improve the silent reading performance
of elementary and secondary students in the future.

Instructional Techniques and Practices

Although current research on independent silent reading is not
as extensive, or the indings as robust, as those surrounding phonemic
awareness and alphabetics, there is an emerging research base that
indicates that there are speciic elements of classroom reading programs
that can support the development of proicient silent reading habits.
To understand how these elements can be inluenced by teachers
and instruction, one needs to understand what distinguishes silent

174 Revisiting Silent Reading in 2020 and Beyond

reading from oral reading. Moving from vocalization or subvocalization
to “silent reading” is perhaps one of the hardest aspects of reading there
is to “teach” (Wright, Sherman, & Jones, 2010). For most students, this
happens gradually with ample opportunities to read. here are also
developmental and social factors that likely inluence movement toward
efective and sustained silent reading. However, if students do not have
frequent opportunities to read, there may well be residual subvocalization
behaviors that oten characterize the silent reading habits of struggling
readers. Wright, Sherman, and Jones indicated that teachers need to do
more than assign texts for students to read silently and tell them to stop
whisper reading.
Samuels, Hiebert, and Rasinski (see Chapter 2) noted that some
students may require carefully designed instructional programs to
remediate or develop the eye movements that characterize proicient
reading. Such programs have yet to be validated by sustained and
carefully designed research studies that address how to eiciently train
eye movements—and the subsequent efects of doing so on students’
reading automaticity and comprehension. In particular, the success of
eye-movement training programs designed to support eiciency in silent
reading as discussed in Chapter 2 needs to be disentangled from the eyes-
on-the-text phenomenon conlated with current models of eye-movement
training.
Proicient silent reading also requires that individuals be able to
independently manage their attention. Unlike oral reading where there
is a deinite task (and a monitor in the form of an adult or a recording
device), silent reading requires that readers choose to remain involved in
reading, manage their time well, and take steps to correct or ix up failing
comprehension when necessary. For example, students might struggle
with the decision to keep their eyes on the text instead of skimming or
scanning the text or acting like they are reading. As the indings described
by Hiebert et al. (see Chapter 3) suggest, perseverance or reading stamina
appears to be a considerable challenge for less proicient readers (see also
Lee-Daniels & Murray, 2000). When reading silently, students must make
internal choices they do not have to make during oral reading.
Of these reader behaviors that are unique to silent reading—
managing one’s time, choosing to remain engaged in reading a text,
and monitoring and ixing up faulty comprehension—only the topic of
monitoring strategies has received much focus (Pearson & Dole, 1987).
Monitoring strategies become particularly critical when readers’ purposes
are vague or ill-deined and when background knowledge is limited—

Hiebert, & Reutzel 175

 circumstances that are oten a part of silent reading for less proicient
readers (McKeown, Beck, & Blake, 2009). As is oten the case, published
programs have overdone the number of strategies that are taught and
practiced as part of reading comprehension lessons (Block & Dufy, 2008;
Dewitz, Jones, & Leahy, 2009). Furthermore, past instruction has not aided
students in knowing under what conditions particular strategies are useful
or imperative and under what conditions they are not
Although the work is still limited in scope, we are coming to
understand how the stamina of readers can be supported by efective
independent silent reading practice conditions. he authors of Chapters
5 and 6 in this volume illustrate several scafolds needed to increase the
perseverance of students’ silent reading during allocated independent
reading time. What seems to be particularly important is that students
not be permitted to lit about selecting texts but be required to complete
texts and illustrate their understanding of the content. White and Kim
(2010) also argued for involving students in programs that support
ater-school and summer reading. hey also emphasized the need to
provide silent reading scafolds that support engagement with books
and the development of reading stamina. What is clear from this group
of studies is that Hunt’s (1970) suggestion that the same silent reading
program be implemented across diferent developmental and proiciency
levels misrepresented the complexity of reading, texts, classrooms, and
instruction. Although the simplistic message that all students should read
silently in self-selected books may have been a point of departure, there
is much that we have learned in the interim about the kinds of scafolds
that can ensure that students increase their capacity and interest in silent
reading.

Teacher Support
Change of any kind takes time and information. Fundamental
changes in silent reading practices in classrooms can be expected to
require substantial amounts of support for the teachers who will be asked
to make them. As the teachers’ questions—which provided the basis
for Hiebert et al.’s (Chapter 3) development of comprehension-based
silent reading rate—illustrate, teachers ask many important questions.
Oten, these are questions for which researchers have few solid answers.
Conversations between researchers and teachers are urgently needed on
issues associated with independent silent reading so that the questions that
teachers ask are addressed by future research and so that the questions that

176 Revisiting Silent Reading in 2020 and Beyond

researchers pursue in relation to independent silent reading are relevant to
the real world of classrooms.
he amount of teacher support and scafolding required to
sustain silent reading practice among students in classroom settings can
be extensive. Brenner and Hiebert (2010) described a series of modules
designed to provide teachers with speciic professional development on
how to help students keep their eyes on the page during silent reading.
Even with access to these modules and on-site coaching from peers,
the teachers described in the study nevertheless required a great deal of
continuous support to make even small changes in relation to supporting
efective independent silent reading practices in their own classrooms.

Digital Contexts
In the digital-global world of the 21st century, proicient silent
reading is essential to meeting the challenge of ensuring that more high
school graduates are ready for the increasing demands of college and
career-related literacy tasks. Literacy proiciencies in traditional print
contexts do not necessarily extend seamlessly to those practiced in digital
contexts. Efective silent reading in online contexts requires that students
adopt a problem-solving stance, where an initial task involves searching for
and selecting from available information and a second involves evaluating
whether the accessed information is valid and valuable to read. he texts
in these tasks are almost always informational in nature, whereas much of
past conventional print-based reading instruction has focused heavily on
traditional print versions of narrative texts.
Informational and narrative texts difer in structure, conceptual
density, and physical features such as diagrams, photo inserts, headings
and subheadings, and a table of contents (Duke & Bennett-Armistead,
2003). Readers oten skim sections of an informational text, but closely
read and reread those sections that provide the precise content they are
seeking. In contrast, narrative texts are typically written to be read from
beginning to end with a relatively uniform amount of focused attention.
Despite the fact that digital contexts have made the demands
for processing informational texts more critical, there is evidence that
opportunities for content area learning in elementary schools have
decreased rather than increased. In a recent survey, elementary teachers
reported devoting around an hour of time weekly to science instruction
(Dorph et al., 2007). his amount of time is half of what was reported in a
survey conducted in 2000 (Fulp, 2002). If students have not had adequate

Hiebert, & Reutzel 177

 experiences with informational text, they are in considerable jeopardy
when faced with the additional requirements needed to be successful in
negotiating literacy tasks in digital contexts.
he digital age ofers considerable opportunities for learners.
For educators to ensure that students have the skills that allow them to
take advantage of these opportunities, a massive restructuring of the
literacy curriculum needs to happen. Support for strong silent reading
comprehension is fundamental to this restructuring, but it is not simply
a matter of increasing silent reading practice with the texts and processes
that have dominated the curriculum. his restructuring requires
signiicant changes to the texts and contexts of instruction as well.

Final houghts
If we are to be successful in promoting eicacious silent reading
over the next decade, educators need to be more strategic and thoughtful.
Unexamined assumptions associated with past independent silent reading
practices have led to results that, in the long run, have not supported
students in becoming more proicient independent, silent readers.
Furthermore, privileging oral reading over silent reading in instruction
had not resulted in students transferring oral reading skills to silent
reading.
Oral and silent reading both have critical roles in the development
of proicient reading. Failing to view oral and silent reading as having
complementary rather than competing functions in the development of
proicient literacy could jeopardize the futures of our students. Teachers
and researchers need to work together to solve the conundrums around
how best to support all readers through appropriate uses of both oral and
silent reading at diferent points in students’ literacy development.

178 Revisiting Silent Reading in 2020 and Beyond

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ISBN: 978-1-937889-04-3

181