During an Oral Reading Fluency assessment, a student reads with accuracy but sounds choppy. Which component of reading fluency should be the focus for goals?

During an Oral Reading Fluency assessment, a student reads with accuracy but sounds choppy. Which component of reading fluency should be the focus for goals?

• A. Rate
• B. Expression or Prosody
• C. Accuracy
• D. Phonemic awareness

Answer: (B)

Fluency is built from rate, accuracy, and prosody (expression). When a student reads the words correctly but sounds choppy, the missing piece is expression. Prosody covers intonation, rhythm, and appropriate pauses, which let the reader group words into meaningful phrases and reflect punctuation. Focusing on prosody helps the reader vary their voice, pause where the author indicates, and emphasize important ideas, making the reading sound fluid rather than a string of separate words. This smoother delivery also supports comprehension, because the reader conveys and interprets meaning through tone and phrasing. While rate and accuracy are important, and phonemic awareness underpins decoding, the goal here should be to develop expressive reading to remove the choppiness.

Fluency is built from rate, accuracy, and prosody (expression). When a student reads the words correctly but sounds choppy, the missing piece is expression. Prosody covers intonation, rhythm, and appropriate pauses, which let the reader group words into meaningful phrases and reflect punctuation. Focusing on prosody helps the reader vary their voice, pause where the author indicates, and emphasize important ideas, making the reading sound fluid rather than a string of separate words. This smoother delivery also supports comprehension, because the reader conveys and interprets meaning through tone and phrasing. While rate and accuracy are important, and phonemic awareness underpins decoding, the goal here should be to develop expressive reading to remove the choppiness.