ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book deals with the nature of reading fluency, argues that "macrolevel fluency is based on automaticity of microlevel subskills and their connections". It offers readers a conceptual framework and a description of an experimental fluency program designed to "squarely confront the complexity and developmental changes in fluency development". The book focuses on a particular form of reading fluency well established in reading research: oral reading fluency (ORF). It also offers readers another fluency metric that is predicated on a set of phonologic and alphabetic tasks deemed predictive of advanced reading processes such as reading comprehension. The book describes a set of I-min fluency measures designed to evaluate beginning readers' ability to negotiate both the phonologic and alphabetic requirements of reading, such as onset-rime, phonemic segmentation, pseudo word reading, and ORF.
