The Fluency Construct

This book provides a comprehensive overview of fluency as a construct and its assessment in the context of curriculum-based measurement (CBM). Comparing perspectives from language acquisition, reading, and mathematics, the book parses the vagueness and complexities surrounding fluency concepts and their resulting impact on testing, intervention, and students' educational development. Applications of this knowledge in screening and testing, ideas for creating more targeted measures, and advanced methods for studying fluency data demonstrate the overall salience of fluency within CBM. Throughout, contributors argue for greater specificity and nuance in isolating skills to be measured and improved, and for terminology that reflects those educational benchmarks.

Included in the coverage:

• Indicators of fluent writing in beginning writers.
• Fluency in language acquisition, reading, and mathematics.
• Foundations of fluency-based assessmentsin behavioral and psychometric paradigms.
• Using response time and accuracy data to inform the measurement of fluency.
• Using individual growth curves to model reading fluency.
• Latent class analysis for reading fluency research.

The Fluency Construct: Curriculum-Based Measurement Concepts and Applications is an essential resource for researchers, graduate students, and professionals in clinical child and school psychology, language and literature, applied linguistics, special education, neuropsychology, and social work.

Preface. - Chapter 1. What is Fluency? ; Gina Biancarosa and Lina Shanley. - SECTION ONE: Applied Use of Fluency Measures. - Chapter 2. Indicators of Fluent Writing in Beginning Writers; Kristen D. Ritchey, Kristen L. McMaster, Stephanie Al Otaiba, Cynthia S. Puranik, Young-Suk, Kim, David C. Parker, Miriam Ortiz. - Chapter 3. Mathematics Fluency More than the Weekly Timed Test; Ben Clarke, Nancy Nelson, Lina Shanley. - Chapter 4. Using Curriculum-Based Measurement Fluency Data for Initial Screening Decisions; Erica S. Lembke, Abigail Carlisle, Apryl Poch. - Chapter 5. Using Oral Reading Fluency to Evaluate Response to Intervention and to Identify Students not Making Sufficient Progress; Matthew K. Burns, Benjamin Silberglitt, Theodore J. Christ, Kimberly A. Gibbons, Melissa Coolong-Chaffin. - SECTION TWO: Considerations for Test Development. - Chapter 6. Foundations of Fluency-Based Assessments in Behavioral and Psychometric Paradigms; Theodore J. Christ, Ethan R. Van Norman, Peter M. Nelson. - Chapter 7. Using Response Time and Accuracy Data to Inform the Measurement of Fluency; John Prindle, Alison M. Mitchell, Yaacov Petscher. - Chapter 8. An Introduction to the Statistical Evaluation of Fluency Measures with Signal Detection Theory; Keith Smolkowski and Kelli D. Cummings. - Chapter 9. Different Approaches to Equating Oral Reading Fluency Passages; Kristi L. Santi, Christopher Barr, Shiva Khalaf, David J. Francis. - SECTION THREE: Advanced Research Methods. - Chapter 10. Using Individual Growth Curves to Model Reading Fluency; D. Betsy McCoach and Huihui Yu. - Chapter 11. Introduction to Latent Class Analysis for Reading Fluency Research; Jessica A. R. Logan and Jill M. Pentimonti. - Chapter 12. Using Latent Change Score Analysis to Model Growth and Causality in Fluency Skills; Yaacov Petscher, Sharon Koon, Sarah Herrera. - Chapter 13. Conclusion: Oral Reading