Article Reviewed

Hasbrouck, J., & Tindal, G. A. (2006). Oral reading fluency norms: A valuable assessment tool for
reading teachers. International Reading Association, 636-644.
Introduction
As reading is being strongly emphasized in the education field, there are
many method that has been suggested I order to improve the reading skills and help
the pupils to upgrade themselves and be a better reader. Oral reading is one of the
way that most teachers and parents will use in order to ensure that the children are
progressing and is one of the easiest way to measure the ability of the children.
Many parent will tend to teach their students to read big books since young in order
to make them understand and learn faster. The exposition towards the vocabulary
and the phones help the students to learn faster and grasp meaning faster. Oral
reading helps many pupils to improve their understanding towards the meaning of
the words as they recognise the word and letters faster. Oral reading for meaning is
a technique to improve poor readers word identification in contexts (Taylor and
Nosbush, 1983). In an article written by Jan Hasbrouck and Gerald A. Tindal, entitled
Oral reading fluency norms: A valuable assessment tool for reading teachers
retrieved from the article journal entitled International Reading Association (2006),
oral reading is being discussed as a usage of measurement tool for the reading skills
in helping to validate the students ability in reading.
Summary
This article mainly discusses on the fluency norms of reading using the oral
reading as an assessment. The authors quoted from Stahl & Kuhn, (2002) saying
that reading sound like language (page 636). There is a great relationship that is
being discussed between the fluency of reading and the comprehension and as
many teachers are focusing in assessing the students to be a fluent reader, they
need a proper method to assess and measure them. Discussing on the curriculum
based measurement (CBM), the oral reading fluency (ORF) is a method of
monitoring students progress in reading. The main component focused here is the
rate and accuracy (page 636). Thus, the authors also discussed on how the
materials are also being prepared in order to help the teachers using this ORF as
well as to help the students in their fluency ; Publications designed to help
teachers understand what fluency is and how to teach it as well as how to
assess reading fluency (page 637). The authors added that since the past
decades, fluency is seen as the most important component in ones reading
development and in measuring their language efficiency. As well as touching on the
National ORF norms: 2005, the authors discussed on the awareness of the teachers
on the increasing requirements for data driven accountability for student
performance (page 637). The four categories mentioned by the authors that are
used for the reading assessment are the screening measures, diagnostic measures,
progress-monitoring measures and outcome measures. The roles of the ORF is also
being discussed in screening and progress monitoring. However, the authors also
discussed on the drawback of the ORF as it raised the concern of many educators.
The drawback are the students familiarity or interest in the content of the
passages, a lack of precision in the timing of the passage, or mistakes made in
calculating the final score due to unnoticed student errors (page 640).
However, as on the basis of checking and measuring the fluency of reading mainly
comprehension, the authors argued that ORF is the best method as it focuses more
on the fluency.
Conclusion
Reading has always been my cup of tea and my interest on it has never fade.
Therefore, as an English teacher, I always ensure that my students will pay more
attention in the reading and develop their reading habits and at the same time
upgrade their reading skills. This article help me in assisting the way for me to
measure my students ability in reading. Even though the setting of the scenario is
not in Malaysia but the tool mentioned which is the ORF is applicable to the Malaysia
classroom setting. I just need to try it out and check on my students fluency
progress. In addition, I can also keep a record in their progress and help them by
assisting them accordingly. This article provides ample of information on the ORF
and how it works as well as the advantages about it. It also amazes me when the
authors provided the drawbacks of the ORF as it can help me to analyse my findings
better and evaluate on the progress. In conclusion, this article entitled Oral reading
fluency norms: A valuable assessment tool for reading teachers retrieved from
the article journal entitled International Reading Association (2006), written by Jan
Hasbrouck and Gerald A. Tindal is a must read article by all the English teachers as
it helps to make our job easier in evaluating our students reading fluency.
References
Hasbrouck, J., & Tindal, G. A. (2006). Oral reading fluency norms: A valuable assessment tool for
reading teachers. International reading Association, 636-644.
Taylor, B. M., & Nosbush, L. (1983). Oral Reading for meaning: A technique for improving word
identification skills. The Reading Teachers, 234-241.