Becoming a Fluent Reader: Reading Skill and Prosodic Features in the Oral Reading of Young Readers.

TLDR

Prosodic reading, or reading with expression, is a hallmark of fluent reading. The study aimed to examine how reading prosody relates to decoding and reading comprehension skills. The authors measured suprasegmental features of oral reading in 123 second‑ and third‑grade children and 24 adults, while also assessing their decoding and comprehension abilities. Children who decoded faster exhibited shorter, less variable pauses, steeper sentence‑final F0 declines, and a prosodic profile closer to adults, and structural‑equation modeling revealed links between decoding speed and both prosody and comprehension, though prosody only minimally mediated comprehension.

Abstract

Prosodic reading, or reading with expression, is considered one of the hallmarks of fluent reading. The major purpose of the study was to learn how reading prosody is related to decoding and reading comprehension skills. Suprasegmental features of oral reading were measured in 2nd- and 3rd-grade children (N = 123) and 24 adults. Reading comprehension and word decoding skills were assessed. Children with faster decoding speed made shorter and less variable intersentential pauses, shorter intrasentential pauses, larger sentence-final fundamental frequency (F(0)) declinations, and better matched the adult prosodic F(0) profile. Two structural equation models found evidence of a relationship between decoding speed and reading prosody as well as decoding speed and comprehension. There was only minimal evidence that prosodic reading was an important mediator of reading comprehension skill.