2011 Volume 52 Issue 3 Pages 263-270
We investigated the typical development of reading fluency by measuring the speed of reading aloud, and the factors responsible for reading fluency. The participants for this study were 872 primary school children from the 1st to 6th grades. We used Hiragana and Katakana words as well as Hiragana and Katakana nonwords and paragraphs as stimuli. The results showed that the articulation time of reading words aloud decreased rapidly from the 1st to 3rd grade, and then decreased slowly to the 6th grade. In contrast, the articulation time of reading nonwords and paragraphs aloud decreased from the 1st to 6th grade, suggesting that it is more important to evaluate the reading speed of paragraphs in view of the necessity of reading paragraphs in daily life. The results of multiple regression analysis demonstrated that ability of automatization and phonological awareness are crucial factors that affect reading speed. The contribution of the former increased with grade; in contrast, the latter's contribution grew smaller. In addition, the findings suggested that the contribution of vocabulary to the reading speed of words and paragraphs is also important.
