The development of reading fluency: The effects of contextual and isolated word training

Abstract

Five experiments are presented that examined the transfer of reading fluency following two types of training. In the context training condition, children learned to read a set of target words in a story context, while in the isolated word training condition fluency with a new set of words was gained from a computerized word naming game. Although both methods of training result in the faster and more accurate reading of a novel transfer passage compared to a control passage, fluency benefits were more pronounced following context training. Next, data is presented showing that context training resulted in greater word learning relative to isolated word training. Further, when the transfer task involved reading trained words in an unfamiliar passage, words trained in context were read more accurately than words trained in isolation. Finally, we examined the effects of context and isolated word training when the transfer task involved reading words in isolation at test. Our results indicated that young readers showed accuracy benefits on trained words following both training methods. However, increases in reading speed were only observed following isolated word training. The reading speed benefits observed in context condition training did not transfer to an isolated word reading task. Theoretical implications are discussed in relation to transfer appropriate processing. ^