In classrooms across the country, teachers encounter a puzzling situation: A student reads fluently, even confidently, yet struggles to make sense of the text. It’s a disconnect that can leave educators frustrated and puzzled. How can a “good” reader still miss the meaning of what they read? In an era when schools are under pressure to produce data-driven results, the meaning behind those numbers often gets lost.
This dilemma, explored by Mary DeKonty Applegate, Anthony J. Applegate, and Virginia B. Modla in
an article for
The Reading Teacher, highlights a core problem in literacy assessment. The tools we use to measure reading are not always aligned with what it truly means to read. For many schools, Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills (DIBELS) and other curriculum-based measures (CBMs) have become the primary way of monitoring student progress. These assessments track how quickly and accurately students can read connected text.
On the surface, this seems useful. After all, a child who struggles to read fluently will likely struggle to comprehend. But here’s the catch: Fluency assessments alone tell us little about whether students actually understand what they read. A student who races through text at an impressive words-per-minute rate may still be unable to make inferences, connect ideas, or construct meaning. This is the goal of reading and what we do as adults. When this happens, we risk confusing
fast reading with
real reading.
This challenge isn’t new. In
an article for
Literacy Now, Peter Johnston warned that while CBMs provide a quick snapshot of fluency, they are often treated as comprehensive measures of reading. They are not. As Johnston argued, comprehension is not an “add-on” to fluency; rather, it is the heart of reading.
Louise Rosenblatt’s
transactional theory offers a powerful lens for understanding why these measures fall short. Rosenblatt argued that reading is a transaction between the reader and the text, where meaning is constructed through engagement, reflection, and response. Similarly, researchers such as
P. David Pearson and Gina N. Cervetti as well as
Nell Duke and Kelly Cartwright have reinforced that the end goal of reading is comprehension—an active process of making meaning—not simply decoding words on a page. Phonics and fluency provide essential access to print, but they are not the destination.
As Tim Pressley, Richard Allington, and Michael Pressley noted in
Reading Instruction That Works, skilled readers constantly monitor for understanding, making predictions, and revising interpretations as they read. When assessment reduces reading to a timed score, it overlooks this complex interplay of cognitive and affective processes that foster deep comprehension. Reading becomes performance, not meaning-making. Therefore, the very heart of literacy is lost.
The narrowing of reading
This concept shows up in everyday classroom practice. One example I have observed is the insistence that students answer comprehension questions without referring back to the book. The rationale is often that students should “remember” what they read, but then comes the moment when a student asks the teacher about a particular part in the text and the teacher reaches for the book to check. That right there says it all. Authentic readers rely on the text. We revisit, reread, and reference constantly. To deny students this process sends the wrong message: That reading is about
memory, not
meaning.
Some might argue that asking students to recall what they discussed in class demonstrates comprehension. But isn’t that really just testing memory? As Rosenblatt would
remind us: Comprehension cannot be captured in a single recall task. It unfolds as readers transact with the text, shifting between the efferent stances (focused on information) and the aesthetic stances (focused living variously through the lives of the characters). When we block students from revisiting the text, we cut them off from this essential back and forth process of constructing and remaking meaning.
When reading becomes a performance, engagement fades and meaning, and the heart of reading, comprehension, is lost.
Where does this leave us?
It doesn’t mean we should throw out fluency assessments altogether. They serve an important purpose, especially for identifying students who need additional support with automaticity and word recognition. But we cannot stop there. If fluency becomes the whole story, we risk raising readers who are quick but shallow, efficient but disengaged. This is where differentiation becomes essential. Every reader brings unique strengths, needs, and processing styles to the act of reading. Some students may need targeted fluency practice, others benefit more from explicit phonics instruction to strengthen decoding, still others may thrive through modeling comprehension strategies, guided peer led discussions, or guided questioning. Differentiation ensures that instruction aligns with what each student truly needs to grow, not just how fast they can read, but how deeply they can think and apply their understanding to live responsibility in society.
Instead, we need a more balanced approach to assessment. Pairing oral reading measures with authentic comprehension tasks gives us a fuller picture of reading ability. Tasks that invite students to annotate, cite evidence, and engage in meaningful peer led discussions. Might we even see motivation increase when students read to find messages they can apply to their world. Allowing students to return to the text doesn’t weaken comprehension checks; it strengthens them by mirroring how reading works in the real world.
Pause and reflect
- Are we measuring what matters most?
- Are we giving students opportunities to practice the kinds of reading behaviors real readers use every day?
- Are our assessment choices shaping instruction that builds not only speed but also depth of understanding?
Ultimately, it’s time to move beyond the narrow definitions of reading and towards a more balanced approach that honors both fluency and comprehension. Our best readers should not be praised solely for how quickly they move through text but for how deeply they can transact with it. After all, as Roseblatt, Johnston, and the Applegates remind us in different ways, comprehension is not just the outcome of reading; rather, it
is reading.
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