Why ELLs' Fluent Reading Doesn't Always Equal Comprehension

There's a lot of research out there, many studies that will show that when a student is reading with ease, reading as if they're speaking to a friend, appropriate pacing and intonation and expression, that that lends itself to reading comprehension. But when we think about English learners, it's not that simple. What we see is that fluency, fantastic. They've built the fluency, but that's moderated by that oral language proficiency to get me to that deep reading comprehension.

And that's why I'm really talking about building that oral language proficiency as you're building that ability to read accurately and fluently, and it's only together that these students will have great reading comprehension because I worked on that oral language proficiency, that meaning, building that fluency to get to deep reading comprehension.

So we get so excited. The principal might come in and I'm like, "Hey, look. Oh, look. I've got that decoding down. Look at the students. Look at my students who are English learners. They're reading. They seem to be reading accurately and fluently." And then the principal says, "Oh, okay. Let's see. Ask them some questions about what they've read,” and the students do not have the deep reading comprehension. But if we had not been focusing the entire time also on the language, the meaning, then again, you only have one piece of the puzzle, the decoding piece and not the language comprehension piece. And we need both.