I'm curious about the reading aloud fluency as a means of testing reading skills. It isn't really a skill that is used in many careers.... Hoping an expert weighs in on this one!
Well... it isn't used in many careers but .... I've seen it be a very helpful way to assess reading skills. Since I'm not a professional, I shouldn't probably even begin to answer this but I'll add just a few things I've seen with my kids:
1) When you measure a student's reading comprehension from silent reading, you may be measuring reading comprehension that relies heavily on reading from context, rather than reading and taking in meaning from each word. For some kids, depending heavily on reading from context works well when they are young and reading fairly simple passages but can be an issue later on as reading demands increase.
2) Reading out loud helps a teacher see where a child is challenged with their reading. My dd who had vision issues, for instance, could memorize sight words and pass tests on reading them, and she understood phonics well so she could sound out words as she read them, but when she read aloud there would be quirky odd things happening - she'd read aloud fairly large complicated words and then get stuck on a word like "far" and think she'd never seen it before.
3) Some kids simply race through silent reading and aren't really taking everything in. Reading out loud can help an adult determine what level they really are reading at.
Best wishes,
polarbear
