Reading fluency is becoming a buzz topic thanks to its mention in high-profile guidance such as the Department for Education’s Reading Framework (DfE, 2021), the Education Endowment Foundation’s Improving literacy in key stage 2 guidance (Bilton & Duff, 2021), and Ofsted’s 2024 English education subject report entitled Telling the story.
What is reading fluency? And what is it not?
Reading fluency is not a fixed milestone which children are able to reach; it is not a visible nor invisible line over which pupils, once they have reached a certain competence with decoding text, can cross.
Rather than thinking about “fluent readers” or “not fluent readers”, it might be more helpful to think of fluency at each stage of reading competency (DfE, 2021).
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