The Influence Of School Type On Reading Fluency Development

The process of reading acquisition is characterized by a gradually increasing degree of automatization regarding grapheme-phoneme correspondence and the concurrent developing semantic system. Depending on the frequency and intensity of engaging with written material, the learning reader's ability to recall words from the lexical memory increases. This development affects the reading speed significantly over time. Problems in learning to read often show up in an accumulation of reading mistakes and a reduced reading speed. In this study we examined the reading speed of 420 pupils from grades five to eight. We analyzed reading samples from the Zurcher Lesetest-II (ZLT-II) regarding reading speed, comparing the performance between different school types and classes. We discovered a trend towards a positive development of reading speed with increasing age and educational level.