The English Oral Reading Fluency Test: Relationships to Comprehension and Test Takers’ Attitudes

Abstract

This study compared various measures used to assess oral reading fluency skills in relation to reading comprehension. The participants were 54 first year students from the Faculty of Political Science, Chulalongkorn University. An English Oral Reading Fluency (EORF) test and a set of comprehension questions were devised. Then, the scores of rate, accuracy and prosody were compared to investigate to what extent different oral reading fluency measures contributed to comprehension by using multiple regression analysis. The results revealed that only accuracy made a statistically significant unique contribution to comprehension. When focusing on the relationships of each oral reading fluency measure (rate, accuracy and prosody) with comprehension, it was found that there were significant positive moderate correlations between accuracy and comprehension, and prosody and comprehension. In addition, the study examined the test takers’ attitudes toward the EORF test regarding their anxiety, attitudes and opinion. The findings indicated that even though some students had exhibited certain signs of anxiety from taking the EORF test, those who experienced no anxiety outnumbered them, and the majority of the test takers had positive attitudes and opinions toward the EORF test.