Fluency means Comprehension has been achieved...

The title statement reflects my thoughts on fluency. I emphatically believe if a child is reading fluently then comprehension must have been achieved.
Fluency is the “the ability of readers to read quickly, effortlessly, and efficiently with good, meaningful expression” (Rasinski, 2003, p.26). To reach this point or this stage in reading you must understand what has been read. Without comprehension fluency in my opinion cannot be achieved, I feel the two components in reading go ‘hand in hand’.
The ultimate goal of reading is meaning, but when we have fluent readers we assume that reading is achieved, we do not concentrate on the aspect of comprehension/meaning. The components of fluency are speed, accuracy, expression and comprehension. However, teachers usually focus on speed with respect to improving fluency they do not involve exercises that would improve all the facets of fluency. On the other hand in another article the components of fluency are ‘prosody, rate and accuracy’. Repeated readings not only should focus on speed but also on meaning. ‘Prosody refers to reading smoothly, effortlessly, and with proper phrasing and expression.’ ‘Prosody may provide a link between fluency and comprehension. The ability to properly chunk groups of words into phrases and meaningful units is an indicator of a reader’s comprehension’ (Kuhn, 2003).

I can describe myself as a fluent reader, I would also describe all the students in the M.ed Reading programme fluent readers after all they are doing a masters! But when asked to read an excerpt from a statistics book they stumble at nearly every word. Are you going to redefine these masters’ level students as struggling readers after hearing them try to decode a passage from a statistics book? I think not!! I feel this explains my point of view clearly since a child must understand what they are reading to be a fluent reader.

References:
Rasinski, T.V. (2003). The fluent reader: Oral reading strategies for building word recognition, fluency, and comprehension. NewYork: Scholastic.

Kuhn, M.R. (2003) Fluency: A review of developmental and remedial practices. Journal of EducationalPsychology, 95(1),3-21. doi:10.1037/0022-0663.95.1.3