Pausal structures as an indicator of oral reading fluency perception and conceptual unit recall

This study is an investigation into the role of pausal patterns in (a) perceiving oral reading fluency, and (b) predicting the number of conceptual units recalled by the oral reader. The literature shows us that the placement of pauses in oral reading is not necessarily dependent on punctuation but on an internal structure of conceptual units. Before mastery students use most of their cognitive resources on decoding and are not available to form coherent conceptual structures. Thus, the duration and placement of pauses in their oral reading would not be a reflection of a conceptual structure but of the difficulty of the decoding process. As readers become competent we should expect their pattern of pauses to align more closely with those of other competent readers. Additionally, we would expect listeners to judge readers as more fluent when their pausal patterns reflect the patterns of competent readers.; Two sets of recordings of 6th grade students orally reading grade appropriate material were obtained. Fluency judgments were later made by teachers. A computer analysis comparing the pattern of pauses in the subject's readings to the pausal patterns of competent readers was performed. This was followed by a non-linear regression analysis. In general, the results from both sets of data converged on correlations indicating that: (a) pausal patterns are a good predictor of teacher's perceptions of fluency; (b) pausal patterns are a good indicator of conceptual unit recall for students in the mastery stage and a moderate indicator of unit recall in the automaticity stage; and (c) judgements of oral reading fluency by teachers are not predictors of a reader's ability to recall idea units.