To accurately assess passage-level reading fluency, students must be tested on passages of several degrees of difficulty; otherwise we’ll miss important reading challenges. Many verbally talented students with dyslexia won’t show problems reading passages on familiar topics with familiar words; but they’ll struggle to read texts with advanced or unfamiliar material–including foreign languages. That’s why many verbally talented dyslexic people are not identified until high school, college, or post-graduate school–or in some cases not at all. Yet even if they score well on untimed tests of decoding, or on their comprehension of easy passages, they may still be dyslexic if they can’t read to the level of their cognitive ability at a pace that allows them to keep up with their work. So always remember the importance of fluency in identifying and helping individuals with dyslexia.
