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Overview

Fluency Formula™ is a supplemental curriculum designed to promote reading fluency for first- through sixth-grade students. The program emphasizes automatic recognition of words, decoding accuracy, and oral expressiveness as the foundation for building reading fluency. A daily 10- to 15-minute lesson is delivered in the classroom. Students participate in whole-class, small-group, and individual practice activities using workbooks, read-aloud anthologies, library books, fluency activity cards, and audio CDs. The curriculum encourages at-home practice and includes a Fluency Formula™ Assessment System, which allows teachers to assess student fluency using one-minute grade-level passages and a timer.

Research

One study of Fluency Formula™ met the What Works Clearinghouse (WWC) evidence standards. The study findings are based on data from 128 second-grade students in two suburban school districts in the Northeast. 1 The WWC considers the extent of evidence for Fluency Formula™ to be small for fluency and comprehension. No studies that met WWC evidence standards with or without reservations addressed alphabetics or general reading achievement.

Effectiveness

Fluency Formula™ was found to have potentially positive effects on fluency and potentially negative effects on comprehension.

Alphabetics Fluency Comprehension General reading achievement
Rating of effectiveness na Potentially positive effects Potentially negative effects na
Improvement index2 na Average: +10 percentile points Average: –11 percentile points na
na = not applicable
1 The evidence presented in this report is based on available research. Findings and conclusions may change as new research becomes available.
2 These numbers show the improvement indices based on the single finding in each domain in the study.