English Language Development

reader’s theatre, audio recordings, and reading aloud to younger students. As noted previously, wide
reading especially contributes to fluency, as well as to other aspects of literacy development.

Figure 5.23 provides mean oral reading rates of grade-five students. Students reading more than
ten words correct per minute below the 50th percentile will need instructional support. For example,
a grade-five student who reads 99 or fewer words per minute correctly in the fall should be provided
targeted instruction after an assessment of his or her particular needs is conducted. As noted
elsewhere, fluency rates must be cautiously interpreted with speakers of languages other than English.
In addition, fluency rates are difficult to apply to students who are deaf and hard of hearing who use
American Sign Language. When students storysign, they are actually interpreting the story from one
language (printed English) to another (American Sign Language). In this case, fluency rates in the
figure do not apply.

Figure 5.23. Mean Oral Reading Rate of Grade Five Students

Percentile Fall

WCPM*

Winter

WCPM*

Spring

WCPM*

Avg. Weekly

Improvement**

90

75

166

139

182

156

194

168

.09

.09

50 110 127 139 .09

25

10

85

61

99

74

109

83

.08

.07

*WCPM = Words Correct Per Minute **Average words per week growth

Source

Hasbrouk, Jan, and Gerald T. Tindal. 2006. “Oral Reading Fluency Norms: A Valuable

Assessment Tool for Reading Teachers.” The Reading Teacher 57: 646–655.

Students in grade five who are experiencing difficulty with foundational skills should be provided
swift and appropriate additional instruction that is targeted to their needs. In addition, they need
many opportunities to read. Motivation should be kept high, and students should have access to a
wide selection of books, time to read, and time to discuss texts with peers. Teachers and teacher
librarians can assist students in locating books that they may find interesting, relevant to their lives,
and worth pursuing.

The CA ELD Standards emphasize that instruction in foundational literacy skills should be
integrated with instruction in reading comprehension and in content across all disciplines. Figure 5.16
in the overview of the span outlines general guidance on providing instruction to ELs on foundational
literacy skills aligned to the CA CCSS for ELA/Literacy Foundational Skills Standards. This guidance
is intended to provide a general overview, and does not address the full set of potential individual
characteristics of EL students that needs to be taken into consideration in designing and providing
foundational literacy skills instruction (e.g., students who have changed schools or programs
frequently, or who have interrupted schooling in either their native language or English). See the
grade span section of this chapter and chapter 2 of this ELA/ELD Framework for additional guidance
on providing foundational skills instruction to ELs.

474 | Chapter 5 Grade 5