Semester of Graduation
Spring 2026
Degree Type
Dissertation
Degree Name
Secondary and Middle Grades Education
Committee Chair/First Advisor
Dr. Megan Adams
Second Advisor
Dr. Darren Crovitz
Third Advisor
Dr. Beth Krone
Abstract
The National Reading Panel (2000) recommends oral reading instruction as a means to improve overall reading fluency and reading comprehension. Oral reading fluency is a necessary foundational skill, and students who have not mastered it by the end of third grade, when students transition from learning to read to reading to learn, become struggling adolescent readers (Ming, 2018). Furthermore, there is a lack of research on reading fluency past the primary grades (Makebo et al., 2022). Additionally, research gaps exist when considering teachers’ actual practices during reading instruction (O’Sullivan et al., 2009). This gap is particularly concerning considering that teachers are the paramount component of reading instruction (Rasinski & Young, 2024). The purpose of this phenomenological study was to examine an upper elementary school teacher’s and a middle school teacher’s perception of using oral reading as a strategy to increase reading fluency. The study emphasized the value of modeling oral reading to improve reading fluency and the importance of using oral reading to stimulate student engagement. Furthermore, this study has implications related to research on teachers’ instructional practices regarding reading fluency past the third grade.