oral reading fluency in words per minute

The line graph compares how oral reading fluency in words in a minute of successful and struggling readers differ for the grade 1, grade 2 and grade 3 students in fall, winter and spring. Overall, it is clear from the graph that although the reading abilities showed some variance among successful and struggling readers, the former outnumbered the latter by a significant margin throughout the whole period evaluated. However, there was a markedly upward trend in the reading achievement of both groups. Looking at the picture in more detail, the successful readers could read exactly 20 words a minute at the beginning of the period, however, this figure tripled to 60 words per minute at the end of grade 1. When they went to the second grade, their reading fluency in words in a minute rose from just above 60 words in the fall to slightly above 80 words in the spring. In grade 3, this figure increased from above 80 words in the fall to 120 words in the spring. By contrast, how many words the struggling readers could read was well below 20 per minute in the fall in the first grade before increasing to below 40 words in the spring. Then, this figure experienced a slight decrease to just above 20 in the fall in grade 2 after which it almost doubled to 40 in the spring. Similarly, it dropped again to well below 40. Finally, the struggling readers could read just over 40 words in a minute at the end of the period, which is almost threefold less compared to the successful readers at this time.