What type of assessment can diagnose specific deficits in reading fluency?

An informal reading inventory is particularly effective for diagnosing specific deficits in reading fluency because it allows educators to gather detailed, contextual insights into a student’s reading abilities. By assessing various components of reading, such as rate, accuracy, and prosody, an informal reading inventory can pinpoint the precise areas where a student struggles. This type of assessment is flexible and can include various texts at different difficulty levels, enabling the teacher to evaluate the student's fluency during actual reading tasks.

In contrast, assessments such as spelling assessments primarily measure written language skills and do not directly address reading fluency. Behavior observations, while informative for understanding a student’s overall engagement and interaction with reading tasks, do not provide quantitative data on specific reading skills. Standardized achievement tests, although useful for measuring overall academic performance, may not offer the nuanced diagnosis of fluency-related issues that an informal reading inventory can provide. Consequently, the informal reading inventory is the most effective tool for identifying specific reading fluency deficits.