thebookseekers

What if the real barrier to comprehension isn’t vocabulary or background knowledge, but something even more fundamental: fluency? If a pupil’s working memory is tied up trying to decode each word, it never reaches the meaning. The cognitive load is simply too high. David Paige’s work is really clear on this: fluent reading frees up working memory so it can do what it’s meant to do, make sense of the text. Automaticity isn’t a shortcut; it’s the foundation that comprehension rests on. This matters for teaching. We sometimes expect pupils to analyse, infer and interpret before they can read with ease. That’s the wrong way round. Build accurate decoding. Build automatic word recognition. Build fluency through repeated practice and expressive reading. Once the mechanics are automatic, comprehension finally has room to breathe.