RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN ORAL READING FLUENCY MEASURES AND VISUAL ATTENTION SPAN IN BRAZILIAN'S SCHOOLCHILDREN IN PANDEMIC CONTEXT

Abstract

"The aim of this study was to relate the measures of oral reading fluency and visual attention span in Brazilian students from the 4th grade of elementary school. Eleven students were submitted to three measures of oral reading fluency and the global visual attention span (VAS) for five characters. The reading correct word per minute measure was used with three texts that differed in complexity. The study was carried out after the adoption of remote teaching in the Pandemic. Spearman analysis was performed between fluency and VAS variables, with no significance. The results revealed a greater number of correct words per minute in the third reading time compared to the first two times, revealing that the real reading performance of 4th grade students is the average of 39 to 40 words per minute and average of fixation of 50% of the characters. These findings indicate academic losses due to low reading fluency rate, fewer characters per fixation and lack of relationship between the variables. These results pointed out to the decrease in reading practices during the Pandemic. As conclusion, there is a need for further studies about this theme."