Abstract
Oral Reading Fluency (ORF) has been widely acknowledged as an important contributor to reading comprehension. However, existing review studies have primarily focused on the effectiveness of specific interventions and on the assessment of ORF, leaving the cognitive constructs and theoretical frameworks underlying its conceptualization and operationalization underexamined. Therefore, this systematic review aims to examine how ORF is theoretically and contextually conceptualized and operationalized across the reviewed studies. The systematic review followed the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analysis (PRISMA) guideline for the inclusion and exclusion of studies across the Education Resources Information Center (ERIC), Springer, and ScienceDirect databases. A total of 94 relevant studies published between 2014 and 2024 were identified and analyzed using thematic content analysis, structured classification, and relational mapping. The review identified ORF as a dynamic component that interacts with various literacy and cognitive processes. Across the reviewed studies, ORF was most commonly conceptualized in terms of accuracy and rate and was often operationalized through a 1-min standardized timed paradigm. This measurement approach showed a strong alignment with the Automaticity Theory and Verbal Efficiency Theory. The reviewed studies also revealed different roles for ORF. Although ORF was most commonly treated as a predictor or an outcome variable, an emerging line of research has begun to model it as a mediator between decoding and comprehension. The identification of ORF as a mediator suggests a promising theoretical direction for explaining how decoding may support comprehension through fluent reading.
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