The nation's report card

"The purpose of Fourth-Grade Students Reading Aloud: NAEP 2002 Special Study of Oral Reading is to examine aspects of oral reading performance-- accuracy, rate, and fluency-- that cannot be observed from results of the main NAEP (National Assessment of Educational Progress) reading assessment. The results provided here are intended to inform educators and researchers about these three aspects of fourth-graders' oral reading performance and how they relate to their overall reading ability as measured by the 2002 reading assessment"--Pg. iii.