Fluency Redefined

I honestly had never read anything before about reading fluency.    As I read the article about one-minute fluency measures, I began to realize how much we need to learn about assessing reading fluency in our students.  To me, I think that one-minute fluency measures fall short in assessing a student's real knowledge, just like many other standardized tests.  These tests only measure what the student knows at that particular moment and don't reveal much in depth information about the student's actual strengths and weaknesses.  I sincerely hope that by the time I am officially teaching in a classroom, fluency assessments will include more extensive components that measure the prosody and comprehension of a student's reading, not just the rate and speed.
I also agree that the speed at which a student reads is not nearly as important as comprehending what they are reading.  Even if a student reads at a high rate of speed, they may not be comprehending what they are reading.  THis lack of comprehension puts a student at risk for underperforming in other areas of education, so students need to be given countless opportunities to read at their own pace and to read what they find interesting, which will lead to a higher fluency level and a desire to read.