Why is accuracy important in assessing a student's fluency development?

Accuracy is crucial in assessing a student's fluency development because it reflects the student's ability to identify words correctly. Fluency comprises several components, including accuracy, automaticity, and prosody, each contributing to a student's overall reading proficiency. When a student reads accurately, they are better able to decode and recognize words, which facilitates smoother reading and comprehension. An accurate reading helps ensure that students are not just substituting words or skipping them, which can lead to misunderstandings of the text. High accuracy is a clear indicator that a student has developed essential word recognition skills, which are foundational for further reading development and comprehension.