Reading rate, a component of reading not closely attended to by educators and researchers prior to the 20th century, quickly became the subject of considerable research shortly after the turn of the century. This article uses historical content analysis to examine primary source documents from that period (1910–1925) to explore why reading rate emerged as a key component of reading during that time. Situating this rise with the concurrent rise in the efficiency movement within education, a critical analysis of these documents reveals that reading rate became relevant in part due to its alignment with three ideological tenets of the efficiency movement: efficiency, measurement, and sorting. In considering the similarities between the focus on rate during the turn of the 20th century and the related focus on automaticity today, these findings suggest the need for critical examination of current approaches to fluency.
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