The ultimate aim of this study is to specify the relationship between oral reading fluency and reading comprehension ability to examine whether the correlation is the same in boys and girls。 If it is the same, then, teachers can use the same way to help both boys and girls enhance their reading comprehension。 If not, it means that teachers should try different ways to guide boys and girls。 For students from grade 9, reading is important not only in their daily life, but also in their studies。 Thus, this study is worth doing。 

2。 Literature Review

2。1 The Definition and Importance of Reading

Reading is a complex performance that requires simultaneous coordination among many tasks (as cited in Fuchs, Fuchs, Hosp, & Jenkins, 2001)。 That is to say, readers need to balance several different tasks at the same time when they are reading。 Then, what are those tasks are? What activities do readers need to do when reading?  According to Rosenblatt, readers are required to do many tasks at the same time while reading, including the understanding of a complex and difficult concept which the author tries to convey to his readers, interpreting the written language into something abstract in their own minds, and finally making sense of it。 In other words, when readers are reading a written text, they are thinking about it。 And as a result, they get to construct the meaning from it。 This is the exact process of reading (Turkyilmaz, Can, Yildirim, &Ates, 2014)。 

The above description of “reading” is kind of theoretical。 And to be practical, readers are acquiring information or reading others’ stories to enrich their own experiences while reading。 Compared to speaking and writing, reading is a passive process。 In other words, reading is a kind of input。 However, this doesn’t mean reading is less important than speaking or writing。 On the contrary, reading is of great importance in various aspects, like daily life, study and so on。 According to National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD), learning to read is perhaps child’s greatest school accomplishment (see also Rasinski&Padak 2008)。 And as Strommen& Mates cited, learning to read is valued by many societies and the ability to read is considered most important aim of education (Strommen, & Mates, 2004; Turkyilmaz, Can, Yildirim, &Ates, 2014)。 From this, we can know that reading ability is valued so much that it can be seen as the most important goal in one’s education。 Therefore, students are encouraged to get command of reading skills and the educators are obliged to teach students how to read efficiently。 

Besides, there are two other vivid examples to illustrate the fact that greater importance has been attached to students’ reading skill。 They are the reform of the senior high school entrance examination as well as the reform of the English textbooks in middle school。

2。2 Researches on the Relationship between Students’Oral Reading Fluency and Reading Comprehension Ability

Most research reveals that there is a robust and significant relationship between reading comprehension and oral reading fluency in different grade levels (Good, Simmons, &  Kame’senui, 2001; NICHD, 2000; Rasinski, Samuels, Hiebert, Petscher, & Feller, 2011; Rasinski, Padak, McKeon, Krug-Wilfong, Friedauer, & Heim, 2005; Rasinski, Rikli, & Johnston, 2009)。 That is to say, though at different ages, children’s reading comprehension is positively related to their oral reading fluency。 A person, whose oral reading is fluent, is likely to have good reading comprehension。 And according to Mustafa Turkyilmaz’s research, we can know that students’ reading fluency, including silent reading fluency, oral reading fluency and retell fluency, can predict their performance in reading comprehension well。 The model (oral reading fluency, silent reading fluency and retell fluency) explained approximately 57% of total variance in reading comprehension (Turkyilmaz, Can, Yildirim&Ates, 2014)。 文献综述