Effects of rate building on fluent performance: a review and commentary.
Rate-building’s extra magic—better retention, persistence, and generalization—doesn’t hold up when practice and rewards are kept the same.
01Research in Context
What this study did
The authors looked at every study they could find on rate-building. They wanted to see if faster practice really gives extra benefits. They checked for three big claims: kids keep the skill longer, use it in new places, and stick with it when work gets hard.
They only counted studies that held practice time and rewards the same. This matters because more practice or more praise alone could explain gains.
What they found
The review found very little proof for the extra benefits. When practice and rewards were equal, rate-building did not clearly beat regular practice. The special powers of fluency—better keeping, wider using, longer sticking—look shaky.
How this fits with other research
Cameron et al. (1996) showed that matching the reading level and using similar stories gave strong generalization gains. Their work hints that content choices, not speed drills, may drive transfer.
McIntyre et al. (2002) used precision-teaching tools in college courses. They focused on scoring accuracy, not speed. Their study shows the family tree is alive, but the leaves are different.
Cai et al. (2019) found vocabulary was the top predictor of reading fluency in Chinese deaf and hearing kids. This points to teaching more words, not just faster reading, as the key lever.
Domínguez et al. (2014) showed deaf adults lean on key-word strategies. This suggests that strategy training might matter more than raw speed for some learners.
Why it matters
Stop promising parents that speed drills alone will lock in skills. Use rate-building if you like the data clarity, but pair it with matched-level content and rich vocabulary work. Track retention and generalization yourself instead of trusting the hype.
Want CEUs on This Topic?
The ABA Clubhouse has 60+ free CEUs — live every Wednesday. Ethics, supervision & clinical topics.
Join Free →Run a quick A-B comparison: keep total practice minutes and praise equal, then compare retention after one week between rate-building and standard practice.
02At a glance
03Original abstract
The use of rate-building procedures to encourage the production of high response rates and to develop fluency has been increasingly justified by research on precision teaching and automaticity. Rate-building procedures often ensure both speed and accuracy, and claims have been made that such procedures result in greater retention, persistence, and generalization of trained skills, as well as preference by students. Given the potential importance of these claims for behavior analysts and educators alike, this review assesses the validity, generality, and implications of research on rate building. The review revealed sparse empirical evidence that retention, persistence, and generalization of skills result from the use of rate-building procedures when the effects of practice and reinforcement rate are controlled. Given the results of this review, the implications are discussed in the context of behavior-analytic research (e.g., behavioral momentum), and further research is recommended.
The Behavior analyst, 2004 · doi:10.1007/BF03392086