Beyond Fluency: How Emotional and Physiological Responses Disrupt Reading Comprehension Among Fluent Grade 4 Readers

This study explores how emotional and physiological responses disrupt reading comprehension among Grade 4 learners who demonstrate fluent oral decoding but struggle to construct meaning from text. A qualitative descriptive phenomenological approach was employed in a private school in Digos City, Davao del Sur, Philippines. Ten Grade 4 learners identified as fluent readers with low comprehension were purposively selected through teacher recommendations and standardized fluency assessments. Data were gathered through semi-structured interviews, reading observation checklists, a real-time reading task, and brief observational evaluations of non-verbal behavioral and physical stress markers. The collected data were analyzed using Braun and Clarke's thematic analysis framework, with triangulation across multiple qualitative data sources to ensure trustworthiness and structural credibility. Five core themes emerged from the qualitative analysis: (1) emotional arousal at the immediate moment of meaning-making; (2) physiological responses signaling severe cognitive overload; (3) the hidden burden of instructional performance pressure; (4) surface-level strategies serving as emotional coping mechanisms; and (5) a compounding sequential emotional-physiological cascade. The findings indicate that reading comprehension breakdowns among fluent readers are not merely cognitive or linguistic deficits, but an intricate mind-body collapse triggered by evaluative anxiety. Consequently, the study concludes that educational institutions must reform current instructional paradigms to integrate emotional safety, cognitive pacing, and comprehension-focused evaluation mechanisms.