Test of Silent Word Reading Fluency Presented by Chinwe Okenyi EDSP 5311 Dr. Fontenot Houston Baptist University, Spring 2016

TOSWRF2

What is Test of Silent Word Reading Fluency? Is a theoretically sound, research-based method of assessing the silent reading ability of school-age students in a quick, accurate and cost-efficient way.

Test Description The test has 7 components: manual, the administration & scoring instructions, the Supplemental Scoring Practice Booklet, 4 equivalent forms (A, B, C, D) Test provides raw scores, age & grade equivalents, index scores, percentile ranks The test be used by classroom teachers, special education teachers, reading specialists, school psychologist, speech pathologists or any other professionals

Test Description Students are presented with 220 unrelated printed words ordered from preprimer to adult level with no spaces between the words (eg. dimhowfigblue) – Students are given 3 minutes to draw a line between the boundaries of as many words as possible (eg. Dim/ how/ fig/ blue) Most uses require only the administration of a single form- occasionally, you will want to administer two of the alternate forms concurrently (when qualifying a student for special instruction) because this procedure will increase the reliability of the results

Purpose  Measures a student’s ability to recognize printed words accurately and efficiently.  Measures a student’s current reading skill level by identifying the number of printed words they can recognize in a 3 minute time period.

Aspects of Reading Measured by the Test TOSWRF-2 primarily a measure of word identification, word comprehension & reading speed ( which is also known as silent reading fluency) Because test scores reflect competence in so many aspects of reading, its results can also be taken as a valid estimate of general reading ability and can be used to identify poor readers with confidence

Aspects of Reading Measured by the Test  The ability to recognize words quickly is called fluency as describe by Ehri (1998, 2000) as being essential to efficient reading.  Silently as in silent reading is the ability to recognize printed words quickly as it is influenced by the extend of a student’s vocabulary knowledge  Speed in recognizing words promotes both fluency and comprehension.  Slow word recognition is a common characteristics of poor readers (Stein,2001)

Types of Scores  Raw score  Standard score  Percentile rank  Age equivalent  Grade Equivalent  Description rating

Uses of the Test Identification- Early identification of those who are at-risk is the key to preventing reading failure Universal Screening- Efficient & cost effective universal screening measure since the test can be easily administered to individuals, small groups of students or entire classes in less than 6 minutes and scored quickly Comprehensive Diagnostic Assessment- Once identified, a more comprehensive assessment can help determine the causes of reading difficulties, the specific reading skills that need remediation, and the types of intervention required

Uses of the Test  Progress Monitoring- suggested by the National Reading Panel, that frequent monitoring of growth in essential reading skills is an important part of any effective reading program  Research on the Nature of Reading- Can be used to measure context-free word level reading ability in research studies, to document growth in reading intervention research, or to select students for participation in research studies.

Strenghts  Quick to administer  High degree of reliability  Normative information was extended downward to include ages 6 years 3 months and upward to include ages 6 years 3 moths through 24 years 11 month  Alternate forms were increased from two to four.  Can assess two skills (sight words and decoding)  Explicit Instructions  Evidence for validity has been expanded to include studies by independent researchers as well as by the test authors.  Measured of general reading and reading fluency

Limitation  Expensive  Valid yet mention to continue researching  Normative data not fully equitable