Fluency Assessment Bryan Karazia

What? Fluency assessments provide information that will guide instruction and improve student outcomes (Hosp, Hosp, and Howell 2007). What does it consist of? Listening to students read. Collecting information about ORA, rate, and prosody. What should assessments provide? Reliable, consistent scores. Be a valid, meaningful source of data. Help make instructional decisions. Tests that are easy to administer and score. Data that is simple to interpret.

What? What is oral reading fluency (ORF)? Why is this important? The combination of reading rate and accuracy. Curriculum-based measurement is the tool used to measure ORF. Why is this important? It identifies students who are at risk in reading and those not making the appropriate progress. What is an acceptable ORF score? If the score falls within 10 words above or below the 50th percentile the student is within the expected range. See page 331 for ORF Norms. What should we do if a student falls below the expected range? Increase the frequency of testing to monitor the student. More diagnostic assessment, whatever is available to you at your school at that point in time. You may also use the chart on the bottom of page 335 to aid you in any questions about the causes of dysfluency. What if I want to measure comprehension? Use a Maze for Grades 4 and up. A Maze is a passage where about every 7th word is left out for the student to fill in, you may use a choice of words or have the student fill in their own.

What? What is prosodic reading? The expressiveness of oral speech. This is yet another step in oral reading fluency and is also able to be assessed. The assessment of prosodic reading is much more subjective since it is based on the opinion of the assessor.

Why? Why is Fluency Assessment important? Early identification of students who are not at the expected level is the key to preventing reading problems (Honig, Diamond, Gutlohn, p. 336). Why should we use ORF and not another form of assessment? Easy and time efficient to administer and score. Provides information to adjust instruction.

When? When should we screen students? At the start of the year when school begins. At least 3 times a year after this, the suggested times are fall, winter, and spring. If a student does not show adequate progress, assessment should be done at least one or two times each month.

How? How should we administer the ORF assessment? Step 1: Select an appropriate text, the passage should be at the student’s grade level, NOT at their actual reading level. (Passages should have about 250 words in them) Step 2: Set the timer for 1 minute. Have both your passage and the student’s passage ready. Step 3: Start the timer when then student reads the first word. DO NOT have them begin when you choose to start the timer. Step 4: When the timer goes off place a symbol after the last word the student read so that you may go back and record where they stopped. If they are in the middle of a sentence let them finish it but do not count the words they read after the timer has gone off. Step 5: Repeat steps 1-4 for two more grade level passages. What is an error and what is not? Errors: Mispronunciations, omissions, substitutions, transpositions, hesitations. Not Errors: Correct pronunciations, self-corrections, insertions, repetitions, dialect or accent differences. Why do we need 3 passages? To accurately determine the ORF score.

How? Total words read – errors = ORF score/WCPM How do we calculate the ORF score? We will be expressing this score as “words correct per minute” (WCPM) for the purposes of scoring. Total words read – errors = ORF score/WCPM Do this for all 3 passages, use the median score (the one between the high and the low scores) to graph progress and compare against the Norms. My student’s median ORF is below grade level, what do I do? Use less difficult passages progressively until the student meets the Norm for grade level. Once the student’s reading level has been determined, increase the difficulty of passages until grade-level fluency standards have been reached (Honig, Diamond, Gutlohn, p. 348). My student read the whole passage in less than one minute, what do I do? We can calculate a prorated score by using the following formula. 60 seconds x words correct / how many seconds it took them = ORF score/WCPM

How? I’ve got all this data, what in the world do I do now? We can monitor student progress on paper or digitally. Monitor visually, this way we can see the numerical analysis as well as the amount of growth. The sample page seen on p. 345 can be found in full page format on p. 791. If you plan on using this page or some variation of it, remember to put your aim line in first so you can see how the student progresses over time as compared to the goal. This same sheet can be simulated in excel, see pages 350 – 354 for instructions of how to do so. Weekly Growth Rates Grade 1: 2 – 3 words Grade 2: 1.5 – 2 words Grade 3: 1 – 1.5 words Grade 4: .85 – 1.1 words Grade 5: .5 - .8 words Grade 6: .3 - .65 words

How? How should I assess prosodic reading? Stress Phrasing Intonation Expression Pauses The full sheet version for this assessment is found on p. 787.

Conclusion The comprehensive assessment of fluency must include measures of oral reading accuracy, rate of oral reading, and quality of oral reading.” – Pikulski & Chard, 2005 “The ability to measure students’ levels of achievement and monitor their progress is key to successful fluency teaching” – Rasinski, 2004