Teaching Strategies

Teaching Strategy: Assessing Fluency

An important issue in reading assessment is the measurement of oral reading fluency. In From Phonics to Fluency (2001), Rasinski and Padak describe fluency as "the ability to read expressively, meaningfully, with appropriate phrasing, and with appropriate speed" (p.197). In their research, Rasinski and Padak have found several research studies that indicate that reading rate is an overall predictor of reading proficiency. To measure the reading rate of your student, complete the following steps.

• Choose a work of literature or text that is at the student's instructional level and that is appropriate for oral reading.
• Instruct the child to read aloud to you at their normal, comfortable pace. Follow along and take notes on your own copy of the text.
• There are two options for measuring the child's reading rate: you may time the reading and stop the child after 60 seconds, or you may allow the child to read for a longer period and time how long the child reads. If you allow the child to read longer than 60 seconds, use this formula:

Reading rate in words per minute (wpm) = number of words in the passage, divided by the number of seconds the child read, times 60.

• Obtain several samples of the child's oral reading over a period of two or three days so that you have a fair sampling of the child's ability.
• Use the table below to determine the child's approximate rate of oral reading; bear in mind that Rasinski and Padak note that these rates are based upon second semester measures.