Oral Reading Fluency Norms

Learning disability experts Jan Hasbrouck and Gerald Tindal initiated extensive research on oral reading fluency.

This research involves recognizing the disability among the students of 1st to 6th grade.

In 2006, they concluded the survey and published their entire study of technical and analytical reports in a valuable edition entitled Oral Reading Fluency

Norms: A Valuable Assessment Tool for Reading Teachers.

After a decade, the learning scholars updated their field of research with more advanced analysis and various outcomes.

This edition is truly a remarkable invention for students who are struggling with reading disabilities and their treatment.

Children around the world are recognized with a significant reading disability rate.

However, detecting their disability at an early age is pretty challenging for the teachers.

However, the invention of ORF has facilitated the journey of the children battling against reading disability.

How to determine ORF score?

ORF is a simple process where a teacher instructs the students to read a standard unseen passage loudly.

The examiner or the teacher notes down the errors committed by the students.

The most common mistakes are incorrectly pronounced words, skipped words and readout of order, wrong pronunciation, and frequent pauses.

The examiner carefully calculates the entire number of errors and therefore calculates the words read correctly per minute or WCPM (Words Read Correctly per minute).

The WCPM score is crucial to indicate whether a student has the powerful reading ability from their primary grade.

The score also determines reading disabilities among the different students in the classroom.

Evaluating ORF scores

The two basic purposes of detecting ORF are:

a. Screening

b. Monitoring progress

At the same time, it also helps to determine a student's performance compared to his/her classmates and interpret the score as per the student's general progress.

To evaluate the progress, every teacher sets a benchmark of their scores, and as per the score results.

They determine whether the score is significant or below/above benchmarks.

Children with below benchmark scores are likely to have reading disabilities that can be cured under proper medical supervision under the guidance of trained teachers.

They can also monitor the progress after the proper assessment is done based on a weekly and monthly period.

If the outcome is pretty much progressive, the children are likely to have an average score after the completion of the entire training.

However, if there is any risk of disintegration, the parents can consult for better medical supervision.

Based on the results, teachers can determine:

a. Small or significant changes in their operations

b. Continue with the same instruction

c. Change the student's goal and plan further actions accordingly.

The progress graph shows moderate progress for maximum students and improves the quality of reading in each child.

Therefore, ORF data is an exclusive addition to students’ learning programs from the primary level itself.