Page 2: Determining the Appropriate Type and Level of CBM

Probes (Step 1)Students Performing at Grade Level

iris.peabody.vanderbilt.edu/module/rpm/cresource/q1/p02/

CBM probes assess key reading behaviors such as fluency

and word identification. The probes listed below can be used
to both assess a students current reading skills and to
monitor a students reading growth across the academic
year. Teachers can use these probes to determine whether a
student will be a proficient reader and whether she or he will
achieve subsequent reading benchmarks.
The first step in implementing CBM is to decide which
reading probe (or measure) is developmentally appropriate
for students. Below is a list of CBM measures listed by grade
level for students who are developing at a typical rate in
reading. (See the next page for guidelines on choosing the
appropriate probe for students who are not reading at grade level.) These measures can be used to monitor
students reading progress across the year. Click on each measure to see an example of a corresponding probe.

Reading Measures
Kindergarten
Letter Sound Fluency:
Source: Fuchs, Fuchs, & Powell (2004).
View Description
Letter Sound Fluency: The Teacher Score Sheet of the Letter Sound Fluency assessment provides script for the
teacher to read to the student when administering the assessment. Underneath the teacher script is the actual score
sheet with places to record the students name, teachers name, school, examiners initials, and date of testing. Also
on the score sheet is the heading Letter Sound Fluency Test with shortened assessment directions. The letters of
the alphabet of which the students will indicate the letter-sound are listed in a row for assessor notation. The final
two lines of the score sheet include blanks for the number of letters sounded correctly and the time in which they
were named, as well as the adjusted score if the test was completed in less than one minute. The student copy of
the Letter Sound Fluency has four lettersb, c, h, and ain a box for the practice portion of the assessment.
Underneath the boxed letters are five rows of five letters each for which the student will indicate the letter-sound.
The letters are not in alphabetic order.
The student is given a sheet of randomized letters and asked to say as many sounds corresponding to the letters as
possible in one minute. This test must be administered to each child individually. Choose this assessment if you are
interested in measuring students progress toward decoding.

First Grade
Word Identification Fluency:
Word Identification Fluency Teacher Score Sheet

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Letter Sound Fluency Teacher Score Sheet

Teacher: Im going to show you some letters. You can tell me what sound the letters make. You may
know the sound for some letters. For other letters, you may not know the sounds. If you dont know
the sound a letter makes, dont worry. Okay? Whats most important is that you try your best. Ill
show you how this activity works. My turn first. (Refer to the practice portion of the CBM LSF sheet.)
This says /b/. Your turn now. What sound does it say? Student: /b/ Examiner: Very good. You told me
what sound the letter makes. Youre doing a really good job. Now it will be just your turn. Go as
quickly and carefully as you can. Remember to tell me the sounds the letters make. Remember just
try your best. If you dont know the sounds its okay.

Letter
Sound
Fluency

Student
Copy

Trigger the stopwatch.

Teacher: When I say Go, I want you to read these words as quickly and correctly as you can. Start here (point to
the first word) and go down the page (run your finger down the first column). If you dont know a word, skip it and try
the next word. Keep reading until I say stop. Do you have any questions? Trigger the stopwatch for 1 minute.
Students Name _____________________

Examiners Initials ________

Students Teacher ____________________

Date ____________

Score 1 for a correct response, 0 for an incorrect response.

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that

school

brought

for

say

line

by

land

probably

her

enough

close

up

live

table

them

against

strong

has

city

past

than

knew

friends

now

state

rest

water

wanted

having

must

four

full

me

toward

instead

come

move

case

still

power

worked

found

feel

alone

here

given

street

large

eat
Total Score__________

Source: Fuchs, Fuchs, & Powell (2004).

The student is asked to read as many words as possible in one minute. Words are randomly selected from a list of
the 500 most frequent sight words. This test must be administered to each child individually.

Mid-First Grade Through Sixth Grade

Passage Reading Fluency:
Passage Reading Fluency Teacher Copy
Teacher: I want you to read this story to me. Youll have one minute to read. When I say begin, start reading aloud
at the top of the page. Do your best reading. If you have trouble with a word, Ill tell it to you. Do you have any
questions? Begin.
Trigger the time for 1 minute.

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Summertime in the big city had always been hot, but this year it

13

seemed to be unbearable. The air was lifeless and the smells of the city

27

were multiplying until it began to remind Yolanda of one big dirty

39

clothes hamper.

41

Yolanda lived on the twelfth floor of a forty-story high-rise

53

apartment building, on the east side of the city near the river. The

66

apartment was too small for the five people in her family and much too

80

hot. Ma opened the windows in hopes of catching a breeze. Yolanda

92

and her sister Jackie offered to run to the store anytime Ma needed

105

something just so they could stand in a place that had air conditioning.

118

Yolanda was thirteen years old; too old to play on the kiddie

130

playground and too young to get a summer job. She spent most of the

144

time sitting on the front steps of the apartment building watching the

156

traffic go by. She and her friends sometimes played hopscotch.

166

One morning as Yolanda was watching TV she saw a

176

commercial that gave her an idea. It was a lemonade commercial. It

188

advertised that lemonade was cool and refreshing, just the drink to

199

quench a summer thirst.

203

Yolanda ran down to the corner store to buy some lemonade

214

supplies. She bought a package of paper cups for two dollars and two

227

pounds of lemons for 60 cents a pound. She also got a small bag of

241

sugar in case the lemons were too sour. She wanted to make the best

255

lemonade ever sold on East Street.

261

Yolanda made two gallons of lemonade, added two teaspoons of

271

sugar for taste, gathered the cups and ice, and went downstairs to set up

285

her lemonade stand. She set it up in front of the building and sold four

300

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glasses in fifteen minutes. She charged 10 cents per cup so she had

312

only made 40 cents.

315

Then Yolandas friend Clare came by and offered to make signs

326

advertising Yolandas business. Clare took the signs and placed them

336

near the street. Around 5 oclock a big traffic jam had stopped traffic

348

on East Street. Drivers were hot and angry, and Clare carried cups of

361

lemonade to them to calm them down. Some were so grateful that they

374

tossed dollars out of their windows.

380

By the end of the day, the two young businesswomen had made

392

$30. Yolanda split the profits with Clare, and they agreed to open the

404

stand at ten oclock the next morning.

411

Ill bet we can make $50 tomorrow if we have another traffic

422

jam! called Yolanda to Clare with a smile.

Total Score

_____
Source: Fuchs, Fuchs, & Powell (2004).

The student reads a passage for one minute. The passages difficulty is based on the students expected end-ofyear reading competence. The score is the number of words he or she read correctly per minute. This test must be
administered to each student individually.
Click here to review research findings about Passage Reading Fluency.
One of the most important CBM measures used with students in grades 1.5 6 is Oral Reading Fluency (ORF) also
known as Passage Reading Fluency. This measure assesses how many words a student reads correctly per
minute. In the challenge, Ms. Begay was concerned with having to assess so many different reading skills. Oral
Reading Fluency has been shown to be a reliable measure of overall reading ability including comprehension.
Oral Reading Fluency is considered a good measure of reading ability.
Authors
Fuchs, Fuchs, &
Maxwell, 1988;
Jenkins & Jewell,
1993

Findings
ORF is a good performance indicator of comprehension ability as well as general reading
ability.

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Deno, Mirkin, &

Chiang, 1982

A higher correlation was found between oral reading tasks and standardized
comprehension tests than between cloze comprehension measures (tasks that require the
student to fill in the blank or cloze the given item) and standardized tests of comprehension.

Fuchs, Fuchs, &

Maxwell, 1988

A higher correlation was found between oral reading scores and standardized tests of
reading comprehension than between three informal measures of comprehension (question
answering, written recall, and written cloze) and the standardized tests.

Fourth Grade Through Sixth Grade

Maze Fluency:
Maze Fluency Student Copy
SUMMER CAMP
Stuart had nice parents. They did not embarrass him in [ glad/ front/ yellow] of his friends. His father did
[not/ ant/ soft] yell at him during his baseball [ center/ games/ lines], and his mother never kissed him
[in/ tot/ put] front of his friends. He generally [ liked/ flow/ jeep] his parents, except for the fact
[show/ went/ that] they were sending him to summer [ bus/ dump/ camp] this year.

Stuart did not want [to/ wit/ cow] go to summer camp. The thought [ and/ be/ of] it made him picture
himself hot [coat/ rest/ and] thirsty, hiking up a dusty trail. [Bit/ He/ Go] knew that summer camp food had
[of/ to/ my] be bad news, too. Besides, summer [ camp/ free/ dog] was for people with nothing else
[fad/ to/ sew] do. He had plenty of things planned [for/ much/ very] his summer at home.

Summer camp [will/ yes/ belt] be good for you, said Mother. [Feel/ And/ Lot ] I dont want to hear
another [catch/ phone/ word] about it! Stuart moped around the [ beat/ opens/ house] until it was time
to go. Mother [had/ with/ boy] packed his trunk full of clothes, [and/ sort/ time] she and Dad took Stuart
to [real/ glob/ the] bus station. Stuart tried hard not [to/ sun/ we] cry when he hugged them goodbye.
[Yet/ He/ Sat] ran onto the bus and buried [beam/ his/ neat] head in his hands. After a [ while/ tall/ hate],
he looked out the window.
Source: Fuchs, Fuchs, & Powell (2004).
The student reads a passage for two-and-a-half minutes. In the passage, every seventh word has been deleted and
three possible choices offered. The student circles the word that best fits the meaning of the phrase or sentence in
the passage. The childs score is the number of correct replacements he or she makes. That this test can be
administered to a group makes the Maze Fluency probe easier to administer than the Passage Reading Fluency
probe.

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CBM reading tests, called probes, are easy to obtain and cost-effective.
Pre-packaged probes can be used with any reading curriculum and are available from many sources.
Click here to find available CBM reading probes.
Company/Title

Description

Contact

AIMSweb/
Edformation

Computer software which graphs and

analyzes student scores.

http://www.aimsweb.com
Phone: 866-313-6194

DIBELS

The DIBELS Data System allows

teachers to enter students test scores
and generates automated reports. The
cost for this service is $1 per student,
per year.

http://dibels.uoregon.edu

Edcheckup

Online assessment system administers

and scores tests. Reports and graphs
are automatically generated that follow
class and student progress. Guidelines
for setting annual goals and evaluating
student progress are provided.

http://www.edcheckup.com
Phone: 952-229-1440
Mail:
WebEdCo
7701 York Avenue South Suite 250
Edina, MN 55435

McGraw-Hill

Yearly ProgressPro(TM) assesses

students weekly via computer and
graphs their scores, then makes
instructional recommendations based on
their scores.

http://www.mhdigitallearning.com
Phone: 1-800-848-1567
ext. 4928

CBM
Warehouse

This site offers several free downloads

to assist teachers with administering
probes and graphing students data
using computers.

http://www.interventioncentral.org/cbm_warehouse

Fuchs, L. S., & Fuchs, D., 2004

CBM reading probes can be created by teachers.
Click here to learn how to create your own probes.
Although CBM passages are easy to obtain and cost-effective, it is also possible to make your own CBM reading
probes.
Make Your Own Reading Probes
What you will
need:

Directions:

Tips:

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Student basal
reader (e.g.,
Houghton
Mifflin, Silver
Burdett & Ginn)

1. Divide the basal reader into three fairly even chunks

from front to back; this will cover all skills from the
beginning of the year to the end.
2. Select an equal number of passages at random from
each section to use as probes.
3. Count the words in each passage. Passages should
be long enough to ensure that a good reader wont
run out of words in a minute. Approximately 400
words is usually enough, but this may vary according
to grade level.
4. Make an examiner copy and a student copy of the
passage.

Passages should be
prose and should not
contain an abundance
of dialogue, proper
nouns, or foreign
words.
Poetry and drama
should be avoided.
Passages should be
free of illustrations that
may help students to
decipher the content.

5. On the examiner copy, count the words on each line

and put the total in the right margin so that you can
easily score how many words a student gets correct.
6. Organize all probes and other materials needed for
administering them (graphing materials, stopwatch,
pens and pencils, student folders, etc.) in one area of
your classroom.

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