Fluency Assessment

I chose to present Oliver with a Fluency Passage while evaluating the student’s

expression, phrasing, smoothness, and pace while reading text at the third-grade level. While the

student read, I used the Multidimensional Fluency Scale to measure the aforementioned reading

fluency characteristics of the student. The passage I chose to implement was called “A Good

Friend”. During this exercise, the student was given one minute to read as much of the passage

as he could. While the student was to read as much of the passage as he can, he was also to be

judged on accuracy. Oliver focused largely on the pronunciation of his words. His voice was

quieter than usual while reading the passage. Because of this, he scored a 2 under Expression and

Volume. Oliver read with a mixture of run-ons during this passage. When he approached a

challenging word, he broke his rhythm and paused to think about the word. Because of this,

Oliver scored a 3 in Phrasing and Smoothness. While reading, Oliver got distracted when he saw

two of his classmates in the hallway. He stopped reading to say hello to them. Oliver read at a

moderately slow pace but impressed me with his ability to comprehend the text. Because of his

moderately slow reading speed, he scored a 2 under Pace.

Even though the student did not finish the text within one minute, I let him keep reading

so he might be able to answer the review questions at the end of the text. After reading the

passage out loud, Oliver was able to answer the review questions correctly. The student was able

to read 66 words of this passage in a minute. However, he had 6 errors while reading, bringing

his WCPM (words correct per minute) down to 60. At the beginning of a third-grade year,

students are expected to read a minimum of 71 WCPM in the Fall. Third-grade students are

expected to read 107 WCPM entering the spring season. This means that Oliver is not reading on

grade level.