Fluency and Assessment in Reading for the Third Grade Student
Emily DeGrange
EDU 325
FLUENCY AND ASSESSMENT IN READING FOR THE THIRD GRADE STUDENT
Fluency and Assessment in Reading for the Third Grade Student
Billy is a homeschooled third grade student with seven other siblings, both older and
younger, and learns at home in a rural area with four of his seven siblings. Billys mother
expressed that Billy excels in math, but performs average to below average in English language
arts. His mother was concerned about Billys reading ability and said that he struggles especially
with spelling and writing. He has low engagement in most school subjects, but is especially
unmotivated by reading and has difficulty staying on task. Billy needs extra explanations and
instructions with new topics, and it is reported that it can take him longer to pick up new
material. Billys mother wants to figure out how Billy is progressing in reading in comparison to
other grade level peers. Overall Billy is getting As and Bs in most of his school subjects with the
exception of writing and some other English language arts domains. He is especially strong in
math but lacks a general engagement and motivation in all of his other subjects. According to his
teacher, Billy works better in a group setting and loves to tell stories and learn new random facts.
Billys main weaknesses are in spelling and grammar. He also has a short attention span and
becomes frustrated very easily and throws anger fits when he is frustrated. Billys teacher often
has to go over directions for new assignments multiple times and has to change her wording with
Billy to make sure that he understands the directions for various assignments.
Procedures
When I was preparing to do my student assessment testing, I reached out to my mother
because I knew I would soon be visiting home. My mother expressed special concerns with one
of my younger brothers reading level. For privacy purposes, I will call my little brother Billy. I
asked my mother to give me some information about Billys progress and how she has been
FLUENCY AND ASSESSMENT IN READING FOR THE THIRD GRADE STUDENT
helping him. She sent me a list of his grades, academic strengths and weaknesses and anything
she has been trying or noticed that has helped his academic performance.
When I went home, I sat down with Billy and asked if he would do a little test with me. I
was clear with him that the test did not have a grade value attached to it, but was simply to check
his progress in reading. While doing the Oral Reading Fluency (ORF) DIBELS assessment, Billy
started the first passage extremely fast and would slow down throughout the passage as he
started to hit words that he could not read with automaticity. After reading each of the oral
reading passages, I assessed Billys Retell Fluency (RF) by having him verbalize as much as he
could remember about each passage in his own words. For the Word Use Fluency (WUF)
assessment, I explained to my brother that he would have to use each word in a sentence, as long
and creative and funny as he wanted the sentence to be, as long as he used the word correctly. As
I mentioned above, my mother told me that my brother really likes to tell stories and has a wild
imagination. This came out especially during the WUF assessment because Billy got very long
and creative with his sentence choices.
In addition to the DIBELS assessments mentioned above, I also completed the Word
Reading (WR) 1-minute probe produced by the University of Oregon. I did three different probes
with Billy each of a varying difficulty level. By the time we finished the DIBELS assessment,
Billy was starting to get very tired of testing. He was losing motivation and had a tough time
completing all three of the WR probes.
To find Billys scores and how his scores compared with grade level peers, I compared
his scores to the official DIBELS scoring guide which determined which RTI tier the student
should be placed in based on his or her score. For the 1-minute probes, I had no documents to
provide an average baseline to determine how Billy compared with other grade level peers, but
FLUENCY AND ASSESSMENT IN READING FOR THE THIRD GRADE STUDENT
the WR probe results are still helpful in charting progress as the same could be given to Billy
throughout the year to see how he has improved over a span of time.
Assessments Given
It was decided that Billy would complete the Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy
Skills (DIBELS) assessment which is a Curriculum Based Measure (CBM) used nationally to
help place students in a specific tier in the Response to Intervention (RTI) program. The higher
tiers in the RTI program focus more intensely on individualized interventions for those students
who are struggling the most in reading. The DIBELS assessment is especially effective because
it can be used easily and effectively with a large group of students and helps to streamline the
benchmarking process making progress monitoring accessible for all students (Hoffman, Jenkins,
& Dunlap, 2009).
ORF is the main test of DIBELS for the third grade. By third grade, typically developing
students should have a solid understanding of phonemic awareness. Language Arts focuses less
on individual sounds and graphemes by the third grade and more on the constructions of
language and the meaning behind specific words. The ORF assessment is important because it
compares a students rate to his accuracy in reading so as to figure out if and where a student
struggles in the mental process and mechanics of reading. Research has shown a very strong
positive correlation between ORF at the elementary level and a students future Silent Reading
Fluency (SRF) at the secondary level (Seok, 2014). The National Reading Panel (NRP) upholds
fluency as one of the five pillars of reading instruction. By third grade, students should be
focusing less on the actual process of decoding and more on the comprehension and
understanding of language (Pavri, 2012). Fluency ultimately helps to predict a students
comprehension level (Fuchs, Fuchs, Hosp, & Jenkins, 2001).
FLUENCY AND ASSESSMENT IN READING FOR THE THIRD GRADE STUDENT
The second assessment in the DIBELS testing is the RF probe which assesses a students
comprehension, understanding and recall of a passage (Noltemeyer, Joseph, & Watson, 2014).
This assessment is given right after the student read through an ORF passage. This is extremely
important because an educator needs to be sure that a student gaining information from a piece of
text as well as reading through the passage completely. I student may be able to read through a
piece of text perfectly, but if they did not understand what was read than the educator needs to
address the students comprehension issues.
The WUF assessment is a measure concerning vocabulary and comprehension skills. The
student is given a word and asked to use that word correctly in a sentence. The assessment also
helps give teachers insight into a students sentence skills and how well they can come up with
content to write about. The WR probes are not part of the DIBELS assessment but are still an
appropriate progress monitoring tool to help educators. The WR probes help to test a students
fluency with isolating just specific words. Instead of reading whole passages, the student is
reading only a list of grade level words out of context. This helps to see how well the student can
read words without cheating and relying on contextual cues to guess the word.
Results and Analysis
Word Reading CBM
CBM Score
Form 3.3
50
Form 3.4
Retell53
Fluency
CBM
54
Form 3.5
CBM Score
Benchmark 1.1
AVERAGE SCORE
52
30
Benchmark 1.2
32
Benchmark 1.3
54
analyzing Billys results, not all of
AVERAGE SCORE
39
given had scoring guides to for the
Table 1
When
the assessments
Table 2
FLUENCY AND ASSESSMENT IN READING FOR THE THIRD GRADE STUDENT
educator to use. Both the WR CBM and the RF CBMs did not have scoring guides so there is not
a baseline to compare Billys scores to. However, there is still a lot of information that be
gleaned from the raw data. With all three WR assessments, Billy stayed fairly consistent (Table
1). Consistent scores give evidence to the assessments reliability because the WR assessment
produced consistent scores even when given using slightly different versions of the assessment.
These scores can really be valuable if the educator was to given the WR CBM to Billy at other
times throughout the academic year and chart his scores to show progress and help the teacher to
plan reading instruction. One phenomenon to note is that while Billys number of words read
correctly stayed consistent throughout the probes, his number of errors did not. Billy only made
two errors on the first and easiest probe, while he made nine errors on the last and most difficult
probe.
The RF scores, though also not comparable to a national benchmark, also offer valuable
insight into Billys comprehension of a passage. The RF assessment is administered immediately
after the ORF assessment in which the administrator simply asks the students what they
remember about the passage and then records the number of words in their answer. When
looking at Billys scores, it is interesting to note the huge jump between Benchmark 1.2 and 1.3
(Table 2). When comparing the RF scores to the ORF words correct scores (Table 4), a negative
correlation is noted. The harder the passage the lower the words correct score and the higher the
retell score. One explanation for this is that Billy read through the first passage as quickly as
possible resulting in a higher amount of words read but a lower comprehension level. By the
time Billy got to the last passage, he had learned to slow down his pace and thus was able to
comprehend more of what was read, accounting for the extremely high RF score on his final
reading passage.
FLUENCY AND ASSESSMENT IN READING FOR THE THIRD GRADE STUDENT
100
90
80
70
60
Billy's Scores (Mean)
50
National Average
40
30
20
10
0
ORF Assessment Words Correct
WUF Assessment
Table 3
Billy started out reading the first ORF passage very fast and then slowed down as soon as
he started to trip up on his words due to the fast pace at which he was reading. As a whole, Billy
did not seem to struggle too much with decoding. The overall flow of the sentences and passages
he read was not very smooth and the words were read with a choppy rhythm. Billy did well on
the first passage and had few errors except for skipping an entire line of text. His error can be
attributed to the inappropriate pace at which he was reading. By the time he read through the
third oral reading passage, Billy had slowed down and it was apparent that he found the third
passage much more difficult than the first. Billy above average for his ORF passage reading.
According to norms produced by Hosp and Fuchs, Billy scored just above the 50th percentile in
his fluency putting him in Tier 1 of RTI with the rest of his grade level peers (Hosp & Fuchs,
2005). Tier 1 status indicates that Billy does not need any special interventions in oral reading.
However, Billy scored in the intensive category for accuracy of his reading with a score of only
91%. An intensive score puts Billy in the third tier of RTI which means that Billy needs intensive
individualized interventions in fluency, particularly with building up accuracy. Most of the words
FLUENCY AND ASSESSMENT IN READING FOR THE THIRD GRADE STUDENT
that Billy erred on in his reading were high frequency sight words such as: is, in, we, me, the,
and my. Though this is an intensive score, in my opinion the score is slightly skewed because in
one of the passages, Billy skipped an entire line of text which drastically increased his total
numbers of errors and may not have been an accurate depiction of his ability. Billy may need to
be retested in fluency.
ORF Benchmark
Total Words Read
# of Errors
Words Correct
Accuracy
%
Benchmark 1.1
111
16
95
86
Benchmark 1.2
75
68
91
Benchmark 1.3
66
64
97
AVERAGE SCORE
76
76
91
Table 4
WUF Word
# of words in sentence
Correct/Incorrect
Kit
19
Correct
Hint
10
Correct
Bird
14
Correct
Castle
14
Correct
Table 5
With the WUF assessment, Billy was only able to come up with descriptions for four
words in the allotted time for the assessment. However, he created long sentences for each of the
four words he was asked to use in context (Table 5). Billy was effectively able to use each word
in its appropriate context. His word fluency score well exceeded the core score for his grade
level not only at the beginning of the year but for the score at the end of the year as well
according to the official DIBELS scoring guide. This means that Billy should excel in word use
fluency in the general classroom with grade level peers.
FLUENCY AND ASSESSMENT IN READING FOR THE THIRD GRADE STUDENT
Areas Targeted for Improvement
Targeted Area A
When looking at Billys raw data, one can see that he ultimately is a well-rounded
reader excelling in all areas of reading except fluency. As mentioned above, the NRP cites
fluency as one of the five essential pillars of reading (Pavri, 2012). Billy scored low in
accuracy on his ORF passages demonstrating that he needs special Tier 3 interventions in
accuracy according to the DIBELS scoring guide. Billy read through his first ORF
passage extremely fast and then started to slow down as he started making errors due to
his inappropriately quick pace. His retell fluency had the lowest score on the passage he
read the fastest and the highest on the passage he read the slowest.
Billy reads too fast and becomes easily frustrated and unfamiliar words and
instead of using decoding strategies, he simply skips over words and tries to continue just
reading fast to get through the passage instead of reading for comprehension. According
to language statistics, 100 words make up for about 50% of printed words (Carroll,
Davies, and Richman, 1971). If a student was to have explicit instruction on these 100
sight words, the student would be able to focus less on decoding and be able to read
fluently through those high-frequency sight words with ease. One strategy to help Billy
learn these high-frequency sight words is to have a high-frequency word wall in the
classroom. Billy could go on a treasure hunt through grade-level texts to find words that
show up a lot and the teacher could add other high-frequency words that the student and
the teacher could explicitly practice on a daily basis as part of the morning meeting
(Beers, 2003). Students could have a chart or a check list of high-frequency sight words
that they have mastered so as to track their own progress.
FLUENCY AND ASSESSMENT IN READING FOR THE THIRD GRADE STUDENT
Sight word instruction is vital to the success of reading fluency and
comprehension. Students will not properly be able to read a text if they cannot get
through basic words. Learning sight words is a great way to increase comprehension of a
text. Another strategy for learning high frequency sight words aside from the word wall is
reading connected text. Connected texts are short sentences which are inclusive of the
sight word to be learned so that students have a chance to learn the sight word in context.
Sight words often have abstract meanings and can be confusing to emergent readers.
Connected text takes sight word instruction to the next level (Alberto, Waugh, Fredrick,
and Davis, 2003).
Targeted Area B
Billy struggled with his reading rate which is a large part of fluency in reading.
Another area of improvement that Billy could work on is expression in fluency. Billy
read through all of his ORF passages in a monotone voice with a very disjointed rhythm.
His robotic reading affected his fluency which is shown in Billys raw data by his low
accuracy score (Table 3). The way that the voice moves in reading, the tone with which a
passage is read, the loudness and the pitch of reading are all the prosodic features that
make up the expression aspect of fluency (Couper-Kuhlen, 1986).
In trying to help students with expression in reading, it is important to model
appropriate expression in reading. Teachers can model what reading should sound like
through a guided practice strategy called choral reading. Choral reading is where the
teacher and a small group of students all read the same passage at the same time. Choral
readings usually highlights one specific aspect of prosody at a time. Groups of students
FLUENCY AND ASSESSMENT IN READING FOR THE THIRD GRADE STUDENT
10
can alternate reading for certain characters or in different tones to help emphasize specific
features of the text (Beers, 2003).
For students like Billy who scored in the third tier of RTI and need the most
individualized intervention, another effective strategy to help improve fluency through
reading expression is taped reading. Taped reading is the strategy where students read
along with a tape recorded read-aloud of a text. Taped reading is especially effective
because the student is in control of the read-aloud. The student can not only practice
reading appropriately at his or her convenience along with the recording, but a student
like Billy could pause, rewind, and slow down the recording of the reading when needed.
He can use the taped recording as a model to imitate and practice without the pressure
and insecurity of having to practice in front of an actual person (Alber-Morgan, 2010). To
help him monitor his progress in reading expression, Billy could record himself weekly
reading a passage aloud and listen back to the recording for using on the expression and
fluency of the passage.
Conclusion
After collecting and analyzing all of the DIBELS assessment information, it is important
to then use the data to decide how to best use the data to inform Billys future instruction. It has
already been demonstrated above that Billy struggles in reading fluency. The CBMs that Billy
completed helped to demonstrate that Billy is a good reader but that he would benefit from direct
instruction in tools and strategies which he can use to become a more fluent reader. Through
these strategies, Billy will not only read a passage proficiently but will glean as much
information as possible from the reading passage so as to ensure mastery of information.
FLUENCY AND ASSESSMENT IN READING FOR THE THIRD GRADE STUDENT
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One benefit that I learned about using CBMs is the extremely practical use of progress
monitoring that the DIBELS assessment especially provides for students. The same DIBELS
assessment could be given monthly to Billy and using a graph or a chart, I could track his
progress against himself. The scoring guides containing the national benchmarks are helpful in
comparing Billy to the rest of his grade-level peers. I think though more importantly than
comparing Billy to his peers, I would use the DIBELS assessments to compare Billy to himself.
If I was to administer the DIBELS to Billy again in a few weeks and he has made little to no
improvement, than I would know that Billy needs some more intense interventions and new
strategies.
Another take-away with the DIBELS assessment that I had never thought about before
with the CBMs is that in listening to Billy read aloud, I can track not only the objective data in
the number of errors made while reading, but also the more subjective points of his reading such
as the type of errors that Billy read. I feel that in this instance, listening to how Billy read told me
more about Billys reading level than what Billy read. For one of the ORF passages, Billy may
have read 76 words correctly, but his choppy rhythm and disjointed reading patterns indicated
more about his struggles in reading fluency than the objective number of errors that he made.
Throughout the assessment process, I learned more deeply how CBMs can inform instruction to
ensure that every child is receiving the effective instruction they need to become the best reader
they can be.
FLUENCY AND ASSESSMENT IN READING FOR THE THIRD GRADE STUDENT
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