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Fluency growth is one of the clearest signs that a student is becoming a stronger reader. Tracking words correct per minute (wcpm) provides reliable data for teachers and can be highly motivating for students.

Read Live has always included progress monitoring features that show teachers and students their progress within each story and throughout the levels they’re assigned. However, as students advance through multiple levels within a single school year (which can influence their fluency rate), it can be difficult to clearly and concisely show their actual growth from the start to the end of the school year.

That’s why we are very excited to announce the release of a new feature now available within Read Live: Periodic Assessment of Fluency (PAF)! PAF provides a streamlined method for teachers to measure the oral reading fluency of a student working in Read Naturally Live (RNL) using passages from outside that program a few times throughout the school year.

How Does It Work? 

PAF allows teachers the option to conduct one-minute timings to measure a student’s wcpm score at multiple points during the school year using a consistent set of passages at the same reading level*.

*PAF testing becomes available once a student has an RNL assignment in a given school year. To minimize the practice effect, each PAF assessment during the rest of the year becomes available 10 weeks after a completed assessment.

Testing Level

Before conducting a student’s initial PAF assessment, the teacher will need to confirm that their RNL assignment is appropriate. The PAF testing level is set based on this assignment* so that the passages align closely with the student’s instructional level.

Instructional-level assessments are especially useful when students are reading significantly below grade level as they give students the opportunity to actually demonstrate their abilities. While grade-level assessments work very well for benchmarking, they can sometimes be discouraging or give a misleading picture of a struggling student’s progress.

A student’s PAF testing level remains the same throughout the school year (defined in Read Live as July 1–June 30) to ensure that scores are based on a consistent measure and not influenced by increasing passage difficulty.

*A student’s PAF testing level will be close to—but not always an exact match with—their initial RNL assignment level of that year. An RNL assignment that is a reasonable match for the student's instructional level will work for the testing level for the duration of the school year even as the student's RNL assignment changes.

Assessment Process

A teacher* may choose to conduct PAF assessments at their convenience, ideally conducting the first assessment early in the year and then every 10 weeks until the end of the year for the most complete picture of students’ growth across a school year. The assessment is available through the Teacher Menu in the RNL student module.

Each assessment should only take a few minutes, and it’s advisable to complete each assessment in one sitting. The process is very similar to conducting a cold or hot timing: the teacher listens to the student read for one minute, counts the number of errors, and then inputs that number so the program may calculate their wcpm score. Ideally, the teacher will conduct two valid timings so that PAF can average the scores. If only one valid timing is completed, PAF saves that single score.

*Teachers can conduct PAF assessments and view reports for any students for whom they are the lead teacher and any students who do not have a lead teacher. Account administrators and school coordinators can conduct PAF assessments and view reports for all students.

Notifications

When PAF testing is available for a student (once they have an RNL assignment and then ten weeks after a completed assessment), a bell icon  will appear in the top banner of the RNL student module and a graph icon  will appear on the Student Activity page of the staff member module until the assessment for the window is complete. Teachers may choose to disable PAF (and therefore its notifications) for an individual or multiple students on the story options page if they decide not to use it.

Reports

After each PAF assessment, the data is added to a report that includes the assessment dates, the student’s wcpm scores, the number of valid timings, and the average number of RNL stories completed per week between assessments. The PAF report makes it easy to see how much a student’s fluency is improving throughout the school year, as well as how this growth relates to their efforts working in RNL.

Start Assessing Today!

We’re thrilled about this fantastic addition to Read Live and hope it will be a valuable asset in your classroom. We look forward to hearing about your experiences with PAF and the progress your students make this year. If you have questions as you get started, our customer support team is ready to help.