Books for Checking

Books for Checking Accuracy and Fluency at the 2^nd & 3^rd Grade Level

Materials: A book at the child’s reading level, a photocopy of the passage you want them to read, a stop watch or watch with a second hand.

Instructions: Choose a 250 word passage from the book. Select a passage the child has not read before. Photocopy the passage for yourself so you can mark the errors as the child reads. When the child starts to read aloud, start timing. Stop after 1 minute. Put a slash mark after the last word they said in 1 minute. Allow the child to finish reading the passage. On your paper make a note of the words they do not read correctly.

To calculate accuracy: Subtract the number of words read incorrectly or skipped in the entire passage from the number of words in the passage. This will give you the number of words read correctly. Then divide the number of words read correctly by the total words in the passage. This will give you the percentage of accuracy.

Example: The child reads a passage of 265 words and read 25 incorrectly.

265-25=240 240/265 = 90 or 90% accuracy

To calculate fluency: Subtract the number of words read incorrectly, skipped, or told by you from the number of words read in 1 minute. Words added are not counted. Fluency also means they understood what they read, so ask a few questions about what they read. If you think they understood , then they have fluency at this rate.

Example: The child read 87 words in 1 minute, read 7 words incorrectly and

added 2 words that were not in the text.

87 – 7 = 80 or 80 CWPM (Correct Words Per Minute)

Examples of 2^nd Grade Level Books

Fall	Arthur’s Christmas Cookies	Lillian Hoban	HarperCollins	any Arthur book
	Frog and Toad	Arnold Lobel	Harper & Row	any Frog & Toad book
	Amelia Bedelia	Peggy Parish	Harper & Row	any Amelia Bedelia book
	Nate the Great & the Lost List	Sharmat Weinman	Dell Publishing	any Nate the Great book
Winter	Cam Jansen & the Mystery of the gold Coins	David Adler	Puffin Books	any Cam Jansen mystery book
	Pee Wees on Parade	Judy Delton	Dell Publishing	any Pee Wees book

California Department of Education, K-3 Assessment Toolkit, Work in Progress, August 1997

Prepared and permission granted by Kimi Kinoshita, RESULTS Project

Calculations

Running words (RW) in the passage:

Errors (E) made:

Self-Corrections (SC) made:

Accuracy Rate : %

ANALYSIS

1. Count the number of running words (RW) in passage.

2. Count the number of errors (E).

3. Subtract errors from running words. (RW) – (E) = words read correctly.

4. Multiply words read correctly by 100, then divide by running words to find accuracy rate in percentage (%).

(RW) – (E) x 100 / (RW) =

INTERPRETATION

c Easy (95% to 100%)

c Instructional (90% to 94%)

c Hard (50% to 89%)

Error Ratio 1: .

ANALYSIS

1. Count the number of running words (RW) in the passage.

2. Count the number of errors (E).

3. Divide the number of running words (RW) by the number of errors (E) to find the error ratio.

RW / E = 1: .

INTERPRETATION

Use Conversion Table Below

Self-Correction Ratio 1: .

ANALYSIS

1. Count the number of errors (E).

2. Count the number of self-corrections (SC) made.

3. Add the errors (E) and self-corrections (SC) together.

4. Divide this number by the number of self-corrections (SC).

E + SC / SC = 1:

INTERPRETATION

c Excellent (1:1 to 1:3)

c Good (1:4 to 1:5)

c Needs Improvement (0 or over 1:5)

Conversation Table

Error Rate/Ratio	Accuracy Rate/%
1:200	99.5%
1:100	99%
1:50	98%
1:35	97%
1:25	96%
1:20	95%
1:17	94%
1:14	93%
1:12.5	92%
1:11.75	91%
1:10	90%
1:9	89%
1:8	87.5%
1:7	85.5%
1:6	83%
1:5	80%
1:4	75%
1:3	66%
1:2	50%

California Department of Education, K-3 Assessment Toolkit, Work in Progress, August 1997

Prepared and permission granted by the Reading Success Network of the

Southern California Comprehensive Assistance Center

Return to Title 1

Fall

Winter

Calculations

ANALYSIS

INTERPRETATION

ANALYSIS

INTERPRETATION

ANALYSIS

INTERPRETATION