Despite prevalent use and practical application, the current and standard assessment of oral reading fluency (ORF) presents considerable limitations which reduces its validity in estimating growth and monitoring student progress, including: (a) high cost of implementation; (b) tenuous passage equivalence; and (c) bias, large standard error, and…

This study investigated the complexity of leveled passages used in four classroom reading assessments. A total of 167 passages leveled for Grades 1-6 from these assessments were analyzed using four analytical tools of text complexity. More traditional, two-factor measures of text complexity found a general trend of fairly consistent across-grade…

Given the deficiencies of readability formulae as reliable tools for measuring text readability in educational settings, this study aims to offer a new measure to improve the current methods of testing the readability levels of texts through the incorporation of the newly-developed concept of emotioncy. To this end, a group of 221 students were…

This study examined the number of writing samples needed to obtain a reliable estimate of young struggling writers' capabilities. It further assessed if performance in one genre was reflective of performance in other genres for these children. Second- and third-grade students (81 boys, 56 girls), who were identified as struggling writers in need…

The "Common Core State Standards/English Language Arts" include the ability to become increasingly more capable with complex text over the school career, redirecting attention to the measurement of text complexity. While suggesting multiple criteria, the Standards offer a single measure of text complexity--Lexiles. Additional…

The Common Core Standards for the English Language Arts (CCSS) provide explicit guidelines matching grade-level bands (e.g., 2-3, 4-5) with targeted text complexity levels. The CCSS staircase accelerates text expectations for students across Grades 2-12 in order to close a gap in the complexity of texts typically used in high school and those of…

While the English language boasts a century of research into its most frequently-used words, no such attempt has ever formally been made in the Arab world. This pioneering study presents a list of 500 commonly-used words in the Arabic language based on compilations of words gathered from a number of popular reading series in Lebanon, spanning…

Curriculum-based measurement of reading (CBM-R) is used to estimate oral reading fluency. Unlike many traditional published tests, CBM-R materials are often comprised of 20 to 30 alternate forms/passages. Historically, CBM-R assessment materials were sampled from curricular materials. Recent research has documented the potentially deleterious…

An annotated list of children's books published within the last 15 years and related to Louisiana culture, environment, and economics are linked to the Louisiana Content Standards. Readability levels of selected books are included, providing guidance as to whether a book is appropriate for independent student use. The thirty-three books listed are…

Beyond reliability and validity, measures used to model student growth must consist of multiple probes that are equivalent in level of difficulty to establish consistent measurement conditions across time. Although existing evidence supports the reliability of curriculum-based measurement in reading (CBMR), few studies have empirically evaluated…