Reading fluency passages with a one-minute timer

Pick your child's grade, have them read the passage aloud for one minute, and tap every word they get wrong. When the minute is up, tap the last word they read. You get words correct per minute (WCPM) and where that sits in the Hasbrouck-Tindal norms for the grade and time of year. There are two original passages for each grade from 1st to 6th, so you can check again on a text your child hasn't seen.

Run the one-minute check

A tablet or laptop works best: your child reads from the screen while you tap. On a phone, print the passage for your child and keep the phone for yourself.

One-minute fluency check

Read, tap the mistakes, get WCPM

Grade

Passage

Time of year

Your child reads aloud from the screen or a printed copy. You tap the words they get wrong.

The Class Garden

Our class has a garden behind the school. In the spring, Ms. Lane gave each of us a bean seed. We pushed the seeds into small cups of dirt and set them by the window. Every morning, we gave them a little water. For a few days, nothing happened. Then a tiny green hook poked out of my cup. By the end of the week, every cup had a plant. When the plants were big enough, we carried them outside. We dug holes in the garden and planted them in a long row. Ben made a sign that said Bean Street. The plants grew taller and taller. They wound around the poles we put next to them. Soon there were white flowers, and then long green pods. In June, we picked the beans and washed them. Ms. Lane cooked them for us. Some kids did not want to try them at first. But they tasted better than the beans at home, maybe because we grew them ourselves.

How to give the test

Use your child's grade. Pick the grade they are in now and the time of year, so the norm matches. If the passage is clearly too hard, you can try one grade lower, but the result is then compared with that grade's norm.
Say: "Read this out loud as well as you can. If you get stuck, I'll help you." Then start the minute as they read the first word. Don't ask them to read fast: rushing tends to cost accuracy and expression.
Count as errors: a misread word, a skipped word, or a word they can't read within about three seconds (say it for them and let them go on).
Don't count: self-corrections within about three seconds, repeated words, added words, or a pronunciation that comes from their accent or dialect.
One reading is one data point. The number can move by several words from day to day. For a steadier figure, read form A and form B on different days and average the two scores.

What the score means

WCPM counts the words read correctly in one minute, so it mixes speed and accuracy. The tool compares it with the 2017 Hasbrouck-Tindal oral reading fluency norms, a large US sample of students reading grade-level passages in the fall, winter and spring. The 50th percentile is the middle score for the grade. In their 2006 article, Hasbrouck and Tindal advised that a child who reads 10 or more words below it, averaged over two unpracticed grade-level passages, may need extra fluency practice.

Speed is only part of fluency. A child who reads quickly but flatly, or without understanding, still has work to do. The prosody rubric scores the expression side of the same reading.

About the passages

The team behind Readigo, an iOS reading-practice app for children ages 6–12, wrote all twelve passages for this tool. They are leveled by sentence length and word length with a readability formula, so each grade reads a little harder than the one before. In 1st and 2nd grade both passages are stories; from 3rd grade, form A is a story and form B an informational text, which often reads a little slower, so average the two. They are not the passages schools use, and they are not Lexile-measured. Every passage is longer than a fast reader in that grade gets through in a minute.

Questions parents ask

What is a good WCPM score for my child's grade?

It depends on the grade and the time of year. In the Hasbrouck-Tindal norms, the middle (50th percentile) score for 2nd graders is 50 words correct per minute in the fall and 100 in the spring; for 4th graders it is 94 in the fall and 133 in the spring. Hasbrouck and Tindal suggest extra fluency practice when a child reads 10 or more words below that middle score on unpracticed grade-level passages. The full table is in the WCPM chart linked below.

How do you count errors in a fluency passage?

Count a word as an error if your child misreads it, skips it, or can't read it within about three seconds (say the word and let them go on). Don't count self-corrections made within about three seconds, repeated words, words they add, or a different pronunciation that comes from their accent or dialect.

Why is the score different from my child's school results?

Schools use their own passages (DIBELS, Acadience, aimsweb and others), and each passage set reads a little differently. One reading also varies by several words from day to day. Use these passages to see the trend at home, and use the school's numbers for school decisions.

How often should we do the one-minute check?

Every three to four weeks is plenty at home. Switch between form A and form B so your child doesn't remember the text, and keep the time of day and the setting similar so the numbers are comparable.

Sources

WCPM chart by grade Reading prosody rubric Reading level test Reading speed by age

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