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Fluency Norms Chart

By: Jan Hasbrouck and Gerald Tindal (2006)

View the results of the 2006 study on oral reading fluency, "Oral Reading Fluency: 90 Years of Measurement," by Jan Hasbrouck and Gerald Tindal.

Jan Hasbrouck and Gerald Tindal have completed an extensive study of oral reading fluency. The results of their study were published in a technical report entitled, "Oral Reading Fluency: 90 Years of Measurement," which is available in The Reading Teacher in 2006 (Hasbrouck, J. & Tindal, G. A. (2006). Oral reading fluency norms: A valuable assessment tool for reading teachers. The Reading Teacher. 59(7), 636-644.).

The table below shows the mean oral reading fluency of students in grades 1 through 8 as determined by Hasbrouck and Tindal's data.

You can use the information in this table to draw conclusions and make decisions about the oral reading fluency of your students. Students scoring 10 or more words below the 50th percentile using the average score of two unpracticed readings from grade-level materials need a fluency-building program. In addition, teachers can use the table to set the long-term fluency goals for their struggling readers.

Average weekly improvement is the average words per week growth you can expect from a student. It was calculated by subtracting the fall score from the spring score and dividing the difference by 32, the typical number of weeks between the fall and spring assessments. For grade 1, since there is no fall assessment, the average weekly improvement was calculated by subtracting the winter score from the spring score and dividing the difference by 16, the typical number of weeks between the winter and spring assessments.

2006 Hasbrouck & Tindal Oral Reading Fluency Data
Grade	Percentile	Fall WCPM*	Winter WCPM*	Spring WCPM*	Avg. Weekly Improvement**
1	90 75		81 47	111 82	1.9 2.2
	50		23	53	1.9
	25 10		12 6	28 15	1.0 0.6
2	90 75	106 79	125 100	142 117	1.1 1.2
	50	51	72	89	1.2
	25 10	25 11	42 18	61 31	1.1 0.6
3	90 75	128 99	146 120	162 137	1.1 1.2
	50	71	92	107	1.1
	25 10	44 21	62 36	78 48	1.1 0.8
4	90 75	145 119	166 139	180 152	1.1 1.0
	50	94	112	123	0.9
	25 10	68 45	87 61	98 72	0.9 0.8
5	90 75	166 139	182 156	194 168	0.9 0.9
	50	110	127	139	0.9
	25 10	85 61	99 74	109 83	0.8 0.7
6	90 75	177 153	195 167	204 177	0.8 0.8
	50	127	140	150	0.7
	25 10	98 68	111 82	122 93	0.8 0.8
7	90 75	180 156	195 165	202 177	0.7 0.7
	50	128	136	150	0.7
	25 10	102 79	109 88	123 98	0.7 0.6
8	90 75	185 161	199 177	199 177	0.4 0.5
	50	133	151	151	0.6
	25 10	106 77	124 97	124 97	0.6 0.6