Words correct per minute by grade: what the published norms are and where to find them

1 What words correct per minute measures

Words correct per minute is a simple, quick measure of how fluently a student reads aloud. The student reads a passage they have not practiced for one minute. You note each error. At the end of the minute, the number of words read minus the errors is the score.

The way errors are counted matters. Hasbrouck and Tindal describe the usual rules for this measure: an error is a word read or pronounced incorrectly, a word left out, words read out of order, or a word the examiner supplies after the student has paused on it for three seconds. A word the student gets wrong and then fixes on their own is not an error.

If you don't time exactly one minute, you can still work it out: words read minus errors, times 60, divided by the seconds the student read for. A student who read 150 words with 6 errors in 90 seconds scores 144 × 60 ÷ 90, which is 96 words correct per minute.

The reason WCPM is so widely used is that it is quick. One minute per student, a passage and a pencil. It is one of a family of short classroom measures called curriculum-based measures, designed to be easy to give often.

2 What oral reading fluency norms are

A norm is a picture of what is typical. Oral reading fluency norms come from giving the same kind of one-minute reading to very large numbers of students and recording their scores. The scores are then summarized by grade and by season, so you can look up how a 2nd grader's winter score compares with other 2nd graders in winter.

Norms are usually reported as percentile ranks. A percentile rank says what share of students in the norm group scored at or below a given score. A student at a high percentile rank read more words correctly than most of the students their age; a student at a low one read fewer. The norms table lists the scores at several percentile ranks for each grade and season.

Two things follow from that. First, norms describe what students did, not what they should do. They are a comparison, not a goal handed down. Second, they only make sense when the reading is given the same way the norm group's was: a one-minute reading of an unpracticed, grade-level passage, scored with the same error rules.

Norms also change. Hasbrouck and Tindal's report compares its new compiled norms with an earlier compilation published in 2006 and discusses how scores shifted between the two. A table printed years ago in a teacher's binder may not match the current one.

3 Where to find the published norms

The compilation most often cited by teachers and schools is:

**Hasbrouck, J., & Tindal, G. (2017). An update to compiled ORF norms (Technical Report No. 1702). Eugene, OR: Behavioral Research and Teaching, University of Oregon.** It is linked under Sources at the end of this page.

• What it covers: grades 1 to 6, with scores for fall, winter and spring, the beginning, middle and end of the school year.
• Where the numbers come from: the authors compiled norms from three widely used commercial oral reading fluency assessments and averaged them, so the table is not tied to any one test.
• What else is in it: a short history of the measure, how the norms were built, how the new numbers compare with the earlier compilation, and how the norms are meant to be used.

The report is copyrighted by Behavioral Research and Teaching, which states that no part of it may be used or reproduced without written permission. That is why this guide, and Peabody's running record kit, link to it and cite it but never print its table or any number from it. Read it at the source.

Kindergarten and grades 7 and 8 are not in this report. If your school uses a screening assessment for those grades, that assessment's own documentation is where its expected scores are published.

4 How the norms are meant to be used

Hasbrouck and Tindal describe two main uses for oral reading fluency scores, and they need different approaches.

Screening

Screening asks how a student's reading compares with their peers, and whether they might be at risk of reading difficulties. You give the reading in a given season and compare the score with the norms for that grade and season. The report describes how a student's score can be placed relative to the expected benchmark, from well above it to well below it. A student well below is a candidate for a closer look, not a diagnosis: the next step is further assessment to find which skills need work.

Progress monitoring

Progress monitoring asks whether a student is improving, and whether the help they are getting is working. For that, the report says readings need to be given often (weekly or every two weeks, for example), the scores put on a graph, and a goal set. One reading tells you little; a line of readings over weeks tells you whether the line is going up.

In both cases, the norms are one piece of a bigger picture. A score that looks low should send you back to listen to the student read, not straight to a label.

For a single classroom teacher, the most common use is simpler still: a quick check in the fall on every student, to see who might need a closer look, then regular readings for the few who do. Keep each student's scores together, dated, so the trend is easy to see when you meet with a reading specialist or a family.

5 Getting a score you can trust

A one-minute reading is quick, but small differences in how you give it can change the number a lot. A few habits make the score worth comparing.

• Use an unpracticed passage at the student's grade level, the same kind of text each time.
• Time exactly one minute, or time the whole passage and scale it with the formula.
• Count errors the same way every time, using the rules above.
• Don't correct or coach during the minute. A supplied word is an error.
• Take more than one reading. Students have good and bad minutes. Some teachers take three readings and use the middle score. Our running record kit lets you keep up to three readings and shows both their mean and their median.
• Write the date, the passage and the season next to every score.

The fluency timer is a one-minute timer and words-correct-per-minute calculator if you only need the number. The running record kit adds tapping each error and self-correction as the student reads, with the formulas shown on the page. Both are informal and not normed: they give you the score, and the published norms are where you compare it.

6 What words correct per minute can't tell you

Words correct per minute is a strong, quick signal, which is why it is so widely used. It is also easy to read too much into. Keep its limits in mind.

• It is not comprehension. A student can read quickly and accurately and still not understand the passage. Ask for a retell or a few questions.
• Faster is not always better. Fluent reading sounds like talking, with phrasing and expression. A student racing through the words to beat the clock is not reading better.
• It doesn't say why. A low score could come from weak decoding, a small vocabulary, unfamiliar content, nerves or a bad day. Listening to the errors tells you more than the number.
• It is one minute. A single reading is a sample, not the whole picture.

Tell students this too. If they think the goal is speed, they will read faster and worse. The goal is reading that sounds right and makes sense, and the score is just one way to check on it.

7 Why this page has no chart

Many sites print a "reading fluency chart by grade" with numbers in it. This page doesn't, for two reasons.

The first is permission. The compiled norms are copyrighted, and their publisher does not allow them to be reproduced without written permission. The right place to read them is the report itself.

The second is accuracy. A chart copied from one website to the next loses its source, its date and the rules it was built on. A teacher looking at a chart with no source can't tell whether it is the current compilation, an older one, or a single test's own numbers. Reading the report itself, with its notes on how the numbers were made and how they are meant to be used, avoids that problem.

What we offer instead is the measuring. The running record kit and the fluency timer give you an accurate words-correct-per-minute score, quickly, with nothing sent anywhere and no student names. The running record guide shows how to take and score the whole record. Put the score next to the report's table, for the right grade and season, and you have the comparison.