Evaluating Passage and Order Effects of Oral Reading Fluency Passages in Second Grade: A Partial Replication

Progress monitoring has been adopted as an integral part of multi-tiered support systems. Oral reading fluency (ORF) is the most established assessment for progress-monitoring purposes. To generate valid trend lines or slopes, ORF passages must be of equivalent difficulty. Recently, however, evidence indicates that ORF passages are not equivalent, potentially hindering our ability to generate valid student trend lines for decision making. This study examines passage and order effects on the estimation of ORF scores using a set of second-grade passages. A single group with counterbalancing design was employed to randomly assign 156 second-grade students to three different orders of passages. Scores from the passages were examined using growth curve modeling and empirical Bayes estimates. Results indicate that passage effects were substantial, but order effects were small but significant. The impact of passage and order effects on research design, equating methods, and measure development is considered.