The ability to objectively quantify the complexity of a text can be a useful indicator of how likely learners of a given level will comprehend it. Before creating more complex models of assessing text difficulty, the basic building block of a text consists of words and, inherently, its overall difficulty is greatly influenced by the complexity of…

This technical report describes the development of oral reading fluency passages for use in the CBMSkills assessment system. Seventeen passages were created for each of Grades 1 through 5. Passages were designed to target the fluency component of a developmental model of reading. All passages were written with the specification to use language and…