Oral Reading Fluency Benchmarks
Grades K – 3 (DIBELS)
Grade DIBELS Beginning of Year Middle of Year End of Year
Measure
K non word 13 low risk NWF > 25 low risk
1 oral ORF 20 low risk ORF > 40 low risk
2 oral ORF 44 low risk ORF > 68 low risk ORF > 90 low risk
3 Oral ORF 77 low risk ORF > 92 low risk ORF > 110 low risk
source: DIBELS website Benchmark Goals
http://dibels.uoregon.edu
General end-of-year Fluency Goals
1st grade 60 wcpm
2nd grade 90 wcpm
3rd grade 120 wcpm
4th grade 130 wcpm
5th grade 140 wcpm
6th grade 150 wcpm
source: Dr. Timothy Shanahan in Fluency Instruction (2006)
First Grade Students: In general, first-grade students who are reading 40 or more WCPM on unpracticed text
passages are by the end of the year at low risk of future reading difficulty, while students below 40 WCPM are at some
risk, and students reading below 20 WCPM are at high risk of failure. We recommend following these guidelines for
interpreting first-grade scores.
Research by Good, Simmons, Kame’enui, Kaminski, & Wallin (2002)