One Minute. One Student. One Score That Matters. You've got 25 students and 40 minutes before lunch. You need reliable reading data for each one. The Oral Reading Fluency (ORF) assessment is how you get it—a one-minute reading test that reveals more about a student's reading development than an hour of other measures combined. But only if you administer it correctly. A slight variation in timing, an unclear instruction, a scoring error—any of these can invalidate your results and make them incomparable to published norms. This guide walks you through the proper procedures step by step, ensuring every assessment you conduct produces accurate, actionable data. For background on why fluency matters so much, see our article on the science of reading and comprehension . Materials You'll Need Before you begin, gather these materials: Grade-appropriate passage: Use standardized ORF passages or passages at the student's instructional level Student copy: Clean, unmarked copy for the student to read Examiner copy: Your copy with word counts marked for scoring Timer: Stopwatch or phone timer that can count to 60 seconds Recording form: For marking errors and calculating WCPM Step 1: Set Up the Assessment Space Choose a quiet location with minimal distractions. Sit beside the student so you can see the same text they're reading while easily marking your examiner copy. Explain the task clearly: "I'm going to ask you to read a story out loud. Read the best you can. If you come to a word yo...