Teaching · Reading Intervention

Rate how the reading sounded, then practice the weakest part.

Listen to one passage read aloud and rate expression, phrasing, smoothness, pace and punctuation from beginning to consistent. The rubric totals the points, names the weakest part and gives a routine to practice it, from phrase-cued text to readers theater.

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Included with Caveat Classroom and Whole-school licenses. Or get it in the Reading Intervention toolkit, $49 for 34 items.

The rubric

One observation per passage. Use initials or a code, never a name. The example is made up.

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What you get

Teaching · Reading Intervention$12 · included with Classroom and Whole-school licenses

What you finish with: For each reading, five prosody ratings with the level descriptions, the passage and how practiced it was, what you noticed and a summary with the total points, the weakest part and a practice routine. Copy to a new date after a few weeks and compare the printouts.
Who it is for: Reading interventionists, reading specialists and teachers listening to students in grades 1 to 8 read aloud, alongside an accuracy and rate measure.
Format: Browser rubric with the level descriptions on the page. Several saved records; printed with the summary or as a blank paper form; CSV with one row per observation; export and import a file.
Access: $12 one-time, yours on every device you sign in on; the tool opens once you are signed in with it. Included with Caveat Classroom and Whole-school licenses. Also in the Reading Intervention toolkit ($49) and the Teaching Suite pass ($199), and 1 more bundle. Everything you type stays in this browser; nothing is sent to Caveat.
Where it lives: The Reading Intervention space in Caveat Teaching.
Support: Questions about an order, access or a correction: team@caveatacademic.com.

Drawn for this page. Prosody is the melody of reading aloud: phrases, pauses and expression that follow the meaning.

How to use it

Choose a passage at the student’s instructional level and start a record with their initials or a code.
Say whether it is a first reading or a practiced one, and whether you timed it.
Listen to the whole passage before rating. Rate each part against the level descriptions below the tool.
Tick what you noticed and add a line or two of notes.
Read the practice routine for the weakest part and plan it into the next sessions.

Start an observation

What the rubric is for

What the rubric means

Each part has four described levels. Rate the reading as a whole.

Part	1 Beginning	2 Developing	3 Mostly there	4 Consistent
Expression	Flat, the same tone throughout	Some expression in places, often lost	Expression fits most of the text	Voice shifts with meaning, mood and speaker
Phrasing	Word by word	Two or three words at a time, some odd breaks	Mostly sensible phrases, some run-ons	Phrases follow the meaning of the sentence
Smoothness	Long pauses, many repeats and restarts	Several rough spots on hard words	Occasional breaks, quickly fixed	Smooth; problems fixed on the fly
Pace	Slow and laboring	Uneven: slow and then hurried	Mostly even, a little slow or fast	Steady, like talking
Punctuation	Reads through punctuation	Notices periods, misses the rest	Most punctuation honored	Periods, commas, questions and quotes all heard

Why prosody

Reading with phrasing and expression is part of fluency, and fluency is tied to comprehension: a student who groups words by meaning is usually following the meaning. Words correct per minute measures accuracy and speed; prosody tells you how the reading sounds, and the two together give a fuller picture.

No norms

The descriptors are written for this page on the model of published multidimensional fluency scales. There are no norms or cut scores; compare a student with their own earlier readings of similar passages. Records use a code, never a name, and stay in this browser.

Sources

Zutell, J., and Rasinski, T. V. (1991). Training teachers to attend to their students’ oral reading fluency. Theory Into Practice, 30(3), 211–217 (the Multidimensional Fluency Scale).
Rasinski, T. V. (2004). Assessing Reading Fluency. Honolulu: Pacific Resources for Education and Learning.
Kuhn, M. R., Schwanenflugel, P. J., and Meisinger, E. B. (2010). Aligning theory and assessment of reading fluency: Automaticity, prosody, and definitions of fluency. Reading Research Quarterly, 45(2), 230–251.
National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (2000). Report of the National Reading Panel, chapter 3, Fluency (guided repeated oral reading).
Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act, 34 CFR Part 99.

The example student is made up. The rubric describes one reading of one passage; it has no norms, gives no standard score and does not diagnose a reading disability. Support: team@caveatacademic.com.