Acadience Reading is a universal screening and progress monitoring assessment for students in kindergarten through sixth grade that measures key early literacy skills to predict reading success. It uses brief, individually administered measures like First Sound Fluency, Phoneme Segmentation Fluency, Nonsense Word Fluency, and Oral Reading Fluency to identify students who may be at risk for reading difficulties and to monitor their progress.
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What is it?
What is it?
An assessment to screen and monitor early literacy skills from kindergarten through middle school.
It's the new name for the DIBELS Next assessment, which is used by educators to get a quick gauge of a student's reading development.
The goal is to provide timely support and prevent later reading difficulties.
How it works
It consists of several brief subtests that take about one minute each to administer (except for Maze, which takes three minutes).
Measures Include:
Measures Include:
Alphabet Knowledge
Alphabet Knowledge
Letter Naming Fluency (LNF)
Grade Levels: Given in Pre-K (optional) and Kindergarten through the beginning of Grade 1.
What Students Do:
Students are shown a page of randomly arranged uppercase and lowercase letters and asked to name as many letters as they can in one minute. For example, if shown “m, A, t, R,” they say “m, A, t, R.”Purpose:
Measures automatic recognition of letter names, which is a strong predictor of later reading success. It assesses how quickly and accurately students can identify letters—not letter sounds.
Phonemic Awareness
Phonemic Awareness
First Sound Fluency (FSF)
Grade Levels: Administered primarily in Kindergarten (beginning to middle of the year).
What Students Do:
Students are shown a series of words and are asked to identify the first sound in each word. For example, if the assessor says “man”, the student should respond /m/.Purpose:
Measures a student’s ability to hear and isolate the initial sounds in spoken words — a critical early phonemic awareness skill that supports later decoding and spelling.
Phoneme Segmentation Fluency (PSF)
Grade Levels: Typically given in late Kindergarten through early Grade 1.
What Students Do:
Students listen to a spoken word and say all the individual sounds (phonemes) they hear in that word. For example, for “cat”, the correct response would be /k/ /a/ /t/.Purpose:
Assesses the ability to segment (break apart) words into their smallest sound units — a foundational skill for phonics and spelling development.
Check out some of these resources to help build skills in phonemic and phonological awareness.
Phonics and Word Recognition
Phonics and Word Recognition
Nonsense Word Fluency (NWF)
Grade Levels: Commonly administered in late Kindergarten, Grade 1, and sometimes Grade 2.
What Students Do:
Students are shown made-up words (like bip, lat, sog) and asked to read them aloud, either sound by sound or as whole words.Purpose:
Evaluates a student’s knowledge of letter-sound correspondence and their ability to decode unfamiliar words—a true test of phonics skill, since the words aren’t real and can’t be guessed from context.
Fluency and Comprehension
Fluency and Comprehension
Oral Reading Fluency (ORF)
Grade Levels: Usually given from Grade 1 through Grade 6.
What Students Do:
Students read a grade-level passage aloud for one minute while the assessor records errors and counts correct words. After reading, the student is asked to retell what they read to check comprehension.Purpose:
Measures reading accuracy, rate, and prosody (fluency), as well as basic comprehension through the retell portion.
Comprehension
Comprehension
Maze Comprehension Measure
Grade Levels: Typically given from Grade 2 through Grade 6.
What Students Do:
Students read a passage silently where every seventh word has been replaced with a blank and three word choices are given (one correct, two distractors). They must choose the word that best fits the meaning of the sentence.Purpose:
Directly assesses reading comprehension—students must understand the text well enough to select words that make sense within the context.
Results are used to:
Results are used to:
Identify students who may need extra help.
Pinpoint specific skills to target for instruction.
Track the progress of student growth in measured skills.
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