(TOSCRF-2) Test of Silent Contextual Reading Fluency, Second Edition

Overview

The new Test of Silent Contextual Reading Fluency, Second Edition (TOSCRF-2) is a measure of reading comprehension and general reading ability that can be briefly administered to individuals or groups, is cost-effective, and is highly reliable and valid. Since its initial publication in 2006, the TOSCRF-2 has been popular with professionals in psychology and education.

The TOSCRF-2 is a companion to the Test of Silent Word Reading Fluency, Second Edition (TOSWRF-2). While the TOSWRF-2 measures a student's ability to recognize individual words accurately and efficiently, the TOSCRF-2 measures a student's essential contextual reading abilities (i.e., word identification, word meaning, word building, sentence structure, comprehension, and fluency).

New Features

• Normative information was extended upward to include ages 19 to 24 years, 11 months.

• New normative data were collected between 2009–2012.
• Co-normed with the TOSWRF-2 and TWS-5
• Practice form administration time was decreased to one minute.
• Evidence for validity has been expanded to include studies by independent researchers as well as by the test authors.

Administration and Uses

The TOSCRF-2 is a quick and accurate method of assessing the silent general reading ability of students ranging in age from 7 years to 24 years, 11 months. It has a test manual and four equivalent forms (A, B, C, D). The assessment can be used by classroom teachers, special education teachers, reading specialists, school psychologists, speech pathologists, or any other professionals with some training in standardized test administration.

Using a series of printed passages, the TOSCRF-2 can be used to identify both poor and good readers. Students are presented with short passages composed of rows of contextually related words, ordered by reading difficulty; all words are printed in uppercase without any spaces or punctuation between the words (e.g., AYELLOWBIRDWITHBLUEWINGS). Students are asked to draw a line between the boundaries of as many recognizable words as possible within 3 minutes (e.g., A/YELLOW/BIRD/WITH/BLUE/WINGS). The passages become gradually more complex in their content, vocabulary, and grammar (embedded phrases, sequenced adjectives, affixes, etc.). To do well on the test, the student must read the meaning of the text. The test can be easily administered to a single student or to an entire classroom of children, thus making it an efficient and cost-effective screening method.

Any one of the four equivalent forms (A, B, C, and D) may be administered to a single child or an entire classroom of children, depending on the purpose of the assessment. While most uses require only a single form administration, you may administer any two forms concurrently to increase reliability.  

New validity studies show that the TOSCRF-2 is valid for a wide variety of subgroups, as well as for the general population. In addition, study of the test’s validity was expanded by investigating its diagnostic accuracy as it relates to its sensitivity, specificity, classification accuracy, and receiver operating characteristic/area under the curve (ROC/AUC). These analyses are particularly rigorous, evidence-based techniques for establishing validity.

The TOSCRF-2 can be used to:

• Identify students with comprehension and general reading difficulties and document the degree of their problems
• Screen large numbers of students at once
• Monitor student progress up to four times per year
• Research the nature of reading difficulties