The oral reading fluency (ORF) subtask measures how quickly and accurately a student can read. It is a core component of EGRA because it brings together lower-level reading skills (such as decoding and familiar word recognition) with how quickly and easily the student can read a given word (called automaticity).

Students are given a short, written passage on a topic that is familiar to them. They are asked to read it out loud “quickly but carefully” and are given 60 seconds from when they begin to read. The EGRA administrator times the student, making note of any mistakes the student makes while reading the words aloud. The score is reported as correct words per minute (cwpm).