College of Education and Human Development

Student Resources

Assessment Center

Curriculum-Based Measurement

Curriculum-Based Measurement (CBM) is a form of standardized assessment of academic achievement.  CBM was developed in the 1970's by researchers at the University of Minnesota and elsewhere.  Based on initial works by Gickling and Havertape (1981) and Deno (1985), and expanded through work by Fuchs and Fuchs (1986), CBM has been shown to be highly reliable and valid for the identification and monitoring of students' instructional needs in the areas of reading, spelling, writing and mathematics.  A number of resources for CBM information and materials exist. 

The National Center on Student Progress Monitoring  includes many useful resources about CBM.  One form of CBM materials, the Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills (DIBELS) are available for free from the official DIBELS website.  A wide range of CBM measures for all core academic areas are available for purchase from AIMSweb.  In the following table are free silent reading fluency (maze) literature-based CBM passages for students in grades 4 through 6.  These passages were created by selecting books from the American Library Association's list of recommended books for students in grades 4 through 6.  Randomly selected passages of at least 250 words in length were chosen from the books and made into the reading passages.  Click here to get directions for administering and scoring the silent reading passages.