Run the reading speed test with a class

What you see as the teacher

Your class page lists each result in the order it arrived, never ranked: the words per minute, or not counted when the page withheld the speed; the questions correct out of six; the effective WPM; and the time it was sent, to the minute. Above the list is a short summary of the class: how many results have arrived, the median words per minute, and the range the middle half of the class read in. A bar chart shows the counted speeds in bands of 50 words per minute.

The page checks for new results every 30 seconds while it is open on your screen, and you can download the whole list as a CSV file for your own records.

Effective WPM is the speed multiplied by the share of the six questions answered correctly, and it is shown only from four of six right, exactly as on the pupil's own result. It is rough arithmetic, not a research measure: read it beside the plain words per minute, not instead of it.

A reading whose speed the page did not count, because it was untimed, interrupted by switching away from the page, or too quick to count, still arrives with its question score and counts as a result. Only counted speeds enter the median and the chart.

What pupils send, and what they never send

On your link the test tells each pupil, before they start, which class it is for and what could be sent. Nothing leaves their browser until they press Send to my teacher after their result, and what is sent then is two numbers: the words per minute, or nothing in its place when the page did not count the speed, and how many of the six questions were right.

No name, no account, no answers, nothing typed and no other result text is sent, and nothing is written to the browser storage. Nothing we store names a pupil or a teacher, or says which pupil sent which result.

On a class link the reading page shows no advertising and loads no session replay, and the class code is moved out of the page address before the site's cookieless audience measurement runs, so the visit is counted without it.

A class session closes 7 days after it starts: from then on nothing in it can be read or added, and it is deleted from our database automatically within a few days. You can delete the class, with every result in it, at any time from your class page.

How to start a class session

1. Open the class page and press Start a class session. You get a six-character class code and a link for your pupils.
2. Bookmark the class page. Its address now ends in your private key, which is what lets you, and only you, see and delete the results; give pupils only their link.
3. Give the pupils the link: paste it into your class page or chat, or print the join sheet, which carries the code in large type.
4. Each pupil presses Start the task, then Begin reading, reads at their own pace and presses I’ve finished reading. Six questions follow without the passage on screen.
5. After the result, a pupil can press Send to my teacher. The result appears on your page within 30 seconds while it is open on your screen.
6. A class session takes up to 200 results and closes by itself 7 days after you start it.

Try a passage yourself first. The test takes about three minutes, and doing it once is the quickest way to see what your pupils will see and to decide whether the texts suit your class.

What the figures can and cannot tell you

The passages are original texts written for adult readers, at three levels of complexity that are not school grades. Read one before you give the link out, and decide whether it suits your class.

Words per minute is measured on each pupil's own device, and it depends on the screen, the text and any interruption. It is not a reading age, a grade level, a percentile or a diagnosis, and the class view ranks nobody. The terms of service say the figures must not be used to grade, place or rank a pupil: they are for practice and for your own overview of the class.

Published adult averages are not a benchmark for a class. The meta-analysis the reading test cites gives adult rates and reports lower rates for children, and its summary gives no figure for each age, so this page does not print one. The useful comparison is a pupil's own next reading, in the same mode and text size.

Pupils need no account and type no name, and nothing we store identifies a pupil. The privacy policy sets out exactly what is kept in section 2.7 and covers pupils under 16 in section 12; you decide whether the test suits your class, and you explain to the pupils what is sent.