CPM: Why doesn’t the Rapid Letter Naming assessment include all 52 uppercase and lowercase letters?
Answer
On the Rapid Letter Naming, there are 52 items on the sub-measure (all uppercase and lowercase letters). The assessment is timed for 60 seconds. Depending on the speed of the student’s answers, they may see all 52 items, or fewer items. If the 60 seconds time out during the last item, the rapid task will end the assessment. The final item may not display for the full 3 seconds and disappear quickly.
The Rapid Letter Naming assessment is designed to measure automaticity and fluency, not letter knowledge in isolation. Instead of assessing all 52 uppercase and lowercase letters, it uses a representative sample of letters presented in random order. This approach allows the assessment to efficiently capture how quickly and accurately a student can identify letters within a timed format, which is more reflective of early reading development.
Assessing all 52 letters would shift the focus toward accuracy over fluency, and would take significantly more time without providing substantially more useful data for this specific purpose.