CUBED-3 Assessment Overview
The CUBED-3 is a family of screening and progress monitoring tools that accurately, reliably, and efficiently measure language comprehension and word recognition, and their products – reading comprehension.
Informed by extensive empirical research, the CUBED-3 represents advancements in language assessment that help educators measure all of the critical dimensions of literacy, including listening comprehension, reading comprehension, expressive language, phonemic awareness, word identification, decoding, decoding fluency, and writing. Because reading comprehension and listening comprehension reflect the same construct of language, the CUBED-3 can assess reading comprehension of young students even before they have learned to decode. Lear more about the subtests of the CUBED-3 below.
Explore the two subtests of the CUBED-3
Language comprehension, decoding fluency, and reading comprehension are assessed using the Narrative Language Measures (NLM). The NLM is comprised of two subtests: NLM Listening and NLM Reading. Targets within these two subtests measure expressive oral language through narrative retell. Additional targets of the NLM measure decoding fluency (rate and accuracy), story grammar comprehension, inferential word learning or word use, and inferential reasoning.
Results of the NLM accurately identify students whose academic language places them at risk for experiencing other academic problems. The NLM also directly informs comprehension instruction and meets all of the psychometric requirements of a GOM, filling a major gap found in most reading general outcome measures.
Word recognition is assessed using the Dynamic Decoding Measures (DDM). The DDM is comprised of four subtests which use a ‘testing the limits’ dynamic assessment approach to identify a student’s current level of performance on multiple decoding skills: Decoding Inventory, Orthographic Mapping, Phonemic Awareness, and Phoneme Manipulation. This testing the limits dynamic assessment helps educators pinpoint where intervention should begin.
Results of the DDM provide clear information on what a student can currently do, what a student needs to learn, and how ready and responsive the student will be to learning the next level of material for phonemic awareness, letter names, letter sounds, irregular words, and decoding.