October 2026 Product Update: Seven Free Labs and News from Our Educator Advisors
Seven free labs for teachers, with no sign-in: phonics in English and Mandarin, word roots, ORF norms, the Reading Rope, and reading with expression. Also a Chinese immersion ORF guide, and news from the Educator Advisor program.
This month, we made seven free labs for teachers. We also have news from the Educator Advisor program.
Seven free labs
The labs are 3D tools for reading instruction. Some of them started with ideas from teachers. They open in a browser, and you do not need an account. Microphone audio and typed scores stay on your device.
Use a lab on the board for a mini-lesson or in a PD session.
The Sound Table (grades K–2)
The 44 sounds of English as tiles. Tap a tile to hear the sound, see its spellings, and see how the mouth makes it. The tiles move into a sound wall, into spelling towers, or into the usual teaching order.
立体拼音表, The Mandarin Sound Table (grades K–2)
Pinyin for Chinese immersion, written in Chinese. It has the 23 initials, 24 finals, and 16 whole syllables of first grade, and the table of all 404 syllables. Each syllable has a recording. A switch changes the text to Traditional Chinese or English.
Word Roots Galaxy (grades 3–8)
148 prefixes, roots, and suffixes, with 549 example words. Tap a root to see its word family. Split a long word into its parts, or build a new word. Each split follows the real history of the word.
The Fluency Landscape (grades 1–6)
The Hasbrouck and Tindal (2017) oral reading fluency norms as a 3D landscape. Put in a score to see where it falls. The full norms table and a CSV download are below the 3D view.
The Reading Rope (coaches and PD)
Scarborough's Reading Rope in 3D. Eight strands twist together into skilled reading. Change to the Simple View of Reading, or show the profile of a struggling reader. A written guide explains each strand, with sources.
See Your Voice (grades 3–8)
A student reads a sentence aloud. The lab shows the student's voice as a 3D ribbon on top of a model reader's voice. The ribbon goes up for a question, stops at a comma, and goes down at the period.
The Word in the Wave (grades 3–8)
Take a spoken sentence apart. Flatten its pitch, whisper it, hum it, or build it again from noise. Students hear which part of the sound carries the words, and which part carries the expression.
Tell us what you want next
In the future, we may add some labs to the app. Tell us which labs you find useful, and which ones you want in the app.
Do you want a different free tool for literacy instruction? Tell us what it is, and we will make it.
Send a short email to support@readingfluency.app with Labs in the subject line.
The labs are free for every teacher. Please share them with your grade team, your school, or your PLC. Send the labs page or the link to one lab.
A Chinese ORF guide, in English and Mandarin
The Chinese ORF screening guide is for immersion programs. It tells how to mark errors on characters, how to calculate characters correct per minute, and how to make local norms. The Mandarin version is for immersion teachers.
Also new
- Content: all guides, labs, tutorials, and product updates on one page. Filter by type or by audience.
- Pricing: all plans, limits, and common questions on one page.
- About: who makes ReadingFluency.app, and why.
- Homepage: a new 60-second video of the app.
News from the Educator Advisor program
In September, we started the Educator Advisor program. A small group of teachers joined and gave us their feedback. Thank you.
Next, we will use this feedback to improve the app. The next update will show the results.
We continue to listen, and you do not have to be an advisor. Send your suggestions for the app to support@readingfluency.app with App in the subject line. To ask about the advisor program, write Educator Advisor in the subject line.
See what this could look like in your classroom.
If you want to spend less time on assessment logistics and more time helping students read, these pages show a few practical ways ReadingFluency.app can help.
The Fluency Landscape shows one score against the norms. The app keeps all scores for all students.
The labs show what expression sounds like. The app records real passage reads and scores them.
After you teach a sound or a word family, make a passage at the correct grade to practice it.
Ready to try it with a real student passage?
You can start a reading fluency assessment in about 30 seconds, then keep the passage, score, and follow-up notes together in one place.
Start in 30s