Maze Passage Generator

Step 1 of 3

Curriculum-based measurement (CBM) Maze passages are timed measures that measure reading comprehension. They are better predictors of future reading performance than CBM oral reading fluency probes for students in grades 4 and higher (Hosp, Hosp & Howell, 2007). Students read Maze passages silently during assessment, so Maze can be administered to a whole class at one time. Passages used for Maze should be at least 300 words in length. The first sentence of the Maze passage is left intact. In the text following the first sentence, every seventh word from the passage is selected to be incorporated into a response item that consists of the original word plus two foils (words that would not make sense if substituted in the passage in place of the original, correct word). These three choices are randomly arranged and inserted back into the text.  During a timed Maze administration, the reader silently reads the Maze passage; whenever he or she encounters a response item, the reader circles the word from the three choices that best restores the meaning of that segment of the passage. The reader continues until time expires. A good description of Maze passages and administration can be found in the manual Using CBM for Progress-Monitoring in Reading (Fuchs & Fuchs, 2007).


Directions:
This Maze Passage Generator  largely automates the work of creating a Maze passage with user-entered content.  

To get started, type or paste the passage that you would like to convert in the Passage box below. You can also optionally type in the Author and/or Title of the passage. NOTE: To compute readability, click on the COMPUTE button below under ‘Readability Estimates’.

Selecting Foils for the Maze Passage. The application allows you three choices in selecting foils to be included in the Maze responses:

  1. Basic list of common English words. The application selects foils from a list of common words; this is the default outcome if the user does not select another choice.
  2. Words selected randomly from your passage. The application uses words randomly pulled from your passage as foils. This can be a good choice for more technical text, to ensure that foils are consistent with the overall passage content.
  3. Your own word list. You can enter a word list of your own that the application will use in selecting item foils for the Maze passage.
When you are ready to go to the next screen, click the NEXT button.


Word Count: 0 (Min: 20 Max: 900)
Select the source that the Maze passage will use to select distractors for choice items:
Basic list of common English words [?]
Words selected randomly from your passage [?]
Enter your own word list [?]

Readability Estimates (?)

(A minimum of 75 words is needed to reliably estimate readability.)
Formula Grade Level
FORCAST (?)
Spache (?)
Dale-Chall (?)
Flesch-Kincaid (?)
Coleman-Liau (?)
Automated Readability Index (?)
Flesch Reading Ease (?)
Fog Index (?)
Lix Formula (?)
SMOG-Grading (?)