Patent ID: 8827713

Claim:
A computer implemented method for determining reading fluency of a participant, comprising the steps of: (a) presenting, on a display device of a computer, to the participant strings of letters from a database, said presenting comprises displaying a string of letters at a time, wherein the database comprises a plurality of strings of letters including words and non-words, the plurality of strings of letters categorized in the database according to an educational level of the participant or an age of the participant; (b) receiving, by an input device of the computer, a single button user input corresponding to each of the string of letters displayed, said user input corresponding to the participant evaluation of whether the first string of letters formulates a word or a non-word; (c) measuring, by a processor of the computer, a latency measure and an accuracy measure of the single button user input corresponding to each string of letters, wherein the accuracy measure is determined according to the participant identifying the string of letters as a word or a non-word and the latency measure is determined according to the time recorded between the presentation of the string of letters and entry of the single button user input and the latency measure is further determined according to a measure of a size of a visual unit recognized by the participant, the size of the visual unit ranging from all letters of the string of letters or a portion of letters of the string of letters; (d) recording, by the processor of the computer, results based on the latency measure and the accuracy measure corresponding to each string of letters; (e) repeating, by the processor of the computer, steps (a)-(d) using different strings of letters from the plurality of strings of letters of the database until the results are sufficient to calculate a score, thereby generating latency scores for strings of letters between three and six letter words; (f) comparing, by the processor of the computer, the latency scores obtained for correctly identified three letter words and six letter words; and (g) determining, by the processor of the computer, the reading fluency of the participant using the result of step (f), wherein the processor determines the participant is non-fluent when the latency scores of the three letter words are not the same as the latency scores of the six letter words, and the processor determines the participant is fluent when the latency scores of the three letter words are the same as the latency scores of the six letter words.