Educational Psychology, Vol. 22, No. 4, 2002 Further Progress Towards a Standardised Curriculum-based Measure of Reading: calibrating a new passage reading test against the New South Wales Basic Skills Test ALISON MADELAINE & KEVIN WHELDALL*, Macquarie University Special Education Centre, Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia ABSTRACT Results are presented from a pilot study and a larger scale study aligning a curriculum-based passage reading test, the Wheldall Assessment of Reading Passages (WARP), with the literacy components of the New South Wales Basic Skills Test (BST). A strong relationship between the WARP and BST Literacy is demonstrated, particularly for Year Three students. Representative (approximate) norms for students in Years One to Five on the WARP are reported, based on the results from a school with a BST literacy prole that is very similar to that for the state of New South Wales as a whole. Introduction Previous research in the area of curriculum-based measurement (CBM) has identied reading aloud measures as the measures of reading progress that correlate most highly with standardised reading tests including tests of reading comprehension (Deno, Mirkin, & Chiang, 1982). These results have been replicated in other studies, strengthening claims for the validity of curriculum-based passage reading tests (PRTs) as a means both of measuring reading competence and of indexing progress in reading (Deno et al., 1982; Fuchs, Fuchs & Maxwell, 1988; Parker, Hasbrouk & Tindal, 1992; Shinn, Knutson, Good, Tilly & Collins, 1992). A curriculum-based passage reading test typically requires students to read a grade level passage from a basal reader for one minute. The number of words read correctly * We would like to thank the principals, staff and students of the two schools involved in the research reported in this paper. We would also like to thank Dr Terry Burke, formerly Deputy Director General of the New South Wales Department of Education and Training, for his permission to use the Basic Skills Test data in our research. ISSN 0144-3410 print; ISSN 1469-046X online/02/040461-11 Ó 2002 Taylor & Francis Ltd DOI: 10.1080/0144341022000003132