The Rapid Online Assessment of Reading (ROAR) is a Stanford University–developed platform for assessing foundational reading skills. ROAR includes a suite of fully automated, online assessments validated with more than 20,000 K–12 students across 20 states. Assessments require no test administrator and provide fast, precise measures of reading ability, often with greater precision than many traditional individually administered reading assessments.
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Details about our methodology and publications can be found in our technical manual.
ROAR integrates with major rostering systems, including Clever, enabling district-wide deployment with minimal setup. Teachers and administrators receive real-time, instructionally actionable reports as soon as students complete their assessments.
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The Stanford Reading & Dyslexia Research Program aims to investigate the factors contributing to reading difficulties including dyslexia. By developing and rigorously validating automated assessment tools that enable large-scale data collection, and bridge research and practice, we can help researchers and educators understand and support the diversity of learners.
Our Assessments
Explore assessments across our four primary domains (foundational reading, comprehension, math, and research) or view our complete assessment library.
Foundational Reading Skills
ROAR’s fully normed and validated Foundational Reading Skills assessments measure key reading skills across phonological awareness, letter knowledge, word recognition, and sentence reading. Each assessment takes just 5–10 minutes to administer.
Research-Practice Partnerships
ROAR is made possible through a research-practice partnership model and remains free for schools through grant-funded research at Stanford University. By partnering with districts that share a commitment to advancing literacy research, we are able to provide high-quality assessment tools at no cost while continuing to improve our understanding of how students learn to read.
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We are now accepting applications for K - 5 schools/districts who are interested in participating in one of our two major research studies! Participating schools will receive tailored professional development, expert-led presentations, in-person assessment support, preliminary school score reports, and all assessments and services at no cost.
ROAR in Action
Exploring the intersection of education, technology, and neuroscience to scale equitable, data-driven literacy tools through collaborative research-practice partnerships.
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Education Innovation
Developing a gamified, browser-based assessment that shifts standard literacy screenings from time-intensive, one-on-one evaluations into an accessible digital format capable of evaluating an entire school district simultaneously.
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Computational Social Science
Utilizing computer-adaptive data analytics to uncover hidden foundational literacy gaps in older middle and high school student populations, allowing coaches to retrain secondary educators on systematic interventions.
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Interdisciplinary Research
Fostering strategic research-practice partnerships that connect cognitive neuroscience laboratories directly with classroom implementations, enabling real-time student profiling and the continuous development of open-source diagnostic tools.