Biomass and coal are great potential energy sources for gasification process. These solids can be gasified to produce syngas and bio-oil which can be upgraded further to transportation fuel. Two biomass and three coals have been gasified with steam in a thermobalance reactor under atmospheric pressure in order to evaluate their kinetic rate information The effects of gasification temperature (600~850 ℃) and partial pressure of steam (30~90 kPa) on the gasification rate have been investigated. The three different types of gas-solids reaction models have been applied to the experimental data to compare their predictions of reaction behavior. The modified volumetric reaction model predicts the conversion data well, thus that model was used to evaluate kinetic parameters in this study. The gasification reactivity of five solids has been compared. The obtained activation energy of coal and biomass gasification were well in the reasonable range. The expression of apparent reaction rates for steam gasification of five solids have been proposed as basic information for the design of coal gasification processes.