talk to me about Dibels

[lightheart]

Our son's school started a reading intervention program this year. I sent a note into his teacher today asking if he had been tested yet and for the results... well now I have a few pages printed off with the results but I don't know how to interpret them at all. Going to stop by early when I pick him up tomorrow to see who I need to talk to about explaining them to me.

I know it's another standardized test... but that's about it... anything you have to say about the test is more knowledge than I have now so talk to me.

Our guy is in 1st grade if that makes any difference in your answers.

[octobermom]

www.fcrr.org/assessment/PDFfiles/RISK_LEVELS.pdf see if this helps. DD school also uses it I'm not overly impressed...

Deanna

[joycenjackiesmom]

DIBELS is a quick assessment of early reading skills and a child's fluency with those skills. If I remember correctly the first grade skills assessed are segmenting words into sounds, reading short nonsense words that follow a consonant/vowel/consonant pattern, reading a passage and retelling the passage (they actually read 3 passages and the middle score is recorded as long as more than 10 words are read). There is also a vocabulary assessment which I don't have familiarity with as my district does not use this part. Each section is a timed minute. The child falls into a category of risk in relation to a target appropriate for that skill for the grade level at that point in the year. This allows the teacher to determine if any intervention is needed in a particular skill at that time. They are typically given at 3 benchmark points in the year with progress monitoring occuring for children who are receiving extra intervention.

Does that help?

[LiamnEmma]

Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Learning Skills. This was one of the precursors to really getting the response to intervention movement going in my opinion. It was begun in Oregon and was initially graduate psych student research in conjunction with a professor--sorry, can't remember his name right now. I first started pushing my district to use it about 8'ish years ago even though I wasn't sure how we could productively use the information without any interventions in place at the time. They then sold it (I assume because it went from being downloadable online at the Univ of Oregon website to purchase from Scott-Foresman if I remember correctly).

A similar program is the Voyager Reading program.

It really targets basic phonological processing skills--can you play with words, sounds, change them, interchange them, use phonetic rules to decode nonsense words, and with fluency? etc. All these skills play into reading and in children who are having difficulties picking up reading skills it can be a very good thing to use to target the skills deficits and make the intervention the most productive.

But the information has to be used productively of course.

[ecoteat]

Administering dibels takes only a few minutes, so although it is a standardized assessment, it is very non-intrusive to the child. One set of scores doesn't tell you a whole lot other than below, at, or above grade level. If a kid is below the benchmark, the teacher should be doing more explicit teaching to work on the skills specifically showing deficiency on the assessment. Kids who score low may be progress monitored every week or two--they do the assessment more regularly to make sure the extra work in the classroom is helping.

As a teacher, I love dibels. I can get WAY more information about what each kid needs at any given time in their reading instruction than from any big standardized test or things like the DRAs or Rigby assessment. Dibels become even more useful the longer you give them. My school has been doing them for 3 years now and it's wonderful to be able to chart the growth of specific reading skills over the years. These are the first mandated assessment I've ever had to use that I felt I got any benefit from as a teacher.

[lightheart]

Thank you for the information. I'm a little less confused now. Glad to hear that teachers actually like this test.

(I'm actully ok with the standardized testing... any test is great in themselves, it's just how the results are used. When they start teaching for the tests specifically and not having time for other learning that is not ON the test that tests become bad... that's a whole 'nother thread though....
Guess I'm saying I'm okay with this or any test being given.)

I'm trying to see if the test is actually showing a 'problem' and I am wanting him to get more help.

Our guy is having a difficult time with his reading spelling and handwriting (and speech too) I know that, I see that just when I open a book for him to read or ask him to write something down for me. Right now he is not pulled out for the reading intervention program, they want me to send him to the tutoring program afterschool, which I have been doing and it is helping some but I want to be doing ALL that can be done. Although he is not receiving direct speech services through the school, we are doing private therapy afterschool with him 1 day a week. (our choice for no school speech)

9-2-08 PSF 3 Phonemes/min 6%
10-1-08 NWF 44 letter sounds/Min

there is a progress toward goal graph for NWF and it is incline with a circle at 25 in Aug and another circle at 50 in mid Nov

benchmark history
LNF 1st grade beginning (stautus graphed little guy at low risk) 38 score, 53%
PSF 1st grade beginning (status graphed little guy going to emerging) 3 score 6%
NWF 1st grade beginning (stautus graphed little guy at low risk) 27 score, 56%
WUF 1st grade beginning (stautus N/A) 28 score, 65%

(the guide to student summary says that additional monitoring not required)

so looking at this test it doesn't appear that he needs the extra help.... I think... you tell me... please. (I'm not for certain if the numbers I'm seeing are even the real numbers I should be looking at)

What would you want to do if you were his teacher and just looked at this one test?

[Adele_Mommy]

As a parent and for my particular child, I despise the DIBELS test. When my DD took the test in first grade they actually flagged her for needing intervention based solely on the fact that she tested below grade level on that stupid nonsense word part. They kept testing her and by the end of second grade I think she was right around grade level on that part. She was also reading about four years above grade level. She is now in third grade and I think the DIBEL does not include the nonsense word part anymore, thank goodness. They also did a different reading assessment that gives children a lexile score. The lexile score is not directly associated with a grade level, but my dd's score falls in the range of an average 8th grader.

IMO I think DIBELS inappropriately equates decoding (phonics) and pronunciation of words with reading when they are not the same. Children with speech issues and children who don't naturally learn to read well with the phonics method (both of which are true of my dd) do not do well on the DIBELS test.

[Sunmommy]

Um..not all teachers like it. You can find much criticism of DIBELS online..just do a quick search.

Most of the teachers *I* know think it is pretty meaningless. I mean, sure, there is a correlation between scoring well (low risk) and strong readers but that is about it. It basically shows how well a child can decode and is fairly useless in the whole scheme of things...like most standardized testing. I know in our state it is specifically used to predict how well they will do on standardized testing once they reach 3rd grade...I guess it is a decent indicator.

Our school has started using another test in conjunction w/it which looks more at fluency...don't know if it is better or not.

[NatureMommy]

Originally Posted by Adele_Mommy

IMO I think DIBELS inappropriately equates decoding (phonics) and pronunciation of words with reading when they are not the same. Children with speech issues and children who don't naturally learn to read well with the phonics method (both of which are true of my dd) do not do well on the DIBELS test.

DIBELS is an assessement TOOL. It is not a test of reading ability. If it is used as the end all to placing a child at a reading level, it is being misused. I should be used as a starting point to further assess reading levels and abilities

My youngest started speech therapy just after his 4th birthday at the same school where he would be attending kindergarten. When he was assessed with DIBELS in kindergarten (still in speech 3x a week), his teacher took into account his still moderate speech issues and used her experience and her ability to observe and assess him in other reading situations and properly placed him at a reading level that did not completly agree with the DIBELS assesment.

[Adele_Mommy]

Originally Posted by NatureMommy

DIBELS is an assessement TOOL. It is not a test of reading ability.

I understand that DIBELS is an assessment tool. I think it is a particularly bad tool.

Originally Posted by NatureMommy

My youngest started speech therapy just after his 4th birthday at the same school where he would be attending kindergarten. When he was assessed with DIBELS in kindergarten (still in speech 3x a week), his teacher took into account his still moderate speech issues and used her experience and her ability to observe and assess him in other reading situations and properly placed him at a reading level that did not completly agree with the DIBELS assesment.

You say yourself that your own child was placed at a reading level based on other reading assessments that did not agree with DIBELS. Those children for whom DIBELS actually does happen to accurately reflect proper reading placement could have been just as easily placed using those other assessments as well. The DIBELS test does not add anything for an experienced and knowledgeable teacher, because the teacher cannot rely on its accuracy. And in addition to being basically useless, it is not harmless. My DD took the DIBELS test three times in first grade. She is extremely bright and cares a great deal about academics. She also knows when she takes the DIBELS test that she is not doing well on it. By the last testing she was so stressed and upset about the upcoming DIBELS test I would have told her it was a stupid, meaningless test even if I didn't really believe that just to ease her worry.

[Mandynee22]

DD's school used dibels until this year. I'm not sure what the name of what they're doing now is.
Although it wasn't a standardized test- she said they don't write anything. They just read to a person and are assessed based on fluency and understanding. Are there two kinds?
I actually liked it better than what they're doing now because it would show more clearly where they're at (like which level OF which grade level) and now the report cards either say below, at, above or way above.