Pals v DIBELS

[Anonymous]

Here is the DIBELS link:

https://dibels.uoregon.edu/about-dibels

[Anonymous]

Kindergarten parents - can you share what assessments your kids completed and your school?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Kindergarten parents - can you share what assessments your kids completed and your school?

AFAIK, Loudoun only uses PALS.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:DIBELS is typically a ONE MINUTE test for reading fluency, which surprised me as a parent. It’s meant to be a quick screening tool teacher scan use to gauge a lot of children’s fluency. Meaning you have 25 kids, where do they fit. It is not meant as any sortof diagnostic whatsoever — check the DIBELS website. It’s like a whack a mole game, trying to quickly game out where kids might be. There are many more sophisticated measures and if your child is reading then ignore the one minute nonsense.

+1
I think DIBELs focuses way too much on speed. (I’m an experienced teacher, but not a reading specialist. Take that as you will.)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DIBELS is typically a ONE MINUTE test for reading fluency, which surprised me as a parent. It’s meant to be a quick screening tool teacher scan use to gauge a lot of children’s fluency. Meaning you have 25 kids, where do they fit. It is not meant as any sortof diagnostic whatsoever — check the DIBELS website. It’s like a whack a mole game, trying to quickly game out where kids might be. There are many more sophisticated measures and if your child is reading then ignore the one minute nonsense.

+1
I think DIBELs focuses way too much on speed. (I’m an experienced teacher, but not a reading specialist. Take that as you will.)

I don't. Rate is part of reading and should be tested. PALS missed way too many kids.

[Anonymous]

NP. Yea, rate is important. But it’s ALL-important in Dibels.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DIBELS is typically a ONE MINUTE test for reading fluency, which surprised me as a parent. It’s meant to be a quick screening tool teacher scan use to gauge a lot of children’s fluency. Meaning you have 25 kids, where do they fit. It is not meant as any sortof diagnostic whatsoever — check the DIBELS website. It’s like a whack a mole game, trying to quickly game out where kids might be. There are many more sophisticated measures and if your child is reading then ignore the one minute nonsense.

+1
I think DIBELs focuses way too much on speed. (I’m an experienced teacher, but not a reading specialist. Take that as you will.)

I don't. Rate is part of reading and should be tested. PALS missed way too many kids.

I agree rate is important BUT it is really rough on kids with anxiety and ADHD! My kid's DIBELs oral fluency is pretty low but is much higher when he works 1:1 with a tutor (which we hired due to DIBELs) and we realized it is mostly his anxiety preventing him from doing well in the classroom. I am trying to get the school to test him in a quiet room, but so far they don't seem to care too much.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DIBELS is typically a ONE MINUTE test for reading fluency, which surprised me as a parent. It’s meant to be a quick screening tool teacher scan use to gauge a lot of children’s fluency. Meaning you have 25 kids, where do they fit. It is not meant as any sortof diagnostic whatsoever — check the DIBELS website. It’s like a whack a mole game, trying to quickly game out where kids might be. There are many more sophisticated measures and if your child is reading then ignore the one minute nonsense.

+1
I think DIBELs focuses way too much on speed. (I’m an experienced teacher, but not a reading specialist. Take that as you will.)

I don't. Rate is part of reading and should be tested. PALS missed way too many kids.

I agree rate is important BUT it is really rough on kids with anxiety and ADHD! My kid's DIBELs oral fluency is pretty low but is much higher when he works 1:1 with a tutor (which we hired due to DIBELs) and we realized it is mostly his anxiety preventing him from doing well in the classroom. I am trying to get the school to test him in a quiet room, but so far they don't seem to care too much.

I think you can get a 504 for that. Contact the parent resource center.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DIBELS is typically a ONE MINUTE test for reading fluency, which surprised me as a parent. It’s meant to be a quick screening tool teacher scan use to gauge a lot of children’s fluency. Meaning you have 25 kids, where do they fit. It is not meant as any sortof diagnostic whatsoever — check the DIBELS website. It’s like a whack a mole game, trying to quickly game out where kids might be. There are many more sophisticated measures and if your child is reading then ignore the one minute nonsense.

+1
I think DIBELs focuses way too much on speed. (I’m an experienced teacher, but not a reading specialist. Take that as you will.)

I don't. Rate is part of reading and should be tested. PALS missed way too many kids.

I agree rate is important BUT it is really rough on kids with anxiety and ADHD! My kid's DIBELs oral fluency is pretty low but is much higher when he works 1:1 with a tutor (which we hired due to DIBELs) and we realized it is mostly his anxiety preventing him from doing well in the classroom. I am trying to get the school to test him in a quiet room, but so far they don't seem to care too much.

I think you can get a 504 for that. Contact the parent resource center.

Yeah he has a 504, but apparently no one remembers this! I haven't pushed back much because I am not really sure what it really impacts yet (he was also identified as gifted).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DIBELS is typically a ONE MINUTE test for reading fluency, which surprised me as a parent. It’s meant to be a quick screening tool teacher scan use to gauge a lot of children’s fluency. Meaning you have 25 kids, where do they fit. It is not meant as any sortof diagnostic whatsoever — check the DIBELS website. It’s like a whack a mole game, trying to quickly game out where kids might be. There are many more sophisticated measures and if your child is reading then ignore the one minute nonsense.

+1
I think DIBELs focuses way too much on speed. (I’m an experienced teacher, but not a reading specialist. Take that as you will.)

I don't. Rate is part of reading and should be tested. PALS missed way too many kids.

PALS identifies the bottom 10% of kids while dibels flags the bottom 40%. If a test is measured so that almost half of 40% of kids taking it are supposed to fail, then something. Is wrong with the test. We ditched guided reading because 40% of kids were failing.
Can you imagine having a hearing screening where 40% of patients failed it? It would be a waste of time and cause undo anxiety and extra testing.

We need a more nuanced test to help plan instruction. That is where PALS helps.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Kindergarten parents - can you share what assessments your kids completed and your school?

AFAIK, Loudoun only uses PALS.

I should have said APS K parents - which assessments did your child have? We only had one assessment, not 2 like everyone else and I would like to understand why.

[Anonymous]

How do they test the spelling part with PALS? My kindergartner got almost 100 percent up to 5th grade words, and 50 percent on 6th grader words. She can read any words pretty much, but I don't think she can spell that well. She likes to read easy chapter books around 100 pages, nothing crazy. I wanted to know how they tested her. Is it multiple choice? I asked my child but she doesn't remember, or that's what she said. Also, my husband and I stared at the report for a long time but it doesn't have her score. I wanted to compare with benchmark scores of older grades, but sadly I can't. I'm sorry if my English is funny, it's a second language for me.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:How do they test the spelling part with PALS? My kindergartner got almost 100 percent up to 5th grade words, and 50 percent on 6th grader words. She can read any words pretty much, but I don't think she can spell that well. She likes to read easy chapter books around 100 pages, nothing crazy. I wanted to know how they tested her. Is it multiple choice? I asked my child but she doesn't remember, or that's what she said. Also, my husband and I stared at the report for a long time but it doesn't have her score. I wanted to compare with benchmark scores of older grades, but sadly I can't. I'm sorry if my English is funny, it's a second language for me.

I'm sorry, I don't know why I said kindergarten. She is a first grader.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How do they test the spelling part with PALS? My kindergartner got almost 100 percent up to 5th grade words, and 50 percent on 6th grader words. She can read any words pretty much, but I don't think she can spell that well. She likes to read easy chapter books around 100 pages, nothing crazy. I wanted to know how they tested her. Is it multiple choice? I asked my child but she doesn't remember, or that's what she said. Also, my husband and I stared at the report for a long time but it doesn't have her score. I wanted to compare with benchmark scores of older grades, but sadly I can't. I'm sorry if my English is funny, it's a second language for me.

I'm sorry, I don't know why I said kindergarten. She is a first grader.

The test is meant to identify kids who are behind or at risk of being behind in reading. It gives virtually no useful information for those who are ahead. Seems like you know that your kids is ahead, so that's probably good enough.