DIBELS reading progress report

[Anonymous]

I received one of these at the teacher conference (kindergarten). Can anyone point me to information about what the heck these numbers mean?

[Anonymous]

Hmmmm...we are in K at Murch and have never received any reports.

OP, hope a teacher chimes in for you.

[Anonymous]

NSF-nonsense word fluency. This is how many made up words a student can call out in one minute.

PSF-phoneme segmentation fluency. How many words a child can sound out in one minute. For example c/a/t.

ILF-Initial letter fluency. How many lower and upper case letters a student can identify.

The long and short of it is there is a goal that is on the top of your paper by the initials. It will say something like PSF/20. This means SECURITY. Good luck.

[Anonymous]

DIBBELS is fairly meaningless; don't spend too much time interpreting. Basically measures how fast your child can read (not comprehend)

[Anonymous]

My understanding is that it is a good SCREENING tool and helps teachers identify "at risk" (for learning issues) kids.

[Anonymous]

My dcs teacher did the dibbels and explained that it broke down into reading fluency (reading a loud) and reading comprehension.

[Anonymous]

Dibbels is a good tool for parents to gauge if their kid is getting reading instruction at the appropriate level. The first year we got this report, I asked the teacher for grade level equivalents or Dibbels goals per grade. The answer made it clear that my kid was way ahead. Then I asked if the teacher had tested my kid until the kid couldn't read a passage and the teacher admitted not. I requested further Dibbels testing and the kid was reading 4 grade levels ahead. This explained class room boredom. Next question was what level books is DC being asked to read for classroom work -- answer, on grade level texts.... the failure to address this was the beginning of the end for us in DCPS.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Dibbels is a good tool for parents to gauge if their kid is getting reading instruction at the appropriate level. The first year we got this report, I asked the teacher for grade level equivalents or Dibbels goals per grade. The answer made it clear that my kid was way ahead. Then I asked if the teacher had tested my kid until the kid couldn't read a passage and the teacher admitted not. I requested further Dibbels testing and the kid was reading 4 grade levels ahead. This explained class room boredom. Next question was what level books is DC being asked to read for classroom work -- answer, on grade level texts.... the failure to address this was the beginning of the end for us in DCPS.

Sounds like you might be confusing DEIBELS with TRC

[Anonymous]

DIBELS (Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills) is definitely a screen and a predictor. A teacher shouldn't be using it as a test for reading levels. A more appropriate test for that would be taking a running record using different leveled texts. To the OP, I'm sure that the teacher would have let you know if your DC was in the high risk group. It is unfortunate that she/he gave you the progress report without an explanation.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Dibbels is a good tool for parents to gauge if their kid is getting reading instruction at the appropriate level. The first year we got this report, I asked the teacher for grade level equivalents or Dibbels goals per grade. The answer made it clear that my kid was way ahead. Then I asked if the teacher had tested my kid until the kid couldn't read a passage and the teacher admitted not. I requested further Dibbels testing and the kid was reading 4 grade levels ahead. This explained class room boredom. Next question was what level books is DC being asked to read for classroom work -- answer, on grade level texts.... the failure to address this was the beginning of the end for us in DCPS.

would you mind saying which school?

[Anonymous]

On the report one of the categories for older children is "oral reading fluency" or ORF. This category will show your child's level of ability to read out loud within a 60 second time frame with a dot and also a benchmark for that grade. How many words per minute.

I found this report to track pretty neatly with my DC's reading ability, as I understood it. Below the benchmark when she was struggling with fluency and then at and finally above the benchmark as she became a good reader. It didn't tell me anything I didn't already know, but I did like seeing the progress from test to test.

What did not correlate was the vocabulary section. They want the kids to recall words from the story and use them in sentences (or something like that) and they count how many they do. She scored horribly (like 2-3 grades below the benchmark) but she has a good vocabulary and can articulate ideas from reading material. I never worried about it because it's only a 60 second snapshot. If your kid takes a minute to collect his/her thoughts, forget it, they'll score very low.

[Anonymous]

DIBELS could screen out a child that you could listen to reading aloud and screen out anyway. Does not do much beyond that. There are plenty of wonderful, fine-grained instruments that are ...here's the catch...incredibly time-intensive. DIBELS is not one of them. Given as many times a year as it is, it does drain a teacher's time in a less than productive way though versus giving a more intensive test to the red flag children (challenged or gifted).