When I taught an upper elementary grade, I would write a DIBELs-style nonsense word fluency assessment and administer it to new students. I caught a couple students with no understanding of phonics. Both times it was kids who had come from FCPS.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My kindergartener's teacher shared the results with us. She tested at grade level but the teacher said she didn't know the sounds for a number of letters. But actually, she does...and she can read, which by parent teacher conference time the teacher acknowledged. She's just very slow to warm up and a 1-on-1 with a teacher at the beginning of the school year is a way that will guarantee you will absolutely not information out of her. This method of testing seems unreliable.

So is Dibels actually a 1-on-1 test with the teacher? Our 2nd grader scored at grade level, but I was confused how she "needs some support" for decoding, yet is at benchmark for "accurate and fluent reading" and actually scored above benchmark in reading comprehension.

Did the teacher not explain that to you? Decoding is sounding out (I believe DIBELS tests that through nonsense words.) Lots of kids can fluently read words they're familiar with (and understand the meaning, i.e. reading comprehension) but struggle with sounding out unfamiliar words. That's why tests like DIBELS are great to help catch kids like mine who knows a ton of sight words (and can guess from context and pictures, like she was unfortunately encouraged to in kindergarten) so you might miss how challenging sounding things out/decoding is for her and that she needs more help with it.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My kindergartener's teacher shared the results with us. She tested at grade level but the teacher said she didn't know the sounds for a number of letters. But actually, she does...and she can read, which by parent teacher conference time the teacher acknowledged. She's just very slow to warm up and a 1-on-1 with a teacher at the beginning of the school year is a way that will guarantee you will absolutely not information out of her. This method of testing seems unreliable.

Unreliable in comparison to what, a group test? No one test is going to be completely accurate for every single person which is why teachers do the testing and look at other measures. Its also why its not one and done. And it’s also why there is no requirement that all students be reading independently by the end of K. Kids develop differently and adjust to school differently.

It's more reliable than moms telling the teacher what their kids know. I have had quite a few parents tell me that their kid knows the letters in the alphabet. It turns out that they can sing the alphabet song. They don't actually know the letters and sounds.