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DIBELS Next Information.... This year our district will be using an updated version of Dibels called "Dibels Next" see this FAQ page: http://dibels.org/faqsNext.html All students will be assessed 3 times per year in the following DIBELS Next benchmarks according to grade level and time of the year: ***Additional phonics and phonological assessments are conducted with students based upon specific criteria. This information helps us to plan and prepare instruction specific to the child's needs during small group instruction. Small group instruction occurs during reading instruction time and during centers/intervention time.
*First Sound Fluency- An indicator of a child's ability to identify a beginning (or initial) sound after hearing a stated word. *Phoneme Segmentation Fluency-An indicator of a child's ability to listen to a word and break it into sounds: For example: /dog/ = /d/.../o/.../g/ /spoon/ =/s/.../p/.../oo/.../n/ A video below explains the importance of this early skill and how we practice it in class. *Letter Naming Fluency- An indicator of a child's ability to state the names of letters in one minute. This is not a strong indicator of reading success. Research indicates it is more important for student to learn sound-letter association as opposed to learning letter names. However the final score is affected by a child's ability to state letter names. *Nonsense Word Fluency- An indicator of a child's ability to read short vowel words. This provides us information about decoding skill. Can your child accurately state the sounds of the letter placed in front of them? Can your child blend these sounds to make simple nonsense words? As your child becomes a more confident reader, this skill is necessary for larger words with multiple syllables. *Oral Reading Fluency-An indicator of a child's ability to read a short passage to gauge a fluency rate in one minute. This task begins in first grade.
The following information was obtained from Dibels. org: History of DIBELS... DIBELS were developed based on measurement procedures for Curriculum-Based Measurement (CBM), which were created by Deno and colleagues through the Institute for Research and Learning Disabilities at the University of Minnesota in the 1970s-80s (e.g., Deno and Mirkin, 1977; Deno, 1985; Deno and Fuchs, 1987; Shinn, 1989). Like CBM, DIBELS were developed to be economical and efficient indicators of a student's progress toward achieving a general outcome. Initial research on DIBELS was conducted at the University of Oregon in the late 1980s. Since then, an ongoing series of studies on DIBELS has documented the reliability and validity of the measures as well as their sensitivity to student change. The DIBELS authors were motivated then, as now, by the desire to improve educational outcomes for children, especially those from poor and diverse backgrounds. Research on DIBELS continues at Dynamic Measurement Group (DMG) and at numerous universities and research institutions around the world.Which skills do the DIBELS measures assess?
The DIBELS measures were specifically designed to assess the Big Ideas of early literacy: Phonological Awareness, Alphabetic Principle, Fluency with Connected Text, Vocabulary, and Comprehension. The measures are linked to one another, both psychometrically and theoretically, and have been found to be predictive of later reading proficiency. Combined, the measures form an assessment system of early literacy development that allows educators to readily and reliably determine student progress. Why use DIBELS?The purpose of the DIBELS Benchmark goals is to provide educators with standards for gauging the progress of all students. The Benchmark goals represent minimum levels of performance for all students to reach in order to be considered on track for becoming a reader. The DIBELS goals and cut scores are research-based, criterion-referenced scores. They indicate the probability of achieving subsequent early literacy goals. Benchmark goals for each measure and time period were established using a minimum cut point at which the odds were in favor of a student achieving the next benchmark goal. For a score to be considered a benchmark goal, at least 80% to 85% of students in the sample with that score at that point in time had to achieve the next goal. So, for a child with a score at or above the benchmark goal at a given point, the probability is high for achieving the next goal; the probability of need for additional support to achieve the next goal is low.