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What is DIBELS?
General:
- The DIBELS (Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills) Assessment from the University of Oregon is the assessment for all K-3 students. All students will be assessed three times each year (fall, winter, and spring) to monitor growth. In the fall, entering kindergarten students are assessed with only two literacy tasks, Initial Sound Fluency and Letter Naming Fluency. In the winter, two more tasks (Phoneme Segmentation and Nonsense Word Fluency) are added. In the spring, students will be assessed with Letter Naming Fluency, Phoneme Segmentation, and Nonsense Word Fluency. In first, second, and third grades, Oral Reading Fluency is added. The DIBELS Assessment is just one indicator of your child's readiness for reading.
Initial Sound Fluency:
- Students are shown picture cards (for example: monkey, dog and cat). The teacher says, "This is a monkey, a dog and a cat." Then asks, "Which picture begins with /d/ [the "d" sound, not the letter name]?" You can play this game orally with your child in the car or anytime with or without the use of pictures. You can also ask your child to name as many words as they can beginning with a specific letter or letter sound. The Kindergarten goals for initial sound fluency are 8+ in the fall and 25+ in the winter.
Letter Naming Fluency:
- Speed is the key factor here. Students are asked to name as many letters in one minute as they can from a chart. You can point to any word anywhere and have your child spell it for you. It is good practice to have students identify letters in various texts, sizes, and fonts, since this is what students have to do when they read. The Kindergarten goals for letter naming fluency are: 8+ in the fall; 27+ in the winter; and 40+ in the spring
Phoneme Segmentation:
- Phonemes are individual sounds. The word "cat" for example has three phonemes, /c/ /a/ /t/. In this task, the teacher says, "Tell me the sounds in the word cup." The student must break the word apart by sound and repeat it back in segments, with a pause between each sound. The student has to say /c/ /u/ /p/, giving the beginning, middle, and ending sounds. This is a great skill to practice even if your child did very well on the task, because students have to improve their skills at every testing. The number of correct responses required to be at "Benchmark-Grade Level" increases at each testing. This is a skill to develop writing skills as well. Students need to hear the sounds to write them down. The goals for phoneme segmentation in one minute's time are:
18+ in the winter in Kindergarten
35+ in the spring in Kindergarten
45 by mid year first grade.
Nonsense Word Fluency:
- Nonsense words are not real words (kuv, tic, wot, sud, fet, con). Students are asked to read nonsense words to test their decoding ability. The goal for nonsense word fluency in one minute's time are:
13+ in the winter in Kindergarten
25+ in the spring in Kindergarten
50 in the winter in first grade
Oral Reading Fluency:
- Fluency is not an end in itself but a critical gateway to comprehension. When students read with fluency they are able to process meaning. For students to develop fluency, they must demonstrate the skill accurately and decode quickly and effortlessly. Once accurate, fluency develops through plentiful opportunities for practice in which the task can be performed with a high rate of success. The goal for Oral Reading Fluency in one minute's time are:
20 in the winter in first grade
40 in the spring in first grade
44 in the fall in second grade
68 in the winter in second grade
90 in the spring in second grade
110 in the spring in thirda grade
Retell Fluency:
- Comprehension is the essence of reading; the intentional thinking in which meaning happens through the interaction of the text and the reader. Retell fluency assessment is the measurement of comprehension. After reading the passage(text) for 1 minute, the reader is asked to tell everything they remember. The goal for Retell in one minute's time is 50 percent of amount read.
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