Understanding DIBELS Next Addressing Questions About Your Student’s Testing

What is DIBELS Next? DIBELS stands for “Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills”. DIBELS Next has retained the best of DIBELS, but has been updated to increase ease of use and accuracy of results. The testing is standardized and individualized. The tests are given in short, 1-minute fluency measures to monitor the development of early reading skills.

Why Use DIBELS Next? DIBELS is one-on-one. DIBELS helps provide individualized instruction. DIBELS is growth centered.

Why Use DIBELS Next? The assessments target areas of intervention. They provide information on improvement. Scores are easy to understand.

Assessments Benchmark assessments are given to students individually three times a year. Students take assessments in a private setting with an assessor.

Assessments Students in Kindergarten take the following: First Sound Fluency (FSF) Letter Naming Fluency (LNF) Phonemic Segmentation Fluency (PSF) Nonsense Word Fluency (NWF) *Please see benchmark slides at end of presentation for assessment testing periods.

Assessments Students in first grade take the following: Letter Naming Fluency (LNF) Phonemic Segmentation Fluency (PSF) Nonsense Word Fluency (NWF) Oral Reading Fluency (ORF) Retell Fluency (RTF) *Please see benchmark slides at end of presentation for assessment testing periods.

Assessments Students in second grade take the following: Nonsense Word Fluency (NWF) Oral Reading Fluency (ORF) Retell Fluency (RTF) *Please see benchmark slides at end of presentation for assessment testing periods.

Assessments Students in third through sixth grades take the following: Oral Reading Fluency (ORF) Retell Fluency (RTF) *Please see benchmark slides at end of presentation for assessment testing periods.

First Sound Fluency (FSF) Student is told a word and asked to identify the first sound in the word. Example: Man = m Partial credit is given if first two sounds are given. Example: Man=ma

Letter-Naming Fluency (LNF) Student is given a page of uppercase/lowercase letters and asked to identify the letters. Student is told letter they don’t know. Scores for this test are not listed individually, but are used with other test scores to figure the Dibels composite score.

Letter-Naming Fluency (LNF) Student is given one minute to name as many letters as possible.

Phoneme Segmentation Fluency (PSF) PSF assessments track a child’s ability to recognize phonemes, or sounds of a word. Ability to recognize letter sounds has been found to be a good predictor of later reading achievement.

Phoneme Segmentation Fluency (PSF) Student is read a list of words one at a time, and asked to tell the sounds heard in a word. Ex: cat = /c/ /a/ /t/ (3 sounds)

PSF continued Student receives 1 point for each correct sound that is identified 1 minute. Student is told unknown sounds. Phonemic awareness is essential in developing later reading skills.

Nonsense Word Fluency (NWF) Individually administered in 1 minute. Student presented with random nonsense words (ex: tid, bos) and asked to read each word by producing each letter sound. This produces the “correct letter sounds”(CLS) score. Student is also asked to read the whole words. This gives the “whole words read” (WWR) score.

Why is it important to read a nonsense word? Demonstrates two skills essential to reading: Alphabetic Principle: Each letter(s) represent one sound. Phonological Recoding: Ability to put sounds together fluently.

NWF Forms

NWF Procedure Student is given a sheet of nonsense words. Student is given one minute to read as many as possible while examiner records. Student is given points for each correct sound in the word. Student will score higher if reading as opposed to sounding out words.

DIBELS Oral Reading Fluency (DORF) Measures a student’s ability to translate letters to sounds fluently. Can help provide proper reading material.

DORF Procedures Student is given a grade-level passage to read.

DORF Procedures Student is given directions to read as best they can. If student is stuck on a word, they are told what it is. Omitted words, substitutions, or words taking longer than three seconds are counted errors. The number of words correct in 1 minute is the oral reading rate. Test is given three times, with the median as final score.

DORF Procedures Cont. The DORF score indicates the number of words read per minute. The DORF Accuracy score indicates the number of words read correctly in one minute.

Retell Fluency After reading a passage, student is asked to retell the passage in their own words. This takes the emphasis off of speed reading. The number of words they say in 1 minute is their score. Students are also scored on quality of response.

DIBELS Composite Score The DIBELS composite score is a combination of multiple DIBELS scores and provides the best overall estimate of your student’s reading proficiency.

Reading Results A record of DIBELS scores can be given upon request. Gray lines indicate the benchmark of a skill for the time of year. Dots show actual student results.

What can I do if my child isn’t at Benchmark? DON’T PANIC!! Talk to your child’s grade-level teacher… they are always happy to help! Read to your child OFTEN and have him or her read to you!

Kindergarten Benchmark Goals

1st Grade Benchmark Goals

2nd Grade Benchmark Goals

3rd Grade Benchmark Goals

4th Grade Benchmark Goals

5th Grade Benchmark Goals

6th Grade Benchmark Goals