1. Indicators of Early Literacy Skills: Dibels
Natalie Pileggi- Rupert Reading Specialist

2. What is the Dibels Assesment?
Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills
The Dibels assessments are a set of standardized, individually administered measures of early literacy development.
They are designed to be short (one minute) fluency measures used to regularly monitor the development of pre-reading and early reading skills.
The benchmarks assessments are given three times a year to Kindergarten through fifth grade students

3. Five Big Ideas In Reading
Why do we use Dibels?
Five Big Ideas In Reading
Phonological Awareness
Alphabetic Principal
Vocabulary
Fluency with the Text
Comprehension
Dibels
Phonological Awareness
Alphabetic Principal
Fluency with the Text
Comprehension

4. Dibels Measures Initial Sound Fluency Letter Naming Fluency
Phoneme Segmentation
Nonsense Word Fluency
Oral Reading Fluency

5. Initial Sound Fluency
By the middle of Kindergarten, the students should be able to identify and say beginnings sounds in words.
Students are given a paper with four pictures. They are asked to identify a picture with a specific sound or say the beginning sound of a word.

6. Letter Naming Fluency
Kindergarten and first grade students are given a paper with letters and asked to name each one.
This is a one minute test.

7. Phoneme Segmentation Fluency
Given to Kindergarten and first grade students to assess their knowledge of sounds in the words we speak.
Example: teacher says “hat”
students says /h/ /a/ /t/

8. Nonsense Word Fluency
This assessment is given to Kindergarten through second grade.
Allows students to use knowledge of letters and sounds to read unfamiliar words.
Example: mec

9. Oral Reading Fluency
This is given to children in first to fifth grade. It measures how fluently students read passages at their grade level.
The students are given three passages and asked to read each for a minute.
After reading the selection, the students are asked to retell the story.

10. DAZE
The students are assessed in grade three through six on this skill. It measures student’s comprehension skills.
The students are given a passage with words missing. They must pick a word from three choices that fits best in the blank. The task must be complete in three minutes.