DIBELS Assessment Report
Brief
Report
I
conducted my DIBELS assessment with a pre-kindergarten student, named Isaac. He
is a Chinese who was born in the United States. He can speak both English and
Chinese. During the assessment, he was able to pronounce most of the letters I chose.
However, he had difficulty in reading words. Thus, he showed difficulty in
reading the material The Rainbow Fish.
When he was presented the story by me, he was able to retell the main ideas of
the story and some supporting details. Based on the assessment results, he
belonged to middle to high level in his class. From this diagnosis result, I decided
to improve his reading ability by improving his vocabulary in written English.
DIBELS Assessment Information
DIBELS, Dynamic
Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills, is a kind of short tests that
evaluate the early literacy skills of children from kindergarten to Grade 6. It
focuses on assessing five big ideas of early literacy, including phonemic
awareness, alphabetic principle, accuracy and fluency with text, vocabulary and
comprehension. This test allows educators to screen students who may need
further assistance in literacy development (benchmarking testing) and to
evaluate the effectiveness of interventions (progress monitoring).
For alphabetic principle
in DIEBLS, for example, children are required to pronounce the letters on the
given materials, either to retrieve the pronunciation of an unknown printed
string or to spell words. The time is taken for one minute to evaluate how many
letter-sound correspondence can be identified by students.
For assessment of
accuracy and fluency with text, children are given usually three sets of
reading materials. They are required to read the materials within one minute.
The total number of words, and the number of errors during reading are noted.
And then the number of words correct can be calculated by the difference
between the two. The middle score of the three readings is taken as the
assessment results.
The comprehension can be
assessed by asking children to retell the story they just read and counting the
number of words in their retelling and the number of main ideas that are retold
in the story.
Data Analysis on DIBELS
Through a five minute
observation and assessment, Isaac shows some progresses in his English literacy
skill in reading words. He can recognize most of the words after I read them to
him several times. However, he still has very limited vocabulary.
Instructional decisions and suggested activities
Based on the results of DIBELS diagnosis, I designed a 20
minute lesson for Isaac to improve his reading skills.
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Central focus of the lesson
Students
will recognize keywords in the story of the rainbow fish.
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Knowledge of students to inform teaching
(prior knowledge/prerequisite skills and personal/cultural/community assets)
Students
must be able to understand the story, especially the main characteristics and
the main animals, prior to this lesson.
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Common Core State Standards
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.K.4
Ask
and answer questions about unknown words in a text.
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Support literacy development through language
(academic language)
Students
must read throughout the textbook of The Rainbow Fish.
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Learning objectives
Students
will know how to pronounce keywords in the story of the rainbow fish.
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Formal and informal assessment
Students
will be assessed by their ability in correctly pronouncing keywords in the
story of the Rainbow Fish.
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Instructional procedure:
Teachers will show students how to pronounce keywords in
the textbook
Teachers will ask students to identify these keywords in
the textbook
Teachers will ask students to read these keywords.
1.
T
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Instructional resources and
materials used to engage students in learning.
Word cards
Text book : The Rainbow Fish
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Reflection
●
Did your instruction support learning for the whole
class and the students who need great support or challenge?
This
instruction did not support learning for the whole class and the students who
need great support or challenge.
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What changes would you make to support better student
learning of the central focus?
I
would integrate more technology, such as spelling games on iPad, to support
better student learning of the central focus.
● Why do you think these changes
would improve student learning? Support your explanation from evidence of
research and/or theory.
Games are more attractive for young children. Visual
imagery is helpful and attractive than textual only based on the dual coding
theory.
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QRI-5 & DIBELS
QRI5, qualitative reading
inventory 5, is an informal reading inventory. It aims to offer information
about situations in which learners may identify words and understand text
successfully and about situation in which unsuccessful word identification and
understanding are resulted. It can be used to evaluate the reading levels of
students and group them accordingly. It may also use to evaluate the progress
of learners.
QRI5 assesses the reading
ability and listening ability of students from pre-primer 1 to high school
levels. Two major types of passages are available to evaluate reading ability.
Level-Diagnostic Passages are usually used to evaluate reading level and
identify places where further instructions are needed. Inference-Diagnostic
Passages are usually used to assess the ability to response to inference
questions that are in accordance with CCSS.
The reading results are
typically categorized into three levels: independent, instructional, and
frustration levels. These results are used to offer supports for further
intervention programs based on the strengths and weaknesses allocated. The
administration and scoring include word lists, passages, oral reading,
comprehension, and strategic reading.
Describe the similarities
and differences of both assessments
Similarities
Both assessments aim to
evaluate the literacy skills of students during their learning process.
Both assessments take the
pronunciation, accuracy and fluency, and comprehension into consideration.
Both assessments can be
used to evaluate the reading levels of students and group them accordingly and
to evaluate the progress of learners.
Both assessments can
identify the strengths and weaknesses of students in literacy, serving as
guidance for intervention strategies.
Differences
DIEBLS assess students
from kindergarten to Grade 6 while QRI 5 assess students from pre-primer 1 to
high school levels.
DIBELS have five Big
Ideas: including phonemic awareness, alphabetic principle, accuracy and fluency
with text, vocabulary and comprehension while QRI 5 mainly deals with words and
passage fluency and accuracy.
DIBELS is a short
assessment that is achieved within 1 minute while QRI5 is relatively longer
without time limit.
DIBELS is formal while
QRI5 is informal.
DIBELS makes use of
comparative data via standardized assessments while QRI 5 does not.
Reflection
DIBELS is a very
effective diagnosis tool to evaluate students’ literacy level. It can be
conducted in short time which is very convenient. It can be assessed at the beginning,
in the middle and at the end of a series of lessons to see if the students
improve and how much they improve. Through this practice, I understand how to
integrate assessment and diagnosis into teaching. It is a very useful project
that foster me and help me in my future career in teaching.
