Summarize each assessment battery tool
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.
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.
How they can be used (in the classrooms or as a standardized tool) for instructional planning and decisions
Both assessments are effective and useful in evaluating the literacy level of students in classrooms. The results of both assessments can be applied for instructional planning and decisions.
DIBELS can be used prior to the starting of the class so that students’ literacy levels can be screened, which then guides planning and decisions on reading materials used. Exams may be designed as DIBELS generates comparative data. The scores can be used to group students in the class and for corresponding instructional planning and decisions. QRI5 can be used at the starting of the semester and throughout the entire semester. The assessment in the beginning guides educators to design lessons that are suitable for the grade levels of students. The assessment during the teaching process helps teachers change their teaching levels of difficulty accordingly.
