DIBELS Report

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.

Central focus of the lesson Students will recognize keywords in the story of the rainbow fish.

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.

Common Core State Standards CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.K.4 Ask and answer questions about unknown words in a text.

Support literacy development through language (academic language) Students must read throughout the textbook of The Rainbow Fish.

Learning objectives Students will know how to pronounce keywords in the story of the rainbow fish.

Formal and informal assessment Students will be assessed by their ability in correctly pronouncing keywords in the story of the Rainbow Fish.

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

Instructional resources and materials used to engage students in learning. Word cards Text book : The Rainbow Fish

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. ●     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.

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.