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Click on the links below for answers to the most frequently asked questions on DIBELS administration, scoring, research, and implementation. Questions and answers are organized by category and are designed to support the wide variety of educators that utilize DIBELS. Do you have an inquiry that doesn't appear on the list? Email info@dibels.org to have your questions answered by the leading DIBELS researchers and trainers at DMG.
Individual DIBELS Measures:
- What are the DIBELS measures?
- The Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills (DIBELS) are a set of standardized, individually administered measures of early literacy development. They are designed to be brief, fluency measures used to regularly monitor the development of pre-reading and early reading skills.
The measures were developed to assess students in each of the basic early literacy skills, a set of recognized and empirically validated skills related to reading outcomes. In the area of beginning reading, basic early literacy skills include phonological awareness, alphabetic principle, accuracy and fluency with connected text, vocabulary, and comprehension. Each measure has been thoroughly researched and demonstrated to be a reliable and valid indicator of early literacy development and predictive of later reading proficiency to aid in the early identification of students who are not progressing as expected. (Click here for DIBELS references.) When used as intended within an Outcomes-Driven Model, the results can be an important tool in evaluating individual student development as well as providing grade-level feedback toward validated instructional objectives.
- What is the intended purpose of DIBELS?
- DIBELS were designed to be used within a formative assessment process to evaluate the effectiveness of interventions for those children receiving support in order to make changes when indicated to maximize student learning and growth. Initial research on DIBELS focused on examining the technical adequacy of the measures for this primary purpose and this remains the intended use of DIBELS. (Click here for DIBELS references.) DIBELS are not intended to be used alone as a sole measure of a child's or school's success, but rather within a system of literacy support that is linked to a model of data-based decision making.
- What should be done if there is some reason to believe that the score obtained by a student is not an accurate reflection of the student’s skill?
- DIBELS measures have robust evidence of reliability and validity but they are still one-minute measures administered at one point in time. The possibility of inaccurate scores is not unique to DIBELS and can occur with any assessment. We therefore recommend validating need for support if there is any question about the accuracy of a student’s score. DIBELS are only one piece of information that teachers have access to when making educational decisions. Teachers may always use additional assessment information and knowledge about a student to validate a score and the decision as to whether or not to provide additional support. One option for validating scores is to retest the student using alternate forms of the DIBELS measures. The progress-monitoring booklet for each measure includes alternate forms that can be used by any trained teacher to retest a child. By retesting students whose skills are of concern, confidence is increased that a low score is indicative of low skills rather than a bad day, illness, shyness, etc. If it seems plausible that a child was uncomfortable with an unfamiliar adult, the child can be retested with a familiar teacher or aide. If the child had a bad day or was sick, he or she can be retested another day. The bottom line is to rule out alternative reasons for a child’s poor performance, and be reasonably confident that the student needs additional instructional support.
- Why do the DIBELS student materials use the Times New Roman font, which may cause confusion, especially in early first grade when students are first learning to write?
- Extensive research on the validity of each DIBELS measure was completed using the Times New Roman font. Children who have the skills assessed in each measure do well, and those who do not have the skill do not, regardless of the font used. Additionally, most children’s books use this font style.
- Once a student has achieved the “low risk” or “above average” level of proficiency, can the student be excluded from the next assessment?
- DIBELS were developed to be inextricably linked to a system-wide model of data-based decision making. Collecting data on all students in a system provides information about the proportion of students who are meeting benchmark goals and making meaningful growth between benchmark assessment periods. This information enables schools and districts to set system-wide goals and monitor progress toward those goals at a systems level. Collecting data on all students in a system also provides information about the effectiveness of the instructional supports at a system level, enabling a school or district to adapt resources broadly to meet the needs of all learners within the system.
- As updated versions of DIBELS come out, will we have to begin paying for them or will they continue to be online for free?
- The authors of DIBELS are committed to having future versions of DIBELS continue to be available for free.
- Are DIBELS appropriate to use with diverse learners?
- With a few exceptions, DIBELS are appropriate for all students learning to read in English, including those in special education for whom reading connected text is an IEP goal. It may be necessary to adjust goals and timelines and use out-of-grade level materials when using DIBELS with special populations. Visit the Publications and Presentations page to download DMG's position paper, The Use of DIBELS for Diverse Learners to learn more about using DIBELS with special populations.
- What if a child has reading skills that are significantly below grade level? Do I still assess at grade level? Which materials should I use for progress monitoring?
- Students whose reading skills are significantly below grade level should be assessed at grade level for the benchmark assessment. DMG is currently developing DIBELS Survey procedures—guidelines and procedures for "back testing" students who are below grade level in their reading skills to determine appropriate instructional placement and progress monitoring levels. For more information on DIBELS
Survey, visit the Research and Development page.
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- Can I have students repeat the words after me when I am administering ISF?
- Yes. Having students repeat words after the examiner is an approved accommodation that may be used for students with low vocabulary skills including children who are English learners. For additional approved accommodations for ISF and other DIBELS measures see the DIBELS 6th Edition Administration and Scoring Guide.
- What if a student tells me the letter name rather than the initial sound?
- On ISF, a response of a letter name instead of a letter sound is scored as incorrect. If a student says the letter name instead of the letter sound frequently and/or consistently, make a note as this has instructional implications.
- My children don’t know some of these words, like “sofa” or “leopard.” Why do you have words on ISF that are so difficult?
- All of the words on ISF come from the Educator’s Word Frequency Guide, a compendium of words that provides information on the frequency that words occur in print from beginning reading to adult level text. All of the words on ISF are words that occur frequently in beginning reading materials, so are not unusual words and are, in fact, words that children will be likely to encounter in beginning reading.
- Some of the pictures do not look like the word. For example, the picture of “cub” looks like a “bear” to my children. Can we call it a “bear” instead of “cub?”
- Many pictures may be named with multiple words; this is why we tell children the words for the pictures. All of the words used on ISF have been carefully selected from the Educator’s Word Frequency Guide so that alternate forms of the measure are equivalent in level of difficulty. If you change a word on any given form, you may change the difficulty level of that form and the validity of the measure, so it is not permissible to change the words on ISF. If you are administering ISF with students who have limited vocabulary skills you might consider use of the approved accommodations for ISF that are listed in the DIBELS 6th Edition Administration and Scoring Guide.
- Where did the words come from that you use on ISF?
- All of the words on ISF come from the Educator’s Word Frequency Guide (Zeno, Ivens, Millard, and Duvvuri, 1995), a compendium of words that provides information on the frequency that words occur in print from beginning reading to adult level text. All of the words on ISF are words that occur frequently in beginning reading materials, so are not unusual words and are, in fact, words that children will be likely to encounter in beginning reading.
- Why do you have blends on this measure and why do students get credit for saying the blend or first group of sounds in words rather than the phoneme? I thought that what we were after was students being able to hear the individual phonemes in words.
- ISF is an earlier, easier measure of phonemic awareness than PSF. We use this measure in Pre-K and in the beginning of K. It is easier for children to hear the first group of sounds in the word than to isolate the individual phoneme. For example, it is easier for a child to hear /str/ in “string” than it is to isolate the first phoneme, /s/.
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- What if the child asks you to repeat the word?
- You should always arrange the assessment environment to minimize the need to repeat the word, i.e., sit close to the child, make sure you have his/her attention, and speak clearly. If the child asks, repeat the word. If it occurs one time, it will typically not affect the validity of a student's score. If it happens frequently, make a note and follow up to determine the cause (e.g. hearing difficulty).
- What if you think the child heard the wrong word?
- Score what the child says according to the PSF administration and scoring directions. For example, if the word is “nail” and the child sounds out /m/ /ai/ /l/ the child would get a score of 2/3 and would not get credit for the /m/ sound. If this happens once, it will not significantly impact a student's score. If a child consistently sounds out a word that sounds like the word, make a note and follow up to determine why this is happening. Make a referral for a hearing assessment if your follow up assessment indicates that hearing may be an issue. As always, make sure you are sitting close enough to the child, that you have the child’s attention, and that you are speaking clearly.
- I teach blends when I am teaching sounds to my first graders; I don’t understand why children have to say the individual sounds to get full credit on this measure.
- Remember PSF is an indicator of the basic early literacy skill phonemic awareness. Phonemic awareness, or being able to hear individual phonemes in words, is a skill that should be established by the end of kindergarten. This occurs before first grade and the learning of blending in reading. Once children can hear the individual phonemes in words, they map those phonemes onto symbols (letters) and begin to blend them into bigger chunks until they can read multisyllabic words automatically.
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- Why do you use nonsense words? I am teaching children to read for meaning and this seems to go against what I am trying to do.
- Remember that NWF is an indicator of whether or not the child understands and can use the alphabetic principle in decoding words that have not been previously taught and are unknown to the child. When we assess whether or not the child has the alphabetic principle, what we want to know is, a) does the child know the most common sound for letters (letter-sound correspondence) and b) can the child blend the sounds of the letters with whatever comes before and after (phonological recoding)? Reading nonsense words works remarkably well to assess those two parts of the alphabetic principle. Reading real words does not work very well to assess the alphabetic principle because some children have good sight word vocabularies. Simply looking at a page of letters and saying the most common sound also does not work because letters make different sounds depending upon the context. In addition, saying the sound for an individual letter does not assess the second part of the alphabetic principle, the phonological recoding part. Remember, the idea is to teach the basic early literacy skill broadly—you can teach the alphabetic principle without ever teaching nonsense word reading—and assess efficiently. NWF is a reliable, valid and efficient indicator of the alphabetic principle.
- What if the child says the sounds correctly and then recodes them wrong, for example, for “tob” says /t/ /o/ /b/ , “bot.”
- On all DIBELS measures, when a student gives more than a single response, it is the final response that is scored. On NWF when a child says the sounds and then recodes the word it is the recoded word that is scored. When scoring recoded words (words read as a whole word) the letter sounds must be correct and in the correct place (beginning, middle, end) to receive credit. In the example provided, the child would receive 1 point for the middle sound as the /o/ sound is the only one in the recoded word that is correct and in the correct place.
- Should we teach reading nonsense words in our classrooms so that children will do well on this test?
- Remember that NWF is an indicator of the alphabetic principle. The idea is to teach the basic early literacy skill, the alphabetic principle, in any of the myriad ways that are effective, engaging, meaningful and fun for students NOT simply to teach students to read nonsense words. It is important to teach students a strategy for decoding unknown words. That strategy involves knowing the letter sounds and being able to blend those letter sounds to decode an unknown word. A teacher can teach the strategy without ever teaching the reading of nonsense words. A child who knows letter sounds and can blend them to decode words will do well on NWF even if nonsense words are never used in instruction. Some teachers do use nonsense words as one activity among a variety of activities they use to teach the alphabetic principle; some do not. What is important is to teach the basic early literacy skill.
- The first sound that I teach for the letter “e” in my curriculum is the long sound. If my students say the long “ee” sound, do I need to mark it wrong? Isn’t this unfair?
- All of the nonsense words on NWF are phonetically regular words and all of the vowel sounds are short sounds. If a child says a long vowel sound it should be scored as incorrect. Students in kindergarten who are beginning to learn letter-sound correspondences are not expected to get all of the sounds correct. NWF was deliberately designed so that students just beginning to learn the alphabetic principle will be able to say sounds for some on the letters; as they are taught more sounds, their scores will improve. This is why the measure works well to show growth and progress over time. As children learn more sounds, their scores increase.
- I notice that when my students begin to recode, their score goes down on NWF because they take more time when they say, for example, /y/ /i/ /z/ “yiz.”
- Students’ scores may go down when they move from simply saying letter sounds to saying the sounds and recoding the word. The new benchmark goal for NWF is 50 correct letter sounds with at least 15 words recoded. If the number of letter sounds goes down when children begin to recode because they are sounding out and then recoding, you will begin to see the number of recoded words increase. The decrease in number of letter sounds should be temporary. If the students’ skills continue to grow, they will become more fluent in decoding and their skills will continue to increase until they reach automaticity in reading simple VC and CVC words.
- Why do you use words that are not like real words in English? For example, there are no words in English that end in “j.”
- The point of NWF is not to assess whether or not children know common phonics rules in English but whether or not they know: a) the most common sounds for letters and b) can blend the sound with the letter sounds that come before and after. It is an indicator of whether or not children have these early alphabetic principle skills.
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- DORF only measures speed in reading. What about comprehension?
- Oral reading fluency has been widely and thoroughly researched over the past 30 years and is actually very highly correlated with reading comprehension. The reality is that, in order to comprehend what they read, children need to have good language skills, vocabulary and background knowledge AND they need to be able to read fluently.
- Why don’t you tell children to read the title and/or tell them what the passage is about?
- DORF is a measure of whether or not the student has the necessary component reading skills to decode and get meaning from previously unread text. For this reason, we intentionally do not read the title or tell children what the passage is about.
- Why don’t you have pictures in your passages for children in first grade? We teach children to use pictures to get context clues for meaning.
- DORF is a measure of whether or not the student has the necessary component reading skills to decode and get meaning from previously unread text. For this reason, we intentionally do not provide pictures.
- The benchmark goal of 40 words per minute seems too easy. I would not be happy if my best reader read like this at the end of first grade.
- The benchmark goal of 40 words per minute on DORF by the end of first grade, like all DIBELS benchmark goals, is the goal for the lowest performing student.
- If a child misses the same word twice, do we count it as an error each time? I would want to correct the child the second time.
- You would count a word as incorrect each time a student reads the word wrong. Remember, DORF is a one-minute assessment; it should inform your teaching but the one-minute assessment is not a teaching moment. If there is a consistent pattern of error types that the child makes, make a note and then teach those skills during instruction.
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- A student who does a good job summarizing gets a lower score. This doesn’t seem fair.
- Summarizing is one way a student can demonstrate comprehension skills; so is telling the main idea, telling the topic sentence, and telling everything you can about what you just read. In this particular task, the student is asked to do the latter. Remember, Retell Fluency is an indicator of a student's reading comprehension skills. As always, if there is a question about the validity of a child's score, you may retest with alternate forms.
- What is the benchmark goal for RTF?
- A student should tell at least 25% of the number of words read correctly on DORF in his/her retell. A retell of less than 25% of the number of words read is indicative of a possible comprehension problem.
- What if a student uses a word that sounds like the word, for example, says a sentence with the word “share” instead of “chair?”
- A sentence using the word “share” instead of “chair” would be scored as incorrect. If this happens one time during an assessment, it will not impact a student’s score enough to be significant. If a child frequently and/or consistently uses a word that sounds like the word instead of the word, make a note and follow up to determine why this is happening. Make a referral for a hearing assessment if your follow up assessment indicates that hearing may be an issue. As always, make sure you are sitting close enough to the child, that you have the child’s attention, and that you are speaking clearly.
- What if a student uses a common response pattern for some or all words, such as “I like ____” or “I see ____.”
- Score the number of words and mark correct or incorrect according to the WUF scoring rules. Responses using a repetitive pattern are scored as correct as long as the word is used correctly. For example, “I see a horse” and “I see a face” would be scored as correct. “I see a real” or “I see a doing” would be scored as incorrect. If a child uses a common response pattern consistently or frequently, make a note as this may be an indication of limited oral language skills.
- There are some hard words on this measure, like “mason.” Where did the words for WUF come from and why are such hard words included?
- All of the words on WUF come from the Educator’s Word Frequency Guide, a compendium of words that provides information on the frequency that words occur in print from beginning reading to adult level text. The words on WUF are a mix of easy and hard words that occur relatively frequently in beginning reading materials. If ALL of the words were easy, the measure would not work as well to differentiate children with adequate and low language skills.
- Why isn’t there a benchmark goal for WUF? What do the scores mean and how can we use the scores?
- WUF has evidence of adequate reliability and validity, especially for children in grades K-1. There is not yet a benchmark goal for WUF because we do not yet have the convergence of data to know with confidence what level of performance on WUF is predictive of later reading outcomes. DMG is currently conducting analyses to determine benchmark goals for WUF. Until valid benchmark goals are available, our recommendation is to use local norms and identify the children in the bottom 20th percentile as having low language skills compared to other children in the same school/district.
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- Why aren’t there benchmarks for LNF?
- LNF is a strong and robust predictor of later reading achievement but is not a powerful instructional target, i.e., teaching children who are struggling readers letter names is not the skill that will lead to better reading outcomes.
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