DIBELS (Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills) is an early literacy screening set of tests designed to determine literacy problems in a child. The series of tests are administered to children in kindergarten through to grade five to assess their progress in learning (Snyder, 2011). I administered the tests to assess the strengths and weaknesses of a student named Tom Holland. Tom is six years old student and in his mid-grade one program. It is the first critical school year after kindergarten. There are essential skill areas to address when designing and planning a learning program for grade 1 students. Thus, I administered the tests to develop an intervention plan with the student.
The first test was Letter Naming Fluency (LNF). In this test, I presented a page of randomly arranged upper- and lower-case letters and asked Tom to name as many of them as possible. The student had one minute to come up with as many letters as possible. The test score was the number of letters the student named correctly in one minute (Munger, 2010). The second test was the phoneme segmentation fluency (PSF). The test aimed to measure students' ability to segment phoneme words into their individual phonemes fluently (Nomicos, 2013). The test assessed how many three and four phoneme-words Tom could say fluently in one minute.
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The third test, Nonsense Word Fluency (NWF), was also administered. Here, the student was required to list make-believe words the best way he could. The score was the number of words Tom read correctly under one minute. The fourth test, Word Reading Fluency (WRF), involved Tom reading as many words as possible in a list of words presented. The test aimed to measure reading capability. The score was the number of words the student read fluently in one minute. Notably, if the student hesitated for about three seconds before reading out a word, it was marked as incorrect reading.
Tom scored well in the tests above. For instance, under one minute, out of 100 letters, Tom named 67 of them correctly. The result indicates that the student's score falls in a percentile of no risk of recognizing and naming letters. In other words, Tom has a strong skill in identifying and naming letters. Tom had an alarming score in the PSF test; his score places his in the range of low-risk students after as segmenting phonemes are concerned. The score was worse in four-phoneme words. Similarly, there was a worrying trend in the NWF and WRF tests, where the student had difficulty reading as the test progressed. The score, especially in WRF, indicated he is at risk of reading.
There were a variety of reasons for the assessment. The first purpose was to determine Tom’s risk level in various skill areas and reading ability. Second, monitor Tom in his progressive learning as he receives additional support (Snyder, 2011). Third, evaluate the effectiveness of materials used in learning. Fourth, to determine areas to impact in designing instructional content and materials (Nomicos, 2013). As indicated above, Tom’s strength lies in naming letters, even though his weaknesses are shown in his ability to read and segment phonemes in words. That being so, the primary objective of further learning is to target the student’s reading ability.
From the assessment above, Tom’s low reading ability and recognition of sounds in words indicate the ineffectiveness of materials and learning mode so far. Thus, learning needs to target areas of weakness in Tom, particularly. As an instructor, my responsibility is to identify appropriate materials and more learning to improve Tom's reading skills. At his age, Tom should have a higher score at NWF, WRF, and PSF. The fact that he has a below-average score shows the inefficacy of the current program and instructional practices.
References
Munger, K. A. (2010). A longitudinal follow-up study of the dynamic indicators of basic early literacy skills (DIBELS) as a predictor of third-grade reading comprehension . Syracuse University.
Nomicos, D. (2013). Using dynamic indicators of basic early literacy skills scores to predict California English language development levels for English language learners (Doctoral dissertation).
Snyder, M. (2011). Dynamic indicators of basic early literacy skills: An effective tool to assess adult literacy students? (Doctoral dissertation).
