Introduction to DIBELS Next

Hilary Denune, Lauren Kimener,

and Dacia McCoy

Dynamic Measurement Group

www.dibels.org

Thanks to Stephanie Stollar for providing training materials.

What is DIBELS?

• Developed to monitor growth in critical early literacy

skills to:

– Identify children in need of intervention

– Evaluate the effectiveness of intervention strategies

• Set of standardized, individually administered measures

of early literacy skills

• Short, fluency based measure designed to regularly

monitor student progress toward Benchmark

• Each measure is research based and found to be a

reliable & valid indicator of reading performance and

future reading achievement

DIBELS® Next Assessments

• First Sound Fluency (FSF)

• Letter Naming Fluency (LNF)

• Phoneme Segmentation

Fluency (PSF)

• Nonsense Word Fluency

(NWF)

• DIBELS Oral Reading Fluency

(DORF)

• DIBELS®

Maze (Daze)

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DIBELS®

Assess the Basic Early Literacy Skills

The Matthew Effect

• Refers to a self-fulfilling

prophecy - the rich get richer;

poor get poorer phenomenon

(Stanovich, 1986).

•At the beginning of first grade

there are already significant

differences in students who are

successful and those who are

struggling.

• These reading differences

become greater and more

discrepant over time (especially

at 3rd grade), demonstrating a

"Matthew" Effect.

First Sound Fluency (FSF)

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DIBELS®

First Sound Fluency (FSF)

Assessor says a series of words one at a time to the student and asks the student to say the first sound in the word.

Score: Number of points for correct responses in one minute.

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Practice Item #1

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Practice Item #2

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Practice Item #3

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Scoring Rules

1. Circle the corresponding listed sound or sounds that a student

says for a word.

2. Put a slash ( / ) through the zero on the scoring page for an

incorrect response or no response within 3 seconds.

3. Write “sc” over the slash and circle the corresponding sounds or

group of sounds in the student’s response if the student self-

corrects an error within 3 seconds.

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Scoring Rule 1: Circle Correct Responses

Circle the corresponding listed sound or sounds that a student

says for a word. A response is scored as correct as long as the

student provides any of the correct first sound responses listed for

the word.

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Phoneme Segmentation Fluency (PSF)

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Phoneme Segmentation Fluency (PSF)

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Assessor says a word.

Student says the sounds in

the word.

Score: Number of correct

sound segments student

says in 1 minute.

Administration Directions

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Scoring Rules

1. Underline each correct sound segments the student says. Students receive 1 point for each different, correct, part of the word.

2. Put a slash ( / ) through segments pronounced incorrectly.

3. Circle entire words.

4. Leave segments that are omitted blank.

5. Write “sc” over any self-corrected sounds that had been previously slashed.

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Letter Naming Fluency (LNF)

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Letter Naming

• Letter naming is not a basic

early literacy skill. The skill of

knowing letter names is not

essential to reading

outcomes.

• Letter naming is a strong and

robust predictor of later

reading performance and is

used in DIBELS®

as an

additional indicator of risk.

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Letter Naming Fluency (LNF)

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Assessor shows the student thepage of letters.

Student says the names of theletters.

Score: Number of letterscorrectly named in 1 minute.

Administration Directions

Put the student copy of the materials in front of the student and say:

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Score and Scoring Rules

The student receives 1 point for each correct letter named in 1 minute.

1. Leave letters named correctly blank.

2. Slash (/) any letter that the student omits or names incorrectly.

3. Write “SC” above any letter that had previously been slashed

and was self-corrected within 3 seconds. Count that letter as

correct.

4. Draw a line through any row the student skips and do not

count that row in scoring.

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Nonsense Word Fluency (NWF)

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Assessor shows a page of nonsense words to student. Student reads the words.

Score:

• Number of correct letter sounds (CLS) student reads in 1 minute.

• Number of whole words read (WWR) without first being sounded out.

DIBELS®

Nonsense Word Fluency(NWF)

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Assessor shows a page of nonsense words to student. Student reads the words.

Score:

• Number of correct letter sounds (CLS) student reads in 1 minute.

• Number of whole words read (WWR) without first being sounded out.

DIBELS®

Nonsense Word Fluency(NWF)

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NWF Practice Item

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Scoring Rules

1. Underline each letter sound the student says correctly, either in isolation or blended together with other sounds in the word.

2. Put a slash ( / ) over each letter sound read incorrectly.

3. Leave blank any omitted letter sounds or words. When the student is reading sound-by-sound, leave blank any inserted letter sounds. When the student is reading word-by-word, slash the underline to indicate any inserted letter sounds. This does not count as WWR.

4. Write “sc” above any letter sound or word that had been previously slashed and was self-corrected within 3 seconds. Count that letter sound or word as correct Credit is only given for WWR when the student reads the whole word completely and correctly the first time, and only reads the word once.

5. Draw a line through any row the student skips. Do not count the row when scoring.

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Scores

• Correct Letter Sounds (CLS): the number of letter sounds

produced correctly in 1 minute. For example, if the student reads

dif as /d/ /i/ /f/ the score for Correct Letter Sounds is 3. If the

student reads dif as /di/ /f/ or “dif,” the score is also 3.

• Whole Words Read (WWR): the number of make-believe words

read correctly as a whole word without first being sounded out. For

example, if the student reads dif as “dif,” the score is 3 points for

CLS and 1 point for WWR, but if the student reads dif as “/d/ /i/ /f/

dif,” the score is 3 points for CLS but 0 points for WWR.

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DIBELS®

Oral Reading Fluency (DORF)

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Automaticity (the point) and Speed Reading (NOT the point)

• Our goal is to have children comprehend what they are reading.

• If a child is struggling with decoding, they don’t have as much attention available to focus on the meaning of what they are reading.

• Developing automaticity with word recognition will leave more attention available for comprehension.

• Developing automaticity with word recognition will increase a child’s reading rate. Increased reading rate is a byproduct in this process.

• Having children speed read (e.g., telling them to read as fast as they can for the sole purpose of reading more words per minute) is NOT the point.

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DIBELS®

Oral Reading Fluency(DORF)

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Assessor shows the reading passage to the student. The student reads the passage.

Scores: • The number of words read

correctly in 1 minute.

• The percentage of words read accurately in 1 minute.

Directions

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Directions

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During benchmark assessment, three passages are administered

if the student reads 10 or more words correctly on the first

passage. When administering the second and third passages, use

the following shortened directions:

Scoring Rules

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1. Leave blank any words the

student reads correctly.

2. Put a slash ( /) through any

errors.

DORF Retell

• If the student reads 40 or more words correctly on the passage,

have the student retell what he/she has just read.

• If the student reads fewer than 40 words correctly on a passage,

use professional judgment whether to administer Retell for that

passage.

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DORF Retell Administration Directions

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• Start the stopwatch and allow a maximum of 1 minute

for the retell.

• Mark through numbers in the scoring book for words in

the student’s response that are related to the story.

Remove the passage and say:

Retell Score and Scoring Rules

The student receives 1 point for every word in his/her retell that is

about what was read.

• Count as correct any words in the response that are about

what the student read.

• Count as incorrect any words in the response that are not

about what the student read.

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Retell Scoring Rule 1: Correct Words

• Count as correct any words in the response that are about the

passage.

• The judgment is based on whether the student is generally

accurately retelling what was just read or has gotten off track.

• Move your pen through a number in the scoring booklet for each

word the student says about the passage.

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Retell Scoring Rule 2: Incorrect Words

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Immediately After Testing

• Reset the stopwatch for the next measure.

• Rate the quality of the student’s retell using the Retell Quality of

Response Rating.

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DIBELS Maze (Daze)

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Daze

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Assessor asks students to

read a passage and circle

the word that makes the

most sense in the story.

Group or individually

administered measure.

Score: Number of correct

responses, adjusted for

guessing.

Score and Scoring Rules

The student receives 1 point for each correct word.

• A response is correct if the student circled or otherwise marked the

correct word.

• Put a slash ( / ) through any incorrect responses. Incorrect

responses include errors, boxes with more than one answer

marked, and items left blank (if they occur before the last item the

student attempted within the 3-minute time limit). Items left blank

because the student could not get to them before time ran out do

not need to be slashed and do not count as incorrect responses.

• If there are erasure marks, scratched out words, or any other

extraneous markings, but the student’s final response is obvious,

score the item based on that response.

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Scoring Example: Correct Response

My friend, Tyronne, goes to a different school than I do, even

though he lives in my neighborhood. At his school, there are

programs in different languages. One of those

is called American Sign Language and I want to

more about it.

still

languages

provided

handed

languages

why

learn

set

quietly

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Scoring Example: Incorrect

Response

My friend, Tyronne, goes to a different school than I do, even

though he lives in my neighborhood. At his school, there are

programs in different languages. One of those

is called American Sign Language and I want to

more about it.

still

languages

provided

handed

languages

why

learn

set

quietly

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Final Score: Student Copy

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Use the scoring key to add

the number of correct and

incorrect responses.

Final Score: Cover Sheet

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241. Correct = 24

1. Incorrect = 1

1. 1 divided by 2 = 0.5

4. Subtract 0.5 from 24 to

get 23.5

5. Round up to 24

6. Write 24 at the top of

the cover sheet and

circle it.

24124

Adjusted Score = Correct

minus (Incorrect divided by 2)

Summary

• DIBELS®

Next provides reliable and valid indicators of the basic

early literacy skills.

• Knowing whether or not a school or student is on track for future

reading success allows timely and critical changes to instruction to

get back on course.

• When given and scored according to standardized procedures,

DIBELS®

Next is a powerful tool for improving reading outcomes.

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Dynamic Measurement Group

• Visit this website www.dibels.org for information on:

– Training Opportunities

– Becoming a DIBELS Next Mentor

– Research projects

– Ordering products

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