PHONEMIC AWARENESS STRATEGIES ON DIBELS ASSESSMENTS

The Study Of Phonemic Awareness Strategies On Dibels Assessments And Its Impact On Early Childhood Literacy

The Study Of Phonemic Awareness Strategies On Dibels Assessments And Its Impact On Early Childhood Literacy

CHAPTER 4

The Problem

The Study of Phonemic Awareness Strategies on Dibels Assessments. Moreover, the study will discuss its Impact on Early Childhood Literacy.

Discussion

The Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills (DIBELS) are a set of procedures and measures for assessing the acquisition of early literacy skills from kindergarten through sixth grade. They are designed to be short (one minute) fluency measures used to regularly monitor the development of early literacy and early reading skills. DIBELS were developed to measure recognized and empirically validated skills related to reading outcomes. Each measure has been thoroughly researched and demonstrated to be reliable and valid indicators of early literacy development and predictive of later reading proficiency to aid in the early identification of students who are not progressing as expected(McGee,2009 ). When used as recommended, the results can be used to evaluate individual student development as well as provide grade-level feedback toward validated instructional objectives.

1) History of DIBELS

2) Which skills do the DIBELS measures assess?

3) DIBELS as Indicators

4) Why use DIBELS?

5) What might an established reader look like?

6) How do I use DIBELS in my school?

7) Administering and Scoring the DIBELS Measures

8) Collecting School Wide Assessment Data

DIBELS were developed based on measurement procedures for Curriculum-Based Measurement (CBM) by Deno and colleagues through the Institute for Research and Learning Disabilities at the University of Minnesota in the 1970s-80s (McGee,2009). Like CBM, DIBELS were developed to be economical and efficient indicators of a student's progress toward achieving a general outcome. Initial research on DIBELS was conducted at the University of Oregon in the late 1980s. Since then, an ongoing series of studies on DIBELS has documented the reliability and validity of the measures as well as their sensitivity to student change. The DIBELS authors were motivated then, as now, by the desire to improve educational outcomes for children, especially those from poor and diverse backgrounds. Research on DIBELS continues at the Dynamic Measurement Group (DMG) and at numerous universities and research institutions around the world(McGee,2009 ).

The DIBELS measures were specifically designed to assess the core components of reading: Phonological Awareness, Alphabetic Principle, Accuracy and Fluency with Connected Text, Vocabulary, and Comprehension. The measures are linked to one another, both psychometrically and theoretically, and have been found to be predictive of later reading proficiency. Combined, the measures form an assessment system of early literacy development that allows educators to readily and reliably determine student progress(Griffith, 1991 ).

Measures of Phonemic Awareness:

• Initial Sound Fluency (ISF): Assesses a child's skill at identifying and producing the initial sound of a given word.

• Phonemic Segmentation Fluency (PSF): Assesses a child's skill at producing the individual sounds within a given word.

Measure of Alphabetic Principle and Phonics:

• Nonsense Word Fluency (NWF): Assesses a child's knowledge of letter-sound correspondences as ...