Ashby turns dynamic in tackling reading issues

By Lauren Radomski (Contact) | The Daily Journal

Published Saturday, January 5, 2008

It’s fast, it’s efficient, it’s simple — and now a reading assessment called Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills (DIBELS) will be testing fluency, understanding and more among Ashby elementary schoolers.

DIBELS is a set of standardized, individually administered measures of pre-reading and early reading skills. Designed by professors at the University of Oregon in 1998, DIBELS is intended to identify students who are not reaching the reading benchmarks for their age group, letting educators know which students could use additional help.

Rebecca Patience is a school psychologist with the Runestone Area Education District, where DIBELS tests have been used in Alexandria, Brandon and Evansville schools.

“They’re very quick, they’re accurate, they’re one-minute tests with each child,” she said.

These tests can take a number of forms.

According to the University of Oregon, one test assesses a child’s ability to recognize and produce the initial sound in an orally presented word. Another measure asks students to read an unfamiliar passage of grade-level material for one minute. Together, these tests paint a picture of early literacy skills in young students.

In Brandon and Evansville schools, DIBELS have been used for four years, Patience said, with assessments administered to K-3 students in fall, winter and spring. Patience likened DIBELS to taking your temperature or blood pressure — measures that give you an idea of how you’re doing.

“It’s just a quick read of where you’re at,” she said.

Like health-related tests, DIBELS also let you know whether or not remedial reading strategies have been effective. In Brandon and Evansville, students who appear behind in literacy development are monitored more closely than other students, with monthly DIBELS testing to check their progress. Students who are further behind are tested every other week, Patience said, allowing staff to determine what assistance helps and what doesn’t.

Tom Otte, principal of Ashby Public School, said he’d heard positive feedback from the Runestone district about DIBELS before looking into using the tests in Ashby.

“We’re hoping to be implementing them by the end of January,” he said. “We’re kind of doing it on a trial basis this year.”

For Otte, advantages of DIBELS include efficiency and accuracy.

“It’s not time consuming for the student...and we also don’t want to eat up (teachers’) time testing,” he said. The results “also allow us to develop some kind of individualized intervention.”

DIBELS is one of several tests known as formative assessments, Patience said, tests designed to measure students’ progress as they’re learning, rather than quantify how much they’ve learned after the fact. In Fergus Falls, administrators use Measures of Academic Progress (MAP) to test reading skills, with two assessments for students in grades K-2 in the fall and spring of each year.