Lecture Notes: DIBELS 8 Subtests Overview

Presenter

• Marissa Pilcher-Seur
  • Doctoral student, School Psychology Program, University of Oregon
  • Graduate employee, Center on Teaching and Learning

Overview of DIBELS 8 Subtests

• Assess reading skills from letter knowledge to reading comprehension
• Consist of six subtests
• Administered based on student's grade level
• Test both efficiency and accuracy
• Mostly individual tests, except Maze (group test)

Subtests Details

Letter Naming Fluency

• Purpose: Measures risk, predicts later reading success
• Timing: Administered from fall of kindergarten to spring of first grade
• Format: Randomly ordered 100 uppercase and lowercase letters
• Scoring: Number of letters named correctly in one minute

Phonemic Segmentation Fluency

• Purpose: Measures phonological awareness, predicts future reading achievement
• Timing: Administered from fall of kindergarten to spring of first grade
• Format: Students segment words into individual phonemes
• Scoring: Number of correct phonemes produced in one minute

Nonsense Word Fluency (NWF)

• Purpose: Measures the alphabetic principle (decoding skills)
• Timing: Administered from fall of kindergarten to spring of third grade
• Format: Randomly ordered nonsense words, varying complexity
• Scoring: Number of correct letter sounds and words read or recoded as whole words in one minute

Word Reading Fluency

• Purpose: Assesses reading words out of context (sight words)
• Timing: Administered from fall of kindergarten to spring of third grade
• Format: Page of words arranged in rows
• Scoring: Number of words read correctly in one minute

Oral Reading Fluency

• Purpose: Measures accuracy and fluency with connected text
• Timing: Administered from fall of first grade to spring of eighth grade
• Format: Students read a passage aloud for one minute
• Scoring: Number of words read correctly in one minute and accuracy percentage

Maze

• Purpose: Group-administered reading comprehension test
• Timing: Administered from fall of second grade to spring of eighth grade
• Format: Passage with every seventh word replaced, students choose correct word
• Scoring: Number of correctly chosen Maze words
• Duration: Takes about five minutes per classroom