Overview of DIBELS 8 Reading Subtests

My name is Marissa Pilcher-Seur and I am a doctoral student in the school psychology program at the University of Oregon and also a graduate employee at the Center on Teaching and Learning. DIBELS 8 subtests assess a range of reading skills from letter name knowledge to reading comprehension and there are six subtests total so based on a student's grade level they'll be administered between two and four subtests per benchmark administration period. The thing about DIBELS 8 measures is that they're timed and so we consider students efficiency as well as accuracy with reading skills. Most of our measures are individually administered and take one to two minutes per student with the exception of Maze, which is a group administered measure and takes about five minutes to administer. Letter naming fluency is a standardized individually administered measure and it's a little different from the other double eight measures because it's not a measure of a basic early literacy skill. However, it provides a really great measure of risk and is actually really predictive of later reading achievement. In fact, it's the dominant predictor of student success for the fall of kindergarten. So for this measure, students are administered from the fall of kindergarten through the spring of first grade, and students are presented with a probe with a hundred upper and lower case letters that are arranged in a random order, and they're given one minute to name as many letters as they can. A score for this measure is determined by the number of letters that are named correctly within one minute. Phonemic segmentation fluency is a standardized individually administered measure of phonological awareness or the ability to manipulate sounds and words and it's a great predictor of future reading achievement. This measure is administered from the fall of kindergarten through the spring of first grade and it assesses students ability to fluently segment two through six phoneme words into their individual phonemes or sounds and it's a one-minute measure in which the examiner orally presents a series of words and asks the student to verbally produce those individual phonemes for each word. So for example, if the word is sat, the student would say s-a-t. After each response, the examiner presents the next word. A score for this measure is determined based on the number of correct phonemes that the student produces within one minute. Nonsense word fluency is a standardized, individually administered measure of the alphabetic principle. And we say that this is a pure measure of students'decoding skills because it assesses a student's ability to apply their knowledge of letter-sound correspondences and their ability to blend sounds together to read words without tapping into other word-reading skills. And that's because we're presenting them with nonsense words. This measure is really predictive of reading skills as well. It's administered from the fall of kindergarten through the spring of third grade. So for this measure, students are presented with randomly ordered nonsense words that correspond to different sound spelling patterns that are typically taught in each grade. And in previous DIBELS editions, forms included just VC and CVC words. So those are those two to three letter words with short vowel sounds, like the nonsense word hap. However, in DIBELS 8, forms introduce more complex sound spelling patterns, such as long vowel sounds, r-controlled vowels, digraphs, vowel pairs. and even some multi-syllabic words with words increasing in complexity with each subsequent grade level. And the student is asked to verbally produce either the whole nonsense word or the individual letter sounds in that word. Students are given a minute to read or sound out as many of these nonsense words as they can and the final score is determined based on the number of correct letter sounds that they read as well as the number of correct nonsense words that they either read or recoded correctly as whole words within one minute. So word reading fluency is a measure that has not previously been assessed in DIBELS, and it's a measure of reading words out of context. So it's a standardized, individually administered measure of students'accuracy and fluency with reading sight words. So sight words are words that have either irregular pronunciations or common words with irregular pronunciations. So for example, on our first grade measure, we have the word black. This is a word that the student has probably been exposed to but may not have the decoding skills to be able to read. So that's what makes it a sight word. This measure is able to catch kids who might be at risk for reading difficulties that NWF doesn't necessarily catch. And it's administered from the fall of kindergarten through the spring of third grade. For this measure, students are presented with a page of words that are arranged in rows and the administrator asks the student to read as many words as possible within one minute. A score on this measure is determined by the number of words that are read correctly within one minute. Oral reading fluency is a standardized, individually administered measure of students accuracy and fluency with connected text. So this measure assesses a student's ability to read words in connected text and provides a great indicator of students reading comprehension as well with the idea that if a student is able to read fluently they can devote attention to the meaning of the text. This measure is administered from the fall of first grade through the spring of eighth grade so we now go up to middle school and students for this measure read a passage aloud for one minute and then their score is determined by the number of words they've read correctly within one minute and their accuracy percentage which can be calculated through the DIBLES data system. MAES is a standardized group administered measure of reading comprehension that's administered from the fall of second grade through the spring of eighth grade. And for this measure, students are given a passage that has every seventh word removed and replaced with three options. And the student needs to choose the best option of those three. In third through eighth grade, the first and last sentence are left intact. And in second grade, the first two sentences and last sentence are left intact. Students score on this measure is determined by the number of May's words that they selected correctly. And this measure takes about five minutes to administer per classroom.

Letter naming fluency is a standardized individually administered measure and it's a little different from the other double eight measures because it's not a measure of a basic early literacy skill. However, it provides a really great measure of risk and is actually really predictive of later reading achievement. In fact, it's the dominant predictor of student success for the fall of kindergarten. So for this measure, students are administered from the fall of kindergarten through the spring of first grade, and students are presented with a probe with a hundred upper and lower case letters that are arranged in a random order, and they're given one minute to name as many letters as they can. A score for this measure is determined by the number of letters that are named correctly within one minute.

Phonemic segmentation fluency is a standardized individually administered measure of phonological awareness or the ability to manipulate sounds and words and it's a great predictor of future reading achievement. This measure is administered from the fall of kindergarten through the spring of first grade and it assesses students ability to fluently segment two through six phoneme words into their individual phonemes or sounds and it's a one-minute measure in which the examiner orally presents a series of words and asks the student to verbally produce those individual phonemes for each word. So for example, if the word is sat, the student would say s-a-t.

After each response, the examiner presents the next word. A score for this measure is determined based on the number of correct phonemes that the student produces within one minute. Nonsense word fluency is a standardized, individually administered measure of the alphabetic principle. And we say that this is a pure measure of students'decoding skills because it assesses a student's ability to apply their knowledge of letter-sound correspondences and their ability to blend sounds together to read words without tapping into other word-reading skills. And that's because we're presenting them with nonsense words.

This measure is really predictive of reading skills as well. It's administered from the fall of kindergarten through the spring of third grade. So for this measure, students are presented with randomly ordered nonsense words that correspond to different sound spelling patterns that are typically taught in each grade. And in previous DIBELS editions, forms included just VC and CVC words. So those are those two to three letter words with short vowel sounds, like the nonsense word hap.

However, in DIBELS 8, forms introduce more complex sound spelling patterns, such as long vowel sounds, r-controlled vowels, digraphs, vowel pairs. and even some multi-syllabic words with words increasing in complexity with each subsequent grade level. And the student is asked to verbally produce either the whole nonsense word or the individual letter sounds in that word. Students are given a minute to read or sound out as many of these nonsense words as they can and the final score is determined based on the number of correct letter sounds that they read as well as the number of correct nonsense words that they either read or recoded correctly as whole words within one minute.

So word reading fluency is a measure that has not previously been assessed in DIBELS, and it's a measure of reading words out of context. So it's a standardized, individually administered measure of students'accuracy and fluency with reading sight words. So sight words are words that have either irregular pronunciations or common words with irregular pronunciations. So for example, on our first grade measure, we have the word black. This is a word that the student has probably been exposed to but may not have the decoding skills to be able to read.

So that's what makes it a sight word. This measure is able to catch kids who might be at risk for reading difficulties that NWF doesn't necessarily catch. And it's administered from the fall of kindergarten through the spring of third grade.

For this measure, students are presented with a page of words that are arranged in rows and the administrator asks the student to read as many words as possible within one minute. A score on this measure is determined by the number of words that are read correctly within one minute. Oral reading fluency is a standardized, individually administered measure of students accuracy and fluency with connected text. So this measure assesses a student's ability to read words in connected text and provides a great indicator of students reading comprehension as well with the idea that if a student is able to read fluently they can devote attention to the meaning of the text.

This measure is administered from the fall of first grade through the spring of eighth grade so we now go up to middle school and students for this measure read a passage aloud for one minute and then their score is determined by the number of words they've read correctly within one minute and their accuracy percentage which can be calculated through the DIBLES data system. MAES is a standardized group administered measure of reading comprehension that's administered from the fall of second grade through the spring of eighth grade. And for this measure, students are given a passage that has every seventh word removed and replaced with three options. And the student needs to choose the best option of those three.

In third through eighth grade, the first and last sentence are left intact. And in second grade, the first two sentences and last sentence are left intact. Students score on this measure is determined by the number of May's words that they selected correctly. And this measure takes about five minutes to administer per classroom.

Transcript for:Overview of DIBELS 8 Reading Subtests

Transcript for:
Overview of DIBELS 8 Reading Subtests