Running head: Assessing Literacy Skills

Assessing T.B.s Early Literacy Skills Through DIBELS

Katie Hostutler
EDU 325

Assessing Literacy Skills

Assessing T.B.s Early Literacy Skills through DIBELS

Assessing students throughout the school year is necessary to both inform instruction and
identify students who may have a learning disability (LD). By using the Dynamic Indicators of
Basic Early Literacy Skills (DIBELS) test, teachers can identify areas of strength and areas that
are challenging to the student. This test allows the teacher to identify students who need extra
help and in what areas. The DIBELS test is separated into four different assessments: Nonsense
Word Fluency (NWF), Oral Reading Fluency (ORF), Retell Fluency (RTF), and Word Use
Fluency (WF). Along with the results from the different assessments, it is important to look at the
background information for the student. This information can give a teacher insight into goals
and areas for improvement.
T.B. is a second grade student at Bishop John King Mussio Elementary. She is seven
years old and lives in a suburban area in Steubenville, Ohio. She comes from a two-parent home
and has three older siblings in high school and college. Her present level of performance in
reading and spelling is above average. She has a satisfactory performance level in writing and is
average in math. She does not require any adaptations or accommodations when assessments are
given. She has many strengths that indicate that she is a very good student and an excellent
reader. She reads orally and with expression. Although she is a great student with many
strengths, the teacher did note several areas that would benefit from academic improvement. For
example T.B. tends to rush through her work and she does not always go back and check for
right or wrong answers. Although she has great behavioral skills and is very well spoken, she
can, at times, become quite talkative causing her to become off task. She has great social skills
and gets along well with her peers. She is considered a leader because of her maturity, however
some of her peers often mistake that leadership as being bossy. She is very organized and a good

Assessing Literacy Skills

problem solver. She finds praise, encouragement, and stickers motivating and reinforcing. Her
parents are great role models for her. They want her to be happy and do her best in school. They
are very supportive and involved in her school and learning. Her mother is an English teacher
and helps with her oral reading fluency and comprehension.
Procedures
Arranging meeting date. Last semester I had a field experience placement in the second
grade classroom at Bishop John King Mussio Elementary. The cooperating teacher, Ms. Filby,
and I connected very well and kept in touch after my placement concluded. When it came time to
find a student to assess, I contacted the second grade teacher to inquire if I would be able to use
one of her students to conduct the assessment. She said in order to do so I would need to create a
permission form for the student I would be assessing. This permission form included information
about myself, my school, my major, the student assessment project, the purpose of working with
a student, and what the results will be used for. The permission form was sent home with a few
students in order to have options in case the one student did not return the permission form. After
getting the parents signature and permission to assess their child, Ms. Filby and I figured out a
day that would be good for me to come in and pull a student out of the classroom for a few
minutes to conduct the assessment. We decided that it would be best if the student was pulled out
of the classroom when they had free time or at a time that would not interfere with academic
learning. The student that I would be assessing was not chosen until the day that I came in to
perform the assessment.
Obtaining background information. The background information was obtained after
the DIBELS assessment was given to the student. The background information form was sent to
T.B.s teacher through email in order to obtain the necessary information to get a better

Assessing Literacy Skills

understanding of her current level of performance. Ms. Filby knows T.B. and her family through
their involvement in the school which enabled her to fill out the information accurately.
Administering assessments. On Monday, October 3, I went into the school to give the
assessment. Out of the students that returned signed permission forms, Ms. Filby chose one
student at random to take the assessment. This student was T.B. Ms. Filby suggested a few
rooms that we could be in to administer the assessment; however, all the available rooms were
being used at the time so we set up a desk in the hallway. Sitting in the hallway did cause some
distraction due to many students walking by. The first assessment I administered was the NWF
and then the ORF, RTF, and finally WUF. The tests were administered in one-minute intervals. I
kept time with the stopwatch on my phone. In between each assessment, reinforcement through
the use of verbal encouragement was given. By acknowledging how well she was doing, she was
motivated and excited to do the next assessment.
Analyzing the data. While T.B. was completing the assessments, I followed along in the
scorebook and marked whether she said a word or sound correctly or not. After the NWF, I
recorded the total correct letter sounds (CLS) and the total words recorded completely and
correctly (WRC). For the ORF assessment, I recorded the total number of words read minus the
errors in order to get the total number of words correct. The ORF assessment was done three
times in order to find the median score. The RTF was scored by the number of words T.B. said
that related to the story that she had just read. The WUF score was calculated by counting the
number of words T.B. used correctly when given a word to use in a sentence. The total number
of each score was compared to the DIBELS benchmark goals for the second grade. The
benchmarks allowed me to see where T.B. compared to other second graders. The results were
helpful in knowing what T.B. was especially strong in and where she had challenges.

Assessing Literacy Skills

Assessments Given
The DIBELS assessment is comprised of a set of procedures and measures for assessing
the early literacy skills in students from kindergarten to sixth grade. This assessment is used to
identify students who are at risk of experiencing difficulty in early literacy skills and provide
early support and prevention of later difficulties. As previously stated, the DIBELS assessment
for the second grade level contains four short fluency probes. Those probes are nonsense word
fluency, oral reading fluency, retell fluency, and word use fluency.
Nonsense word fluency. NWF provides the student with a list of pseudowords that have
no meaning but can be decoded and pronounced. These words are usually vowel-consonant or
consonant-vowel-consonant patterns. Students have one minute to read as many letter sounds or
whole words as they can. They earn one point for each correct letter sound. There are two scores
that are recorded: one score for the number of correct letter sounds pronounced and one for the
number of correct blended sounds pronounced. Although students may say the sound of the
individual letter, the goal is to get to that upper level reading of the word as a whole. The NWF
assesses the knowledge of letter sounds and their relation to one another. This probe is essential
and important in order to understand what sounds the student has mastered or struggles with so
the teacher can adjust their instruction (Ritchey, 2008).
Oral reading fluency. ORF is the second one-minute probe assessed in DIBELS. This
probe contains three different reading passages. The student has one minute to read as much of
the passage as they can. Words omitted, said incorrectly, or substituted are counted as incorrect.
The passages vary in difficulty and are used to measure student performance in reading words
accurately and fluently. It tests whether students have the ability to connect sounds to letters and

Assessing Literacy Skills

letters to words. This probe is important because it is a necessary dimension of proficient

reading. In order to become a good reader, students have to identify words quickly, read fluently,
and have appropriate expression and intonation (Zutell, 1991).
Retell fluency. RTF goes hand in hand with oral reading fluency. In this probe, after the
student has finished their ORF passage, they are asked to give a summary of what they had just
read. They are timed for one minute to recall as many details as possible. It measures the
students comprehension of the content in the text. The purpose of retell fluency is to identify
students who do not have consistency between their comprehension skills and oral reading
fluency skills. Retell fluency is an encouraging tool for teachers to use in diagnosing and
addressing the individual needs of students who are struggling and adds a validity aspect to the
oral reading fluency probe. The importance of this probe relates back to the ORF probe in that
students need to be able to not only read fluently but also understand what they read (Roberts et
al., 2005).
Word use fluency. In the DIBELS assessment of WUF, the student is given a single word
to use in a sentence. The student is scored on how many words they use in the sentence and if the
word was used correctly. The test measures a students vocabulary and oral language skills. In
order to get full points, the student must know what the word means and be able to use it
correctly with description in a complete sentence. The importance of being able to use
vocabulary in a sentence shows understanding of the word and the content, including sentence
structure and descriptive words (Moran-Green, 2016).
Results & Analysis
Looking at the total scores for each assessment, T.B. is above average on all benchmarks
for her grade level. Benchmark 1 (i.e., fall) was used for all probes. T.B.s total correct letter

Assessing Literacy Skills

sounds for the NWF is 123. The total number of words recorded completely and correctly is 39
out of 45. According to the second grade benchmark goals, T.B. is in the core group. Her NWF
score is very impressive for her age group since most students tend to fall in the strategic area.
Although she went through the words very quickly, she hardly made any mistakes. She had to
self-correct the beginning sounds on many words because she was reading at a fast pace. The few
sounds that she missed were mostly the ending sounds because she was eager to move onto the
next word.
T.B.s median score for the ORF assessment is 129, which is in the core section of the
benchmark goals. The few mistakes that she made came from her omitting articles and reversing
the order of some words. Her median score for the errors that she made was only four. Her
median score for RTF was 28. For the WUF, T.B. scored a 79 for the total number of words used
correctly in a sentence.
Areas Targeted for Improvement
Targeted Area A. The first area that T.B. would need improvement on would be her
retell fluency. Although she did well according to the benchmarks, she can always increase her
ability to recall information from a text. One strategy that can be used is the SQ3R method. The
SQ3R method is used to improve students reading rates, comprehension, and note taking. It
involves a quick survey of the text (S), creates questions (Q), reads (R1) to locate the answers,
recites (R2) and makes note of the answers, and does a final review (R3) of the text (Schumaker,
Deshler, Alley, Warner, and Denton, 1982). This strategy will allow T.B. to think about the text
while she is reading it in order to give more accurate details and information when she recalls it.
When T.B. did the retell probe, she included information that was not part of the story that she
had read. Through the use of the SQ3R strategy she will be able to build on her comprehension

Assessing Literacy Skills

technique and become a more fluent reader (Schumaker et al., 1982). Having her explain her
process and then record whether or not she is able to recall important information could be a way
to monitor her progress.
Another strategy that can be used to improve T.B.s retell fluency is the use of mental
imagery. Sadoski (1983) states, Numerous studies have demonstrated visual imagery to be a
functionally significant device in the understanding and recollection of verbal material in words,
in phrases, in sentences, and in paragraphs. By using visual imagery while reading, it gives the
student the opportunity to picture what is going on in the reading. This provides them with a
better understanding of the text and can make reading more enjoyable (Sadoski, 1983). T.B.
would benefit from this strategy and be able to include a more descriptive recollection of the
text.
Targeted Area B. According to the DIBELS assessment, T.B. could benefit from
strategies for oral reading fluency. From the data gathered while T.B. was completing the ORF
probe, she reads too quickly and tends to mix up words and omit articles. A strategy that could
help T.B. slow down her reading pace and understand what she is reading would be choral
reading. Although choral reading is mostly used with an entire class, it can be adapted to for a
one-on-one use with student and teacher. The choral reading method has the teacher and the
student recite a text in unison (Stassen, 1969). If T.B. were to use this strategy with the teacher
then she can follow along with the teacher and start to develop a more appropriate reading pace.
Student progress would be monitored by how many words she reads in a given amount of time
minus any mistakes she made.
Another strategy to help T.B. develop a consistent and accurate oral reading would be to
have repeated readings with the texts. This strategy involves multiple readings of a text and

Assessing Literacy Skills

provides practice in reading a text connected to content (Blum and Koskinen, 1991). Oral
reading fluency can be defined as a necessary feature of good reading (Blum and Koskinen,
1991). Through the use of repeated readings, T.B. will be able to recognize and adjust her pace
with every reading of the text. By adjusting her pace, she will most likely become more fluent
without omitting words and be able to comprehend what she is reading better. Student progress
would be monitored by recording how fast she reads and what is comprehended at the end.
Conclusion
T.B.s overall performance on the DIBELS assessment was impressive in that she scored
above average in all probes. While doing this project, I found it important that we had to research
different strategies that could be used to help the student in a certain area based on the results
from the probes. This research opened my thought process and keep in mind what a student
needs and how she can benefit from it if I was her teacher. Another aspect that I found to be
important in regard to CBM was researching why these different probes are important and why
they are used. By knowing more about the probes it gives me the opportunity to adjust my
instructional strategy to include whatever the student needs.

Assessing Literacy Skills

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Works Cited
Blum, I., & Koskinen, P. (1991). Repeated Reading: A Strategy for Enhancing Fluency and
Fostering Expertise. Theory Into Practice, 30(3), 195-200.
Moran-Green, H. (2016). Implementing an explicit vocabulary program. Literacy Learning: The
Middle Years, 24(1), 18-26.
Ritchey, K. D. (2008). Assessing letter sound knowledge: A comparison of letter sound fluency
and nonsense word fluency. Exceptional Children, 74(4), 487-506.
Roberts, G., Good, R., & Corcoran, S. (2005). Story retell: A fluency-based indicator of reading
comprehension. School Psychology Quarterly, 20(3), 304-317.
Sadoski, M. (1983). An Exploratory Study of the Relationships between Reported Imagery and
the Comprehension and Recall of a Story. Reading Research Quarterly, 19(1), 110-123.
Schumaker, J., Deshler, D., Alley, G., Warner, M., & Denton, P. (1982). Multipass: A Learning
Strategy for Improving Reading Comprehension. Learning Disability Quarterly, 5(3),
295-304.
Stassen, M. (1969). Choral Reading and the English Teacher. The English Journal, 58(3), 436439.
Zutell, J., & Rasinski, T. (1991). Training Teachers to Attend to Their Students' Oral Reading
Fluency. Theory Into Practice, 30(3), 211-217.