Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Twice Exceptional DIEBELS ???

DS was assessed with DIEBELS a week or so ago. His Diebels scores are really low - well below the benchmarks. His reading level is relatively high, though. He is beginning 2nd grade but his DRA is 28 (which is the benchmark for the end of 2nd). I am not sure what his instructional level is but at home he is reading books on a DRA level of about 40 (he needs to ask me what a few words are though). I have him read aloud to me to make sure he is reading the words correctly and he is.

Should I be concerned about the DIEBELS?

Here are the scores:

Nonsense word fluency - correct letter sound - 64 (benchmark is 74+);

Nonsense word fluency - whole word reading - 9 (benchmark is 22+)

However for oral reading fluency he scored 94 and benchmark is 80.

For oral reading accuracy he scored 95% and benchmark is 99%.

For DRA the benchmark is level 18 and he is at level 28. 100 book challenge he is at RR and benchmark is BB (two levels lower)

Ugh-- yeah. Basically, the DIBELS is not even SUITABLE for children who are already reading fluently with decoding skills and have begun transitioning to SSR which more probably uses whole language methods for common, recognized words.

For example:

How rapidly can you read this sentence aloud? Pretty fast, I think.


Now this sample:

ghive thento argen wassle trall evren subble stip arven wingle bapp voff elough.

See how much more you stumble over the second? Yeah-- well, if you weren't JUST AS FAST at the two tasks, and just as ACCURATE, then you just "failed" that portion of this test.

Since kids are often not instructed that the words WILL be nonsense, and that they need to just 'read them the way they should sound' they may think the entire exercise is a joke, or that there is something screwy with that part of the test, leading them to be reluctant to take it seriously.

Whole language readers will fail this part of things.

DIBELS is a test of reading fluency. The child (at least in the district I worked in last year) reads 3 passages and is timed for 1 minute, while the examiner marks off errors. The total score is the correct words per minute. The high and low scores are thrown out to get a final score.

You can probably find numbered reading passages online at the right grade level and test him yourself. EasyCBM is similar to DIBELS. For second grade, the 50th percentile in the fall is 49 correct wpm and 93 in the spring (I have a chart). The 90th percentile in second grade is 99 wpm in the fall and 143 in the spring. I remember DD in second grade (last year) was around 150 in fall and just over 200 in the spring and that was 99th percentile for both.

It could be that there was a problem with the test he was given...maybe they miscalculated his score for instance. Or your DS was nervous or not cooperating.

I'm not sure what DRA is, I always used A-Z (I worked as a tutor last year). But I do know that fluency is highly correlated to comprehension.

I read HowlerKarma's post and I'm not aware of DIBELS having nonsense words like that, however the district I was in used CBM's, and they were just normal reading passages. I know my kids' school uses DIBELS.

I'm surprised they are still doing nonsense words in second grade. Where I worked, they stopped in the middle of first grade, once kids started to actually read fluently. Nonsense words are confusing and I don't think you should make much of them. I tried to give my kids a nonsense words assessment once and DD thought she was supposed to individually sound out every letter rather than say whole words, so she scored low.

I think it goes to show the specific visual challenges. All the challenge areas would be realistic measures for children who learned to read by being trained on phonemes. Our visually challenged, whole word, self-taught readers don't do so well on nonsense words and exact word reading. As those skills don't map to their developmental trajectory.

I'm sure there are plenty of analogies, like musicians who play by ear, or kids who skip crawling and just start walking, or mathematicians who can't balance checkbooks, etc.

The DIBELS nonsense words are nothing like what HowlerKarma suggests. All the words have either CVC form, e.g. YOF WUB ZUC, or VC form, e.g. AJ EP IG. The test has 50 words (143 letters) and you read what you can in 1 minute. The nature of the test is clearly explained by the tester. Grade 2.1 is the last time it is administered.

22B - Do you think I should be concerned? He read fluently to me for about a half an hour today at a DRA level of about 40 ... I am just not sure what to think

The neuropsych said that "his visual sequencing weaknesses make it difficult for him to decode words accurately" she advised me it's no problem to encourage sight word memorization and for him "to memorize the configuration of the word... as that's what he is doing anyway." This makes me uncomfortable because I am phonics girl (Catholic school and all), I emphasize phonics with him at but I guess he just learns differently.

Oh good... this is good to know. Thanks!