Our state (NM) requires kindergarten to use DIBELS- as for other grades it's at the discretion of the districts. Our district requires us to use it K-3. We are fortunate in that the district has provided all the teachers with Palm Pilots on which the reading passages are loaded. We can connect to the computer to download the testing info. I have to say I'm not a huge fan of DIBELS, but I do try to make good use of the information I get from it. There was a question about the aim line. On the printouts of the graphs on each student's reading, there is a big green circle at each of the benchmark times. The aimline is drawn from the first circle to the next, and then to the last. It shows the projected progression for the student. If the progress monitoring passage is read below what that child should be at in that time period, then it falls below the aim line. This year I wanted to do something different with my third graders than just pulling small groups up to read to me for fluency practice (I did other things also). I read some research by Dr. Steven Stahl and Timothy Rasinki. There were several recommendations. The one thing I have done consistently from the first of October is to record a short story on a cassette tape and put groups of five at the listening center. The group has to be monitored- it's not a self-controlling situation. The first day, they just listen to the story as they follow along the first time. They rewind and attempt to read along with the tape out loud. I do this every day of the week with them reading 2 times each day orally. The pace is slow enough for them to read and turn pages. I took the kids from my Intensive and Strategic levels of DIBELS and worked with them on this. I also put one ESL student on it even though she was at Benchmark level (she went from 74 wpm to 105 wpm). One young lady has gone from 24 wpm on her first benchmark to 68 wpm on the second in Dec. There are several others who made huge leaps from the first to second benchmarks, but I also have 3 who have not made progress. One came into my class reading at a preprimer level. The research I am going by said that students who are reading at preprimer level or who are already high level readers won't show growth. It seems that it's bearing out that way. When I compared my results from DIBELS last year to this year, 66% of my students are at Benchmark as opposed to 45% last year. I will definitely do this again next year. <BR><BR><BR>**************************************<BR> AOL now offers free email to everyone. Find out more about what's free from AOL at http://www.aol.com. _______________________________________________ Mosaic mailing list [email protected] To unsubscribe or modify your membership please go to http://literacyworkshop.org/mailman/options/mosaic_literacyworkshop.org.
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