Elaine: Thanks for the great response; and I am similarly honored to read your comments (and our other colleagues as well). You have taken such a courageous and principled stance on behalf of teachers and our wonderful profession.
I agree wholeheartedly with your assessment -- fluency is important, but DIBELS is not fluency (at best it is only a tiny sliver and too often a misleading one at that). And so, teaching to DIBELS is not the same as teaching fluency. tim At 08:35 AM 5/26/2007 -0700, you wrote: >It seems to me we are talking about two related but separate issues >here: 1)DIBELS and 2) fluency, it's definition, its role in >comprehension and how it is acquired (does training in fluency result >in stronger comprehension, or does lots of reading and comprehension >result in fluency? > >I want to reply to Lori and Tim's comments on fluency. Tim, thank you >for chiming in here. It's an honor to have your input. First to Lori's >comments on Ken Goodman's DIBELS book. Yes, he makes many excellent >points in the book including the confusion with Spanish speaking >children and children and teachers who have accents. I think perhaps >when his book was being written, Michael Pressley may not have >completed his research on DIBELS. > >What Pressley and his team of independent researchers found is that 1) >The research on the DIBELS' website was done by people associated with >DIBELS and who therefore had a vested interest in the outcomes. 2) That >DIBELS mispredicts children's reading ability as measured by other, >broader assessments. Here are some quotes from Michael Pressley who was >a contributor to the National Reading Panel, a Reading Hall of fame >member and much of his work was directed at comprehension. I don't want >this to seem as if my issue is DIBELS per se. It's about what DIBELS >does in the long run and the way it confuses the fluency issue, because >it's been mandated in so many schools as a result of Reading First. >Most of our reading is not oral. I am often not fluent when I read to >myself (which is most of the time) because I often slow down and savor >the text or think about what I'm reading. Anyway, here is part of what >Pressley and his team found that I cite in my book. I'll respond to >Tim's observation about older readers and fluency in another email >because this is so long. Here are the quotes from the late Michael >Pressley resulting from his independent research on DIBELS: > >DIBELS is often used as a predictor of reading success or failure. >However, even the DIBELS website shows that DIBELS only predicts 50% of >the variance in more comprehensive measures. Independent research is >even more dismal and shows that DIBELS only predicts 20% of the >variance. > >What this means is that if you want to train kids to read fast with low >comprehension, then DIBELS is a great measure it also means that >DIBELS often flags children as having problems when they are actually >good comprehenders. It also means that it neglects to identify children >who do have problems. > >Michael Pressley: Contributor to the Report of the National Reading >Panel. > >Based on available data, the fairest conclusion is that DIBELS >mis-predicts reading performance on other assessments much of the time, >and at best is a measure of who reads quickly without regard to whether >the reader comprehends what is read Consequently, they strongly >suggest that the whole issue of validating DIBELS should be reopened >before districts spend time and money on an assessment that is not a >valid predictor of reading proficiency (p. 2. National Reading Panel >contributor Michael Pressley, M. Hilden, K., and Shankland). > >We cannot reconcile the difference in outcome reported here and in the >previous work [the research of the DIBELS associates] . We think the >slippage between our results and those available on the DIBELS site, >all of which were produced by individuals either associated with DIBELS >or Reading First, makes clear that there needs to be additional study >of the DIBELS oral fluency measure by individuals not closely >associated with the measure (p. 23. National Reading Panel contributor >Michael Pressley, Katherine Hilden, and Rebecca Shankland). > > Correlations between the Oral Reading Fluency scores and Oral >Retelling scores [the DIBELS measure for comprehension] were very low >(p. 17. National Reading Panel contributor Michael Pressley, M. >Hilden, K., and Shankland, R.). > >Youll find these quotes in: >Pressley ,M., Hilden ,K., & Shankland, R., (2005). An evaluation of >end-of-grade 3 Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills ( >DIBELS): Speed reading without comprehension, predicting little . East >Lansing: Michigan State University Literacy Achievement Research Center. > > > > > >On Saturday, May 26, 2007, at 08:03 AM, ljackson wrote: > > > This is such a stimulating conversation and it does really align with > > my own > > thoughts about fluency. I think we have to get beyond numbers and > > look at > > the problems readers have as specifically as possible. Automaticity? > > Prosody? I recently worked with a reader (doing a pilot with the new > > DRA) > > who read at 99% accuracy and his comprehension was amazing. However, > > he was > > not considered to be fluent. I listened to this child read, and I can > > tell > > you, I saw no issues with oral fluency that were not related to his own > > efforts to make meaning. He did pause often over challenging words, > > reread > > and sometimes even comment aloud on his perceived meaning of the word, > > the > > phrase. Guess what? He was on the money, as his comprehension scores > > clearly showed, and the strategies he was employing in order to > > understand > > were the very strategies that slowed him down. Other than this sort of > > reflective reading, he was phrased, responsive to all punctuation and > > reasonably expressive. To further the discussion, he tested at a > > level 70. > > He was eight years old and I would not personally have pushed him to > > this > > level, but his parents and teacher both wanted to know how he would > > perform > > at this level. So is he an at-risk reader? Hardly. Funny thing, he > > identifies oral reading as one of his personal goals for improvement > > as a > > reader (without being prompted), along with a need to get more > > comfortable > > with different fiction genres. When I asked him what fluency meant, > > his > > answer was that it sounds like a good story telling voice. I connect > > that > > to Tim's assessment of King. Story tellers use their voice for effect > > and > > sometimes that means slowing down to emphasize the message, to create > > dramatic effect, to persuade or to impact the listener or the reader. > > That > > knowledge is far more important that WPM, in my opinion. > > > > Lori > > > > > > On 5/26/07 7:44 AM, "Tim Rasinski" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > >> Hello Everyone. This is my first posting, so I hope you will all be > >> gentle with me. I was asked to join the conversation inasmuch as I > >> have > >> been studying reading fluency for the past 27 years and have written > >> widely > >> about it over much the same period. My interested started when I > >> tried to understand the struggling readers I worked with who seemed > >> to be > >> highly intelligent, yet had difficulty with reading and understanding > >> what > >> they read. When I first read about fluency it was an epiphany. > >> > >> Let me begin by saying that I don't agree with all that has been done > >> with > >> fluency, particularly over the past ten years or so, in fact I > >> strongly > >> disagree with the direction it has generally been going. Your > >> comments > >> largely reflect my own thoughts on the issue. I do operate under the > >> assumption, however naive it may be, that we are all trying to do > >> what's > >> right for kids. Even those folks who are doing odd things to reading > >> fluency honestly believe they are helping children become good > >> readers. > >> > >> Let me outline specifically my concerns and ideas related to fluency. > >> > >> Fluency is related to comprehension, quite strongly in fact. My own > >> research has in fact found strong correlations between fluency and > >> comprehension all the way through senior high school. We found we > >> could > >> predict high school students' performance on Ohio's High School > >> Graduation > >> Test (a silent reading comprehension test) with a measure of reading > >> fluency (see Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy, 2005). We have > >> found similar results in working with older kids in Chicago and > >> Omaha. Interestingly, however, policy makers are not terribly > >> interested > >> in fluency with older students. It's just not issue they say. I'd > >> like > >> for them to see that 9th grader who is reading without any expression > >> or > >> enthusiasm, or who reads at 25 words per minute. Think about it - if > >> an > >> average 9th grader reads at 150 words per minute, what would normally > >> be an > >> hour reading assignment for an average reading 9th grader now becomes > >> a 6 > >> hour marathon for the student reading at such a slow rate. And, I > >> can > >> tell you that we have a lot of kids in middle and high school who > >> like this. > >> > >> > >> Don't get me wrong, I am not advocating teaching kids to read fast > >> for the > >> sake of reading fast' but we have to at least consider it. > >> > >> My interest is in struggling readers. I run our reading clinic at > >> Kent > >> State and I believe it is a huge concern for students experiencing > >> severe > >> difficulty in reading. Mike Pressley and Nell Duke and another > >> colleague > >> wrote that among students experiencing severe difficulty in reading, > >> between 75-90% of them have difficulties in reading fluency that are a > >> significant source of their comprehension problems. > >> > >> > >> I think that fluency is important for comprehension -- it is not > >> necessarily comprehension, but it sets the stage for comprehension. > >> > >> Fluency has at least two components -- > >> > >> 1) automaticity -- recognizing the words so effortlessly (in the way > >> that > >> all of us are doing right now) that we can use our limited cognitive > >> resources to make sense of the text, not just decode the words. > >> > >> Reading rate is a pretty good measure of automaticity, very strongly > >> correlated with overall reading proficiency. And so measures such as > >> DIBELS, AIMSWEB and others have been developed. To be honest, I use > >> reading rate as a measure of automaticity in my own work. > >> > >> The problem has come when this MEASURE of automaticity has become > >> SYNONYMOUS with automaticity - that is, as many of you have so clearly > >> indicated, reading speed, not automaticity, has become the goal of > >> reading > >> fluency instruction. Now I see kids charting their reading rates, > >> well > >> meaning teachers invoking kids to read faster and faster,etc. I > >> don't > >> blame teachers -- they are hearing this from policy makers and > >> others. Last year I did a little survey of kids in my region. I > >> would > >> ask them to name the best reader in their class. Once done, I would > >> then > >> ask them to tell me why that person is such a good reader. The > >> number one > >> answer was "He or she reads fast" Kids get what we teach them, and > >> I > >> think, they are all getting the wrong message here. Reading speed is > >> a > >> measure of automaticity in the same way the my dog's tail is an > >> indicator > >> of her happiness. But I don't make my dog happy by wagging her tail > >> for > >> her and I don't make a reader fluent by tell them to read fast. > >> > >> 2) There is a second component to fluency that gets acknowledged, > >> but not > >> much else -- prosody, or reading with expression. I think this is > >> where > >> we really connect fluency to comprehension. In reading, meaning is > >> carried with the voice as well as with the words -- through our > >> pausing, > >> our tone, our emphasis, our phrasing etc. Even when we read > >> silently I > >> think we are still listening to voice in our heads. > >> > >> The US Dept of Ed has done two large scale studies which found a > >> strong > >> relationship between oral reading expression and silent reading > >> comprehension. Kids who when reading orally read with expression > >> tended > >> to be the best comprehenders when reading silently. Kids who read > >> like > >> robots when reading orally (without regard for reading speed) tended > >> to be > >> the same kids who had difficulty with comprehension when reading > >> silently. > >> > >> I think teaching kids to read with good expression needs to be as > >> important > >> a goal for reading instruction as automaticity. And yet, I think > >> that is > >> given very little attention. In fact, oral reading is given very > >> little > >> attention in schools.; and yet the research shows that the more oral > >> reading done in classrooms is associated with higher reading > >> achievement > >> (see Rasinski & Hoffman, Reading Research Quarterly, 2003). I am not > >> advocating round robin oral reading, but authentic oral reading. > >> > >> Automaticty and prosody in reading are, I believe, well established. > >> The > >> question becomes, how to teach both in ways that are authentic, > >> engaging, > >> and not overly time consuming. However I think I have written > >> enough. I > >> would love to read your responses. > >> > >> But let me close with a brief case study I did back in January. I > >> love the > >> work of Dr. Martin Luther King, admire his principals, but also his > >> ability > >> to communicate. I think most people would agree that he is one of > >> the most > >> fluent speakers/readers of all time. Yet, in January I printed out > >> his I > >> Have a Dream Speech and listened to his delivery of the speech from > >> 1963. On impulse, I decided to subject his reading of the speech > >> to the > >> DIBELS oral reading fluency test. As you might expect he did not do > >> well. I calculated his reading rate at 102 words correct per minute, > >> the > >> level of a primary grade student. It's hard to believe that if his > >> speech > >> was a test, it might have landed him in a remedial reading setting. > >> Of > >> course, no one in their right mind would claim that his speech, or any > >> other great orator for that matter, was disfluent. We have to ask > >> ourselves, what made that a fluent reading? The answer of course > >> is not > >> reading speed, but his use of prosody -- his pausing, his volume, his > >> voicing, his phrasing, -- that is what gave the speech a deeper > >> meaning > >> than the words alone could do. > >> > >> Well guess that is enough for me. I hope that gives you a sense of > >> where I > >> am coming from when I talk about reading fluency. Thank you for > >> reading this. > >> > >> Best wishes, > >> tim rasinski > >> > >> > >> > >> > >> > >> At 06:39 PM 5/25/2007 -0700, you wrote: > >>> What I think honestly, is that DIBELS doesn't assess students as much > >>> as it trains them in an approach to text. I have all the independent > >>> research including Michael Pressley's study of DIBELS. I hate to > >>> even > >>> get into that because it's really controversial and controversy can > >>> be > >>> divisive. On the other hand, it can also push our thinking. I know I > >>> need to constantly rethink my positions. So as far as DIBELS goes, I > >>> can always refer to the research. > >>> > >>> And yes-- the comprehension section on it does indeed have the > >>> assessor > >>> count the number of words in the story that the kids recite whether > >>> or > >>> not they are even in sequence. That is efficient training of an > >>> approach-- look at the words, look at the details, don't put together > >>> the big picture or it literally works against you if you paraphrase, > >>> or > >>> expand on the text or personally relate to it using your own words. > >>> I > >>> found the research on DIBELS in particular and on fluency in general > >>> to > >>> be just fascinating. It is in such opposition to what schools are > >>> told > >>> and sold. > >>> > >>> On Friday, May 25, 2007, at 05:11 PM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > >>> > >>>> In a message dated 5/25/2007 10:42:45 A.M. Eastern Daylight Time, > >>>> [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: > >>>> > >>>> I totally agree with your definition of fluency-- that it must be > >>>> inseparable from comprehension. However, I would note that > >>>> assessments > >>>> such as DIBELS and some fluency programs > >>>> You are right about the DIBELS. I was very disturbed when we looked > >>>> at it > >>>> that the way they measured comprehension of the passage was by > >>>> counting the > >>>> number of words the child used in their retell. This is one of the > >>>> major > >>>> reasons we never purchased it. > >>>> > >>>> I am not advocating fluency programs at all. I really don't think > >>>> you > >>>> need > >>>> one. I think the reason we see so many now is because it is easy to > >>>> package > >>>> and sell. I teach my fluency lessons with text the children are > >>>> reading and > >>>> short passages that are on an appropriate level for the child. I > >>>> also vary > >>>> the genre to be sure they understand how to read these as well. > >>>> > >>>> > >>>> I'm > >>>> understanding your posts, you believe that fluency and > >>>> comprehension > >>>> are reciprocal--that each influences the other. That's what the > >>>> research shows too. > >>>> Yes that is exactly what I was saying. > >>>> > >>>> The difference in what many teachers are being told > >>>> is that if we train kids to read quickly, comprehension will > >>>> follow. > >>>> Actually, the research shows that's not the case. Comprehension > >>>> does > >>>> not just suddenly pop up when a child can read a passage > >>>> flawlessly. > >>>> > >>>> That is absolutely right. That is why we have to understand that > >>>> when > >>>> someone says they teach fluency it does not merely mean we time the > >>>> children and > >>>> get a score. It is so much more than that and should be included in > >>>> the > >>>> reading instruction we do. I really teach it in reading as well as > >>>> writing. > >>>> > >>>> I also agree with what you said about the data regarding ELLs and > >>>> decoding > >>>> instruction. Many ELLs that I have worked with are good word > >>>> callers. They > >>>> can call the words but do not have great comprehension. > >>>> > >>>> Laura > >>>> readinglady.com > >>>> > >>>> > >>>> > >>>> > >>>> ************************************** See what's free 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. > >>>> > >>>> Search the MOSAIC archives at http://snipurl.com/MosaicArchive. > >>>> > >>> > >>> > >>> _______________________________________________ > >>> Mosaic mailing list > >>> [email protected] > >>> To unsubscribe or modify your membership please go to > >>> http://literacyworkshop.org/mailman/options/ > >>> mosaic_literacyworkshop.org. > >>> > >>> Search the MOSAIC archives at http://snipurl.com/MosaicArchive. > >> > >> Timothy Rasinski, Ph.D. > >> Reading and Writing Center > >> 404 White Hall > >> Kent State University > >> Kent, OH 44242 > >> > >> email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > >> Phone: 330-672-0649 > >> Cell: 330-962-6251 > >> Fax: 330-672-2025 > >> > >> > >> > >> _______________________________________________ > >> Mosaic mailing list > >> [email protected] > >> To unsubscribe or modify your membership please go to > >> http://literacyworkshop.org/mailman/options/ > >> mosaic_literacyworkshop.org. > >> > >> Search the MOSAIC archives at http://snipurl.com/MosaicArchive. > >> > > > > -- > > Lori Jackson > > District Literacy Coach & Mentor > > Todd County School District > > Box 87 > > Mission SD 57555 > > > > http:www.tcsdk12.org > > ph. 605.856.2211 > > > > > > Literacies for All Summer Institute > > "Literate Lives: A Human Right" > > July 12-15, 2007 > > Louisville, Kentucky > > > > http://www.ncte.org/profdev/conv/wlu > > > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > > Mosaic mailing list > > [email protected] > > To unsubscribe or modify your membership please go to > > http://literacyworkshop.org/mailman/options/ > > mosaic_literacyworkshop.org. > > > > Search the MOSAIC archives at http://snipurl.com/MosaicArchive. > > >_______________________________________________ >Mosaic mailing list >[email protected] >To unsubscribe or modify your membership please go to >http://literacyworkshop.org/mailman/options/mosaic_literacyworkshop.org. > >Search the MOSAIC archives at http://snipurl.com/MosaicArchive. Timothy Rasinski, Ph.D. Reading and Writing Center 404 White Hall Kent State University Kent, OH 44242 email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Phone: 330-672-0649 Cell: 330-962-6251 Fax: 330-672-2025 Informational website: www.timrasinski.com Professional Development DVD: http://www.roadtocomprehension.com/ _______________________________________________ Mosaic mailing list [email protected] To unsubscribe or modify your membership please go to http://literacyworkshop.org/mailman/options/mosaic_literacyworkshop.org. Search the MOSAIC archives at http://snipurl.com/MosaicArchive.
