I was trying to keep out of this, but there is another reason. Good readers want to make sense of text. For example when they see the nonsense syllable "mik" they are way more likely to try to put in a word such as "milk" that makes sense. I'm sorry to keep hammering on this but the independent research -- not the research on the DIBELS website which is done by people associated with DIBELS--- shows that DIBELS can only predict 20% of the variance in reading behavior on more comprhensive tests. Even the DIBELS website reports that it will only predict 50% of the variance.
What this means in plain English is that DIBELS will more likely than not, identify strong readers as having problems and neglect to identify truly struggling readers. That is not my opinion or observation. that is what the independent research shows. Part of the difficulty is that DIBELS is so far removed from what kids really do when they're reading. Strong readers make sense of text. Weak readers don't. DIBELS does not make sense. It doesn't even require kids to read connected text in some instances. That is leaving out one of the biggest measures of fluency! to say nothing of comprehension. To me the biggest problem is that it puts the focus on performance on nonsense syllables and trains kids to read fast fast fast. Please look at the research on this. And again, I would ask, why are we looking at fluency first? Why don't we look at comprehension and if the child is not comprehending, then look at the reasons why and see if fluency is part of it. But lest we confuse DIBELS with fluency-- again, DIBELS does not really even assess fluency especially for younger kids. On Monday, May 28, 2007, at 12:35 PM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > Linda and all: > > I am in a district that also uses DIBELS. DIBELS pros and cons > aside, I > have seen a similar drop in the PSF with stronger, first grade > readers. My > feeling is that when they have become fluent decoders, they really > couldn't be > bothered with phonemic segmentation. It has been mastered and used > for > decoding and is no longer needed. > > Cathy > Title I Reading > > > > ************************************** 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.
