As a trained reading recovery teacher, basing a guided reading group on phonics will NOT help students become better readers. Phonics has its place in instruction, but to assess students on a phonics test to see what level they are reading is wrong................. Guided reading should include a few minutes of word work and this is where you can bring in phonics, but the main part of lesson will not focus on phonics so why would you want to group students only by phonics????? DRA is not the only assessment out there but it is a good one. The negative I see with DRA is the number of books at each level available to use every few months ,and, at the intermediate level, it tends to focus on written assessments versus comprehension. THere is the QRI and F& P new benchmark assessments as well. There is no "best" reading assessment out there, but to only base groups on a phonic based one would not be an accurate picture of what a child can read and comprehend.
--- On Wed, 9/17/08, Marcia Carrick <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: From: Marcia Carrick <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: Re: [MOSAIC] question about PALS/DIBELS/DRA Correlation To: "Mosaic: A Reading Comprehension Strategies Email Group" <[email protected]> Date: Wednesday, September 17, 2008, 1:12 PM PALS means Phonological Awareness Literacy Screening, Sorry. Thanks On Sep 17, 2008, at 10:30 AM, Beverlee Paul wrote: > First, what are you referring to with PALS? > > Second, in my opinion, trying to do what you're thinking of with > DIBELS and > guided reading levels would be like attempting to classify broccoli or > carrots into types of fruit. DIBELS doesn't test reading. > > On Wed, Sep 17, 2008 at 9:59 AM, Marcia Carrick <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > wrote: > >> Hi everyone, >> I went to a CORE RTI Institute training the last two days and I am >> excited about the opportunities we have a chance to make happen with >> our students that are falling through the cracks now. This is our >> school's first year using RTI, so we are now using DIDELS in all the >> grades. We previously used DRA (and CBMs) with every child to chart >> progress and to get information for placement in the flexible guided >> reading groups. Over the summer the Literacy committee, which I am >> on, decided that K-2 grade need to be assessed using the PALS because >> it assesses the 5 big components of the National Reading Panel more >> throughly and would give us more useful results to see what our >> intervention tiers (groups) should work on. Over the years, our >> district has really struggled with the areas of phonemic awareness >> and >> phonics. Our district has many other assessments, too (as do many >> districts), so we decided to only administer the DRA to those >> students >> that reached benchmark in PALS and not require the DRA to be given to >> the ones that are below benchmark. Our thinking was that the PALs can >> give us more information on what those "struggling" students are >> struggling with instead of only realizing that a student is not at >> grade level or needs more comprehension lessons which are pretty >> subjective when scored, anyway. >> However now since we are finally beginning to see the end of the >> tunnel with the assessing, we are now wanting to create our reading >> groups with all the students in our class including the students >> below >> benchmark and do not have a the nice chart that tells us what guided >> reading level to begin with like we did when we used DRAs for >> everyone. Does anyone have something that converts scores or a chart >> that compares the scores from PALS and/or DIBELS to the appropriate/ >> approximate guided reading level? We had planned to incorporate more >> mini-lessons in the areas PALs show are the weakest with the students >> that will be in TIERS 2 and 3 during the guided reading group time >> (regular instruction). I think our intentions are good. Yet, we need >> to make the best use of our students time and not just guess. We >> really don't want to test everyone using the DRA, either. Some >> teachers are trying the " just guess method" with the students' >> personal book baskets already while we are testing and finding it >> very >> hard to do. If anyone knows of a school district or an individual >> teacher that has any ideas or charts that they are willing to share >> with us, it would be very much appreciated. >> >> Marcia >> >> _______________________________________________ >> 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. > _______________________________________________ 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.
