As a matter of fact, as a first grade teacher (25 years), a kinder teacher (5 years) and a second grade teacher (8 years), I would tell you that overusing phonics can be a highly disabling handicap. In those cases, your results on a Phonemic Awareness battery would have an inverse relationship with what you need to do for instruction. If a child scores well on a DRA, he will have integrated the strategies needed in both decoding (including phonics) and comprehension in order to be a competent reader. Taking assessments apart into "parts" gives you information, but you certainly can't generalize as to a child's instructional needs, much less what level he reads at.
On Wed, Sep 17, 2008 at 3:12 PM, Susanne Lee <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>wrote: > 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. > > _______________________________________________ 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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