(NOT the Official) DIBELS Clearinghouse

By Gerald Bracey

The "THEY CAN HAVE ANY COLOR THEY WANT AS LONG AS IT'S BLACK" AWARD: OR "DOPING AND DUPING WITH DIBELS"
U. S. DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION'S READING FIRST PROGRAM

In his April, 2007 testimony before the House Education and Labor Committee the Department of Education's Inspector General announced he had turned his findings about improprieties in the Reading First program over to the Justice Department for further investigation. He would not elaborate.

I am a Reading Recovery teacher that has chosen to stay home with my children for the past eight years. I recently moved into another district that continues to get rave reviews as the "best in the state". (We are talking about a 3% minority and 10% reduced lunch population) In all the districts I have been involved in, whether teaching or having children attend, this is by far the poorest in teaching practices. They are very driven to teaching to the test. I feel I have walked into a time warp and my kids are sitting and doing worksheets all day. I was flabbergasted to see what has happened to education. I was just shared their Dibel results. My older child's was above average but I questioned whether he/she comprehended the passage. "It is just a piece of the puzzle." they tell me. My younger child is “borderline at risk”. He/she is in kindergarten and was tested for FAST FLUENT letter recognition on day six. Isn't this developmentally inappropriate? As the teacher is explaining the importance of the Dibels, it was stressed that fluency is the key to great reading comprehension. Yeah, but what does calling off letter names as fast as you can have to do with reading fluency? Not to mention reading non-sense words? I am outraged that the district is now spending $4 a child for a computerized dibel testing program(AIMSweb). The results have told me nothing. I am parent with a background in education and am pissed off. My friends have never been exposed to what is better and think I am off my rocker. They are told all the time what a great district we are in, "look at our scores". What can I do to get parents to see the whole picture? If they knew, they would be outraged! What can I do to protect my child from that test? Can I say, I don't want he/she tested? Does he/she need to be protected; will taking Dibels hurt? I was planning on just ignoring the whole thing.

by Bernadette Medige

Buffalo News
August 11, 200s7
ful, mik, zum, nuf, kun, fod, vep, juj, sug, ov, wam, buk, lef, luk,

lof, kom, nol, poz, ol, kav, kic, kis, tek, riz, aj, vej, som, zuz

If your kindergartener is in summer school, it is only because he or she can’t correctly read, with correct pronunciation, enough of these words in one minute. But wait, these are not even words. And it doesn’t matter if your child can actually read real ones. And it doesn’t matter if your child excels in every subject.

This is DIBELS, or Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills. It is neither dynamic nor indicative. It is a series of “assessments” that starts with Letter Naming Fluency and Initial Sound Fluency in Pre-K, moves on to Phoneme Segmentation Fluency and Nonsense Word Fluency in Kindergarten and continues through third grade with Oral Reading Fluency, sometimes accompanied with a retelling of the passage which must include the words you heard, no paraphrasing. Comprehension is not the goal, it is all about speed. An intelligent child trying to find context or meaning in this paragraph will be too slow. This continues through third grade. Five years of killing any chance your child will like to read or appreciate good literature.

October 25, 2007

by Sandra Blackburn

First, a bit of background information. This DIBELS story is about one of my students who is reading on grade level and has earned a sizable number of points on our district's Reading Counts program. The student recently failed the DIBELS test of "nonsense words."

The Reading Counts program is a computerized program that encourages students to read and take a test on any of the books in the RC list. Each book is categorized according to grade level and has a point amount that can be earned by passing a test on that book. Students complete the books, pass the tests and accumulate points to earn incentives and prizes.

MY child has benefitted from the dibels measurement. He is severely
dyslexic and thanks to a valid and reliable measurement system, the
teachers actually have a way to measure his progress in a quantitative
manner as opposed to qualitative. Although qualitative can be good, as
an engineer I like a consistent way to measure. He is monitored every
two weeks. Thanks to data collection, it has validated the need for
intensive remedication. I lkie the accountability that dibels provides
and the amount of research invovled in its development. You probably
will not print this since I do not agree with the "snake oil" theory

My daughter first took this horrible test in September of 2005. We had been in school less than a month. When the results came back I was told my bright and talkative girl would have to repeat kindergarten because she did not score at benchmark and likely wouldn't be able to make benchmark by December. This was October!! I cannot even begin to express the HORROR I felt. School had just started and I felt that they hadn't even given my girl a chance. So, thus began the nightmare of kindergarten in public school. My daughter was a playful and confident child. (notice WAS) She began to come home and tell me how she was really smart and promised that she would learn to read.

My son entered Kindergarten in my local public school in 2002. The
school had just been refurbished and the old K classes were redesigned
to make the room into an academic class. Part of the new K program
included no recess or playing. I was not informed of these changes. I
thought the empty shelves would be filled with various activities and
games to improve the students emerging skills.

When he entered school it was my belief his reading skills were
progressing naturally. He enjoyed being read to from various sources.
Reading was a treasured part of our home life. He owned his own Pooh

This announcement appears on the website of the Seward Public Schools in Nebraska. On February 7, 2006, they screened three-year-olds.

The BABY DIBELS Screening Tool - "Individual Growth and Development Indicators" will be completed with your child in just 5 MINUTES!

Suppose that humans happen to be so constructed that they desire the opportunity for freely undertaken productive work. Suppose that they want to be free from the meddling of technocrats and commissars, bankers and tycoons, mad bombers who engage in psychological tests of will with peasants defending their homes, behavioral scientists who can’t tell a pigeon from a poet, or anyone else who tries to wish freedom and dignity out of existence or beat them into oblivion.
--Noam Chomsky, reviewing B.F. Skinner, Beyond Freedom and Dignity (1971)

Ohanian Comment: Paw Paw Phooey! Note that the reporter says teachers are excited but then doesn't quote a single classroom techer. "One program we offer at the kindergarten level is K+, an intensive intervention for our kindergartners. These students attend K+ before or after their "regularly scheduled" half-day of kindergarten."

To the reporter's credit, she did get a (lame) quote from one student.

This is Paw Pay, Michigan.

by Deborah Klinger
The Courier-Leader
February 6, 2006

PAW PAW - The teachers and administrators at Paw Paw's elementary schools are excited about the preliminary results from a new reading intervention program they implemented this year.