(NOT the Official) DIBELS Clearinghouse

April 2006
The Vermont Society for the Study of Education has published the nation's first critical look at DIBELS (Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills) titled, Examining DIBELS: What it is and What it Does.

The book's main contributor and editor is the nationally and internationally renowned reading authority Ken Goodman, Professor Emeritus from the Department of Language, Reading and Culture at the University of Arizona. Goodman is past president of the International Reading Association and the National Conference on Language and Literacy. Expertly evoking the DIBELS landscape, Goodman sees it as "a set of silly tests" that "misrepresent pupils" and "demean teachers." However, his ultimate depiction of DIBELS is as the "pedagogy of the absurd."

This site, sponsored by the Vermont Society for the Study of Education (VSSE), offers information and opinion about DIBELS. We come not to praise DIBELS.

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.

NOTE: This article is scheuled for publication in the Albuquerque Journal for Oct. 10, 2006.

Dr. Rick Meyer, PhD Reading Professor, UNM
Dr. Kyle Shanton, Reading Professor, NMSU
Dr. Priscilla Gutierrez, Outreach Specialist
New Mexico School for the Deaf
Dr. Anne Calhoon, Reading Professor, UNM

The recently released Inspector General report regarding Reading First
programs (one of the central components of No Child Left Behind,
specifically directed at struggling readers) indicates favoritism,
mismanagement and widespread corruption are operating at the highest levels

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

The website Borderland has this provocative entry, with comments, on DIBELS.

It’s snake oil time. I started to write this last month when I heard they’d be coming around again, but I couldn’t find the link to the DIBELS homepage. Thanks to Doug Johnson for pointing the way. Things are more interesting today. This morning I read Doug’s call for more testing.

Doug also recently posted a link to a post written by Ken Goodman on a mailing list at Stephen Krashen’s site, which I’m now subscribed to. Professor Goodman wrote sarcastically about the power of the DIBELS (Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills). He said that DIBELS is the perfect test in the same sense that Katrina might have been the perfect storm. Since both of these links (to Goodman/Krashen and the call for more testing) point to opposite points on the testing compass, I should probably quit here and let them cancel each other out. But I wanted to say something about DIBELS.

-- The following message was sent using the feedback page --

As educators you must realize the importance of assessing early literacy skills in order to guide appropriate instruction and to identify struggling readers before it is too late. Your website is nothing more than a witch hunt, and like all other witch hunts, you have the wrong target. Teachers and researchers have been assessing the skills DIBELS measures for years.

THE PROBLEM IS NOT THE TEST, BUT THE MISUSE OF THE TEST AT ALL LEVELS OF EDUCATION. IT HAS NEVER BEEN INTENDED TO BE A HIGH-STAKES TEST USED TO MAKE MONUMENTAL DECISIONS ABOUT A CHILD'S ACADEMIC CAREER. RATHER, IT IS INTENDED TO PROVIDE INFORMATION THAT CAN BE USED ALONG WITH OTHER DATA SUCH AS TEACHER OBSERVATIONS AND OTHER ASSESSMENTS TO GUIDE DECISIONS.