DIBELS reading assessment question

[petesgirl]

I had parent-teacher conference for my kindergarten DS today and the teacher said his DIBELS reading assessment is good except for one area, which he got a zero in - 'reading words as words' is what she called it. She said that it basically means that he needs to work on sounding out words more automatically and in his head so that when he says the word it comes out as the word, not the individual sounds. She said there isn't a whole lot we can do about it-it is more of a developmental stage that he has to reach.

I'm just curious if anyone here has a better understanding of this skill/what work we could be doing on it at home.
I'm asking here because DS's teacher is actually a 'permanent substitute' who is a retired high school teacher and I take what she says with a grain of salt a lot because I don't feel like she has the best understanding of DS's age group.
I don't really understand the DIBELS system well and couldn't find much online that was helpful--is every category rated all or nothing, or are there in between scores? We also got a letter from the school recently with the results of his DIBELS assessment and it puts him at benchmark for everything, and I can't find any category that resembles this one the teacher brought up.

[toby]

I had parent-teacher conference for my kindergarten DS today and the teacher said his DIBELS reading assessment is good except for one area, which he got a zero in - 'reading words as words' is what she called it. She said that it basically means that he needs to work on sounding out words more automatically and in his head so that when he says the word it comes out as the word, not the individual sounds. She said there isn't a whole lot we can do about it-it is more of a developmental stage that he has to reach.

I'm just curious if anyone here has a better understanding of this skill/what work we could be doing on it at home.
I'm asking here because DS's teacher is actually a 'permanent substitute' who is a retired high school teacher and I take what she says with a grain of salt a lot because I don't feel like she has the best understanding of DS's age group.
I don't really understand the DIBELS system well and couldn't find much online that was helpful--is every category rated all or nothing, or are there in between scores? We also got a letter from the school recently with the results of his DIBELS assessment and it puts him at benchmark for everything, and I can't find any category that resembles this one the teacher brought up.

I am definitely not an expert, but it sounds completely developmentally appropriate. I don't think I would do anything different (especially since you don't want to make reading a chore). FWIW, DS wasn't reading AT ALL in the beginning of first grade and he now reads well above his grade level.

[SnuggleBuggles]

Our school now keeps those scores to themselves vs sharing with parents, unless you ask. I don't mind that approach. They used to share them and it'd stress me out a bit. It's been a while since I've seen the assessment so I can't be of much help.
I'm very much in the camp of not trying to teach reading at home to kindergarteners. I never expected my kids to read until first grade. It's what our preschool director told us to do. :) Right now, I'd just keep reading to him and let it shake out in time.


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[schrocat]

I don't really bother with Dibels scores but it's one of the criteria that they use in our school district to score Kindergarten kids for Highly Capable enrichment so I guess it does matter. They also use it for reading grades for report card.

Just checked the kiddo's Dibels paper. They only test for phonics and phonemic awareness for Kindergarten here.

[anonomom]

At our school, the Dibels assessment the kindergartners take measure three different things -- identifying the first sound in a word, identifying all sounds in a word, and reading letter sounds. It sounds as if your son's teacher is talking about the last one, which they also call Nonsense Word Fluency. They give the kids a list of nonsense words and see how well they sound them out. At our school, the mid-year kindergarten goal is for the kid to read 17 "letter sounds" correctly -- I'm not sure if that's individual sounds (ie; being able to sound out c-a-g (3 sounds) or words (cag counts as 1 sound/word)). A kid who identifies fewer than 8 letter sounds needs "most support" and kids in between the two numbers need "some support."

To quote from our report, the goal of this section is to determine: "can your child sound out simple words like van (vvv-aah-nnn)" and "easily read a list of two-and three-letter words?"

Our school administers these Dibels assessments using a program called Mclass, and having watched kids taking their Mclass assessments in first grade, I wouldn't put too much stock in them. The test is meant to be quite strict. The teachers aren't allowed to give help or second chances, and sometimes the classroom teacher isn't even allowed to assess her/his own students. It's not exactly a real-world reading situation, and as such I think kids tend to score somewhat below their true abilities (and things really go wonky once the kids are expected to submit written answers to measure their comprehension).

At this point, if your kid is sounding out CVC words when you read together, I think you're probably fine. At least, that's where DS is expected to be right now in kindergarten.

[petesgirl]

Anonmom, that report sounds exactly like the one I got in the mail. And, yes, the nonsense word category seems to be the closest thing to what the teacher said. DS is pretty consistent at recognizing all the kindergarten sight words from the list we got at the first part of the year and can sound out basic CVC words pretty well too so I think he is fine.

[bisous]

Anonmom, that report sounds exactly like the one I got in the mail. And, yes, the nonsense word category seems to be the closest thing to what the teacher said. DS is pretty consistent at recognizing all the kindergarten sight words from the list we got at the first part of the year and can sound out basic CVC words pretty well too so I think he is fine.

My mom is a reading specialist and is not a fan of the nonsense words. She teaches her kids to try and sound out words and also to see if it makes sense in context as another strategy. Kids who try to do this have a hard time with the nonsense words portion of the test. I don't think that really means that he is behind in reading.

I always say it but just as a reminder I don't think that early reading necessarily means the best readers. DS1 was a late-ish reader and really only came into his own at around age 6. Still, he's an AWESOME reader today!

[Kindra178]

Ok, without being a crazy Bbber with a doomsday scenario, I just want to throw this out there. Ds1 had amazing dibels scores-like if the benchmark was 60 he got a 99-on everything except the nonsense words. In kinder his dibels on nonsense words was right above benchmark. In first grade they fell below on nonsense words only. I will also add that that he was reading at grade level. He was also well through the first grade site word list in kindergarten.

The teacher pooh poohed it. It turns out that that was his first sign of his language processing disorder. Nobody understood the significance at that time. Teachers are given these tests but don't necessarily understand the significance. There have actually been dissertations and tons of research on this. I found this out way later, btw, when I became an expert in language disorders.

At the end of second grade, his teacher was saying things like, "he doesn't understand expressions like 'heart of the matter.'" We had started some intervention at that point and that increased.

I'm not telling you this to freak you out or diagnose him, but come first or mid second grade, if he seems to be not understanding nuance or idioms or metaphors, or struggles with retelling a story or general comp issues, you may need further eval. Feel free to ask questions.

And no, I don't think vaccinations caused this on ds. Language processing disorders are super common amongst engineers, of which there are many in the family!


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[PZMommy]

For the nonsense reading portion on Dibels, there are two scores. One score is the sounds. The other score is for reading the words. If you read the whole word without sounding it out, then it gives you credit for each of the sounds. As the teacher is giving the test, you either click under each sound they get correct, or if they say the whole word, then you click on WWR (whole word read). For middle of year, there is not a goal for whole words. The goal for whole words is only for the end of the year.

For example the word "mip". If a kid looks at it and says mip, they will get credit for whole word read, and then also 3 points for sounds. If a student just sounds it out and says, /m/ /i/ /p/, it will just give credit for three sounds. When I would give the test, if a student sounded it out and then said the entire word, we would score it as whole word read. Some kids can just make the sounds, but not blend them together to read the word.

[petesgirl]

For example the word "mip". If a kid looks at it and says mip, they will get credit for whole word read, and then also 3 points for sounds. If a student just sounds it out and says, /m/ /i/ /p/, it will just give credit for three sounds. When I would give the test, if a student sounded it out and then said the entire word, we would score it as whole word read. Some kids can just make the sounds, but not blend them together to read the word.

Hmm maybe that is what my DS is doing. He does sometimes do that at home when we practice reading I think. Thanks for weighing in-I always have secret hopes that you will because I know you are a teacher!

[petesgirl]

Ok, without being a crazy Bbber with a doomsday scenario, I just want to throw this out there. Ds1 had amazing dibels scores-like if the benchmark was 60 he got a 99-on everything except the nonsense words. In kinder his dibels on nonsense words was right above benchmark. In first grade they fell below on nonsense words only. I will also add that that he was reading at grade level. He was also well through the first grade site word list in kindergarten.

The teacher pooh poohed it. It turns out that that was his first sign of his language processing disorder. Nobody understood the significance at that time. Teachers are given these tests but don't necessarily understand the significance. There have actually been dissertations and tons of research on this. I found this out way later, btw, when I became an expert in language disorders.

At the end of second grade, his teacher was saying things like, "he doesn't understand expressions like 'heart of the matter.'" We had started some intervention at that point and that increased.

I'm not telling you this to freak you out or diagnose him, but come first or mid second grade, if he seems to be not understanding nuance or idioms or metaphors, or struggles with retelling a story or general comp issues, you may need further eval. Feel free to ask questions.

And no, I don't think vaccinations caused this on ds. Language processing disorders are super common amongst engineers, of which there are many in the family!


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Thanks for bringing this up! So was your son diagnosed by an SLP? The school SLP is actually going to do an assessment with my DS to test phoneme awareness. I requested it because DS brought home a worksheet one day and I was to read him the word and then he was to break it down into the sounds he heard. There were about 20 words and he did them all correctly except the word 'sort'. He broke it down into s-w-or-t. So he hears a W in there. He also says 'cornter' instead of 'corner' and insists that DH and I say it that way! Anyway-I will be very interested in the SLP assessment!!

[PZMommy]

Just to add, I don't put a lot of weight on the dibels assessment. It is just one of many tools we use to assess students. It is one on one with a student, and some students are shyer than others, and don't test as well. Plus, I agree with a previous poster, that the whole nonsense word thing is not that great. I think for a lot of kids, their brain tries to think of a word they know. I had one student, who would tell me all of the correct sounds, but then instead of reading the word, they would say a real word that was as close to the sounds they gave me. I kept telling her these were silly words that weren't real, but she really struggled on that part of the test. Yet she was a fluent reader. You could always practice this as home and write down some basic cvc words that are nonsense.

I believe in first grade, they do nonsense words on the BOY test, but by MOY, they have to read a fluency passage, and then after reading tell as much as they recall about it. I hate that even more, because we want them to read fast, but then also recall facts. Most kids (especially new readers) need to read a bit slower to really soak in what they have read. My district will no longer be using dibels next year, and I'm happy about that because it is very time consuming to administer and we lose so much instruction time to administer it. However, I fear whatever assessment replaces it, won't be much better either.

[Kindra178]

Thanks for bringing this up! So was your son diagnosed by an SLP? The school SLP is actually going to do an assessment with my DS to test phoneme awareness. I requested it because DS brought home a worksheet one day and I was to read him the word and then he was to break it down into the sounds he heard. There were about 20 words and he did them all correctly except the word 'sort'. He broke it down into s-w-or-t. So he hears a W in there. He also says 'cornter' instead of 'corner' and insists that DH and I say it that way! Anyway-I will be very interested in the SLP assessment!!

Yes and later a neuropsych.


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