NCTE colleague needs help in battling DIBELS and Response to Intervention in a middle school

[Kent Williamson]

I recently received an email asking if we knew of successful strategies used by other progressive middle level educators in helping administrators understand problems with DIBELS, AIMSweb, Response to Intervention and Curriculum Based Measures.

Can anyone recommend research or other resources that we can share with this member? Thanks for any assistance you can provide.

[Yvonne Siu-Runyan (PANA)]

I'll put out a call. This is GREAT that this teacher asked the question.

Yvonne

[Nancy Patterson]

DIBELS supposedly assesses a student's phonemic awareness by asking that student to pronounce as quickly as possible a list of nonsense syllables. It was initially intended to provide a small piece of a student's ability to decode. However, people have latched onto DIBELS and turned it into something far greater than was initially intended, fashioning whole reading curricula around this ability to decode nonsense. There is absolutely no correlation between the ability to "do" DIBELS and reading comprehension.

DIBELS was also initially intended for use with very young readers. The only current reason for expanding DIBELS into a full blown reading program that extends into upper elementary and middle school is profit. Again, there is absolutely no evidence that preparing for success in DIBELS translates into the ability to understand text.

Regie Routman, in her latest book, Teaching Essentials, states "“there is overwhelming research showing that DIBELS does not improve reading achievement” (Routman 2008, p. 40).

I would add that DIBELS is one of the prime reasons why Reading First has undergone federal investigation. DIBELS developers at the University of Oregon have experienced a huge financial boon because of Reading First. This is one of the key reasons why Reading First is under investigation by the Justice Department.

Reading is the act of constructing meaning from text. DIBELS is based on an earlier concept of reading as the acquisition of individual skills. When reading is defined as the ability to use these skills, reading instruction focuses on skill acquisition. But that definition of reading has been dismissed by experts for the past 40 years, and, indeed, the idea that reading is a dynamic meaning making process goes back centuries. It was the behaviorists, misinterpreting Noam Chomsky's work, who created what was known in the mid-20th century as "the linguistic approach." This approach was based on the idea that all learning was observable and happened as a result of building habits. Skills were taught individually and without a meaningful context.

In the early 1970's Ken Goodman and others, through their research with actual readers, unearthed the process through which readers make sense of texts. Though part of that process involves the use of letter/sound coordination, the primary processes that readers brought to the task involved accessing prior knowledge and predicting what was to come based on that knowledge. Predictions were adjusted for new knowledge and the cycle repeats itself. Frank Smith warns us that a skills-first approach actually derails readers.

As for RTI, a test of phonemic awareness might provide a small window into a student's reading processes, but it cannot be the sole assessment. Indeed, it was never intended to be, though the DIBELS publishers are very quiet about that because of the huge profits they are experiencing through the misuse of their product.

For a better explanation of the problems with DIBELS, see Ken Goodman's book The Truth About DIBELS, Regie Routman's Teaching Essentials, and Elaine Garan's book Resisting Reading Mandates, which unpacks the National Reading Panel Report, the basis for Reading First and DIBELS.

[Francis J. Lunney]

The University of Oregon Special Education Program is ranked #3 in the country because of the fantastic research that is coming out of that school including the work on DIBELS. Parents get tired of being told that their child isn't quite ready to read because before you know it they're in the 4th grade and have a significant problem. DIBELS seeks to help identify those students that are at risk for reading failure and provide them with the appropriate interventions. As schools realize that a large number of their K and 1st grade students don't even know the alphabet, don't know their letter sounds, can't blend real or nonsense words, then they know that its finally time to adopt better core reading programs as well as invest in interventions that really work. Teachers and schools who don't pay enough attention to the teaching of foundational skills have failed our students. Of course there are many other considerations that come along in teaching reading, but early on much of the emphasis should be on deciphering the code. Far too often, whole language instruction fails to address many of the basics. The teachers themselves don't understand the structures of the language. Louisa Moats' research demonstrated how little teachers knew about phonology, morphology, orthography, etc. Of course the end goal should rich literacy programs for students, but why not start with making sure that 1st graders can decode words? Schools that use DIBELS are starting to take more ownership of this issue. We've had enough of the whole language guessing game. It hasn't worked, and the research proves it.

[Francis J. Lunney]

>"Skills first derails readers?"

So at what point does he propose that these skills be taught?

[Kent Williamson]

Thanks for this well-crafted and comprehensive reply, Nancy.

[Ken Goodman]

My book, The Truth about Dibels (Heinemann) has a cd that can be used to show groups how Dibels works and what;s wrong with it. It contains videos of a child being DIBLED on each sub test.
Ken Goodman

[Francis J. Lunney]

In reading a snippet from your book you make it seem as if the Dibels is a torturous long winded assessment when it typically take under ten minutes to administer. Its a hell of a lot more torturous being a 4th grader who can't decode a two syllable word. Maybe a school that uses the DIBELS assessment tool can head off that problem. I teach 6th grade English, and I've seen the results of my district not doing a good job of monitoring early reading progress.

[Jane Blystone]

I have read your book and agree. As someone who has seen DIBELS misused for numerous years to assign students to Learning Support programs, I can say that is is not the perfect end all assessment as others have discussed. Francis said something really important that most people who administer DIBELS do not pay attention to because they want a FIX ALL solution and believe DIBELS is the answer.

Not all students who have problems with recognizing letters, sounds, etc. are doomed for failure. Students with hearing problems still learn to read well without phonics if they have instruction that matches the best way they learn - which is NOT AUDITORY as phonics is.

Many special education teachers use this system of assessment with a passion for special needs students in secondary education. Good daily formative assessment lets me know MORE about the individual teen's reading dilemmas that DIBELS ever have. The DRA, another early reading assessment gives teachers a broader database about what a child can and cannot do as a reader than DIBELS. When they get to me in the ninth grade and are three or four years behind their peers, I have had to pull out every resource I know because kids have slammed the the door to reading because they cannot read and know for sure for their past experiences that no one has helped them learn to read. When they get to me, I am asked to move them from illiteracy to functional illiteracy and then give them a passion to become lifelong readers all in 180 days. what about the other 1500 days they have been in school?

What WE DO as teachers is the deciding factor in a child's reading life. Good reading instruction in the early grades, means kids will keep the door open to reading. We cannot base what we do in reading instruction on one assessment instrument. If we do, we prove the NCLB that testing is the way to make kids lifelong learners.

Jane

30 year reading specialist

[Yvonne Siu-Runyan (PANA)]

My response is to work around DIBELS. Don't take it seriously. Know DIBELS for what it is. I suggest reading Ken Goodman's book on DIBELS, and then purchasing a few to pass out to teacher friends so they too will understand. There's nothing more useful than good, solid information.

Also find out how much money is being spent on DIBELS training and then gently request more meaningful inservice education, and provide sound reasons.

I also suggest reading the Office of Inspector General's report on Reading First Initiative.

Yvonne

[Francis J. Lunney]

Is there any reason why you wouldn't want your students to know the alphabet, letter sounds, how to blend, etc? Teaching reading is a complex process, but why not make sure the basics are taken care of?

[Dr. Z]

You are correlating using Dibels and caring about whether a child is learning to read. That is the thought of a zealot. Somehow, miraculously, most kids learned to read before Dibels was a twinkle in anyone's eye. We don't need Dibels to know whether someone has the basics. What we need is to ask the question and do some sort of assessment. Before Dibels it was the failure to ask the question that let kids fall through the cracks. I see sole reliance on Dibels is just a different formula for letting a different group of kids fall through the cracks.

[Vince Puzick]

I appreciate Dr. Z's response and feel compelled to respond to a couple of points. I agree that we do not need DIBELS to tell us whether someone has the basics. When a young reader, however, is not getting the basics, we do need to know where the gap is. DIBELS can help with that diagnosis. "Sole reliance" on any one measure is never a good practice, but using DIBELS -- along with other information -- to get a reading (so to speak) on the students' strengths and weaknessses can help teachers target their instruction. I don't think it is really an "either/or" situation (as I mentioned in my previous posting); I do believe in using an assessment in the way it is intended rather than expecting something from it for which it was never designed. I would be really reluctant to use DIBELS at middle school because it is not intended beyond sixth grade and, I would contend, that its real strength is when it is used in K-3.