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.

[Shelbie Witte]

Middle schools are DESPERATE to find ways to help the students who are reading three or more grade levels below their peers. Schools are struggling to find beginning reader programs that aren't 'elementary' in content to help students with lexile ranges at BR (beginning reader). I'd love to hear your thoughts on this in conjunction with Kent's call for information, as middle schools in Kansas are using RTI as a way of structuring their resources to focus on particular groups of struggling readers.

[Yvonne Siu-Runyan (PANA)]

Hi Shelbie,

This might sound simplistic, but in my work with struggling middle school readers or any struggling reader, using scripted programs just don't work, especially programs like DIBELS. It just causes more confusion, and reinforces the notion that the students are BAD readers. My suggestion is to help the students see that they are already readers and are engaged in literacy events all the time. I would open up the world of print to them. The starting point is their passions. Then once a teacher is able to to this, s/he can eventually lead out from here. If the student is interested in cars, then bring in a huge variety of materials about cars from magazines to books and yes even using the Internet.

Read WITH the student using paired reading, partner reading, and scaffolded reading. If the student comes across a word that does not make sense, I would suggest just saying the word and moving on, focusing on meaning. If the student miscues and it does not detract from meaning, then ignore that miscue and move on. I also jot down notes regarding, which words the student stumbled on for I use this information to do a short mini-lesson if it seems appropriate. But, I never "over do."

Another suggestion, if the student is just plain fearful of reading is to start with writing. I have had to start with writing with many of the students with whom work. The work of Don Murray, writer and educator par excellence, provides much useful information about writing from a writer's perspective and offered me an inside out look at the writing process.

I use picture books, for picture books are not meant for only students in the primary grades. There are tons of great picture books available of wide interest. Tap into this resource.

Use language that is reader to reader, learner to learner, and writer to writer. That is avoid language that is the typical teacher to student kind.

In order to do the above the teacher must ignore the threats of high stakes testing, which I know is not an easy thing to do, but most necessary.

Most importantly, take the FEAR out of reading for one cannot learn when one is fearful and thinks one is dumb, and focus on MEANING. This means the kinds of materials used must make sense.

There is much to what I suggested and certainly by no means everything. What I invite you to do is to ask me specific questions about my suggestions. This way you are the one who leads.

After you've had some time to consider my suggestions, I share some real life stories to put the above in context. OK?

Thank you, Shelbie, for your comment, an important one indeed!

Yvonne

[Shelbie Witte]

Thanks, Yvonne. I agree that all of the things you mentioned are very important strategies to use. To play devil's advocate, let's assume the following situation is true- in a 7th grade classroom of 25 students, there are 10 that read at least three levels below grade level. The classroom teacher does her best to do the things you've mentioned above, with help from the Literacy teacher, who has these 10 students during one of their electives, because of their reading difficulties. The school has Read 180, but research shows that Read 180 isn't intended for students who are more than three grade levels behind in their reading abilities. The school system is looking for a 'program', because their literacy teacher is really a secondary Language Arts teacher, who was really never taught HOW to teach reading (I can testify to this...I was never taught how to teach reading either). Then what? Love to hear your thoughts!!

[Francis J. Lunney]

Get trained in Wilson. If done well it can be a great intervention.

[Francis J. Lunney]

Dibels is not a reading program. Its an assessment tool. Go get trained in Orton-Gillingham or Wilson Reading System. Complete an extensive training that shows you how to use an effective tool. I am OG trained and I've taught many non-readers how to read. Of course take the fear out of reading and focus on meaning...but if they can't decode the words they're dead in the water. You need to be able to teach students how to do this. That's your responsibility! Then do all of those other wonderful things you do! I think you might be a 1st grade teacher... Consider Fundations as a way to do a better job with phonology and structure of words. Good luck!

[Francis J. Lunney]

You have a lot of nice ideas, but you really don't sound like you have the background to deal with any decoding issues. Teachers need to play the role of coach as you describe so well. We also need to have the skills to address the specific issue. Finding out that the student like cars, or baseball, and nurturing that love is too often the answer given by whole language advocates. You need to add a methodology that works to your bag of tricks.

[Elizabeth Vidmar]

I am a fifth grade teacher in a school that has used Dibels for several years. Unfortunately, a skill children seemed to have learned well is to race through the words when they read. I am constantly telling them to slow down when reading word problems in math or complex content area text. Multisyllabic words are skipped over with little use of structural analysis or context clues because using those skills might slow the children down. I see Dibels as hindering the learning of skills needed to read proficiently.

[Francis J. Lunney]

Thank you Shelbie. Someone who is making a little bit of sense here!

[Paola Brown]

Kent,
Thanks for posting this question. I think that this is a HUGE issue, and it's great of you to begin a discussion about it.

One of the tensions my colleagues and I have been experiencing is that these reading programs (while some offer great ideas and suggestions) are overly scripted, thus covertly shifting the teacher’s identity from expert to a technician. So while I DO think that exploring different reading programs for a given school is absolutely beneficial, teachers should also have an opportunity to engage in a disciplined research process of their classroom, students, and unique school culture. Disciplined teacher research will, I believe, aid teachers in developing their own EXPERT and custom reading program. I'd love for you to read what I've posted on the NING about this issue. (See my post under the "Post Your Session Titles, Descriptions, and Materials Here!" forum at http://ncte2008.ning.com/forum... my post is called "Session C-14 DRIVING THE SHIFT: EDUCATORS GOING PUBLIC") and get your thoughts on how teacher research can shift teacher identity, students, and schools.

The bottom line of our presentation is that through this disciplined teacher research, teachers can come to explore exciting new "findings" about their classroom/school, and that by going public with these findings, teachers are asserting their expertise in their school, district, neighborhoods, and society. STUDENTS WILL BENEFIT from this.

I believe that this directly relates to your thoughts. It may not be the quickest answer you were hoping for, but I think it’s powerful.

What do you think about these ideas?

THANKS!
-Paola Brown

[Vince Puzick]

We need to be careful to know what a particular assessment is measuring so we do not expect it to measure something it was never designed to measure. DIBELS's purpose is to take a quick snapshot of basic skills that are the foundation of reading development. It is not a terrific measurement of comprehension; it's a basic measurement for fluency; it's not a great measure for vocabulary. However, it is a great "dipstick" measure for phonemic awareness and phonics (so a terrific assessment for K-2 and maybe K-3.

I agree with the sentiments of a long-time Internet acquaintance, Nancy Patterson, when she says that we have become so focused on skill development that we lose sight of the fact that reading is making meaning; comprehension is the focus. So, in K-2, while we are "DIBELing" students to see their progress on the foundational skills, we cannot neglect to frame all of that instruction and assessment in the larger context of comprehension.

Finally, an assessment tool is not an instructional program. Assessments can, however, identify those skills on which we need to focus instruction. That is the relationship between RTI and any assessment tool; in fact, assessment interpretation is key and essential to any pyramid of interventions. Assessment interpretation is key to PLC work, too -- where do we want students to be, how will we know if they are progressing toward that point, what are we going to do if they are not progressing? Now, we might have disagreements with the RTI model ... but the essence of it is that students who are not progressing receive some sort of intervention to help them build skills. The phrase often heard is that the intervention has to be more intense, with a longer duration, with fewer students. So the DIBELS assessment -- particularly at K-2 and K-3 -- is a tool to measure students' skills in very specific areas. With that said, I think that DIBELS is only a research-based measurement through the 6th grade.

I may have digressed.

[Mark Pennington]

Each of the reading intervention programs you mention is data-driven. I suggest that you fight on the same battlefield with the same weapons. Using independent reading diagnostic assessments, rather than the formative program assessments, will produce the irrefutable student data that will lend support to teacher-driven differentiated reading instruction, according to the individual needs of your students. Try these free, multiple choice diagnostic reading, spelling, and grammar assessments to prove your point: http://penningtonpublishing.com/assessments.php

As a reading specialist, I have some strong feelings about grouping low performing students together to "fix 'em," when there is not data to support what needs to be fixed, nor analysis to determine which program resources will best address the needs of the students. In California, the standards-based CST assessment is being misused to lump together all non-proficient or non-advanced students into canned intervention programs. I moan more about this and provide a few solutions at http://penningtonpublishing.com/blog/reading/remedial-reading-inter...