DIBELS

Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills

DIBELS is a reading test used by many districts in Arizona to screen all K-3 students. It can be used for many purposes, but there are several ways special education teachers can use it:
1. Use out of grade level DIBELS to do a quick screening on a student who is in the pre-referral/RTI process. Determine how the student is functioning in comparison to their peers and the general curriculum. Determine what reading subskills the student needs to learn to improve their reading performance. Use this information when working collaboratively with general education teachers, parents, and other members of an RTI group to develop and monitor progress on intervention objectives.
2. When a student has been evaluated and placed in special education, use DIBELS data for Present Levels information, to develop Annual Goals, and to monitor progress on Reviews of Progress. Start with the level of DIBELS that matches the instructional reading level of the student. For instance, a fourth grader may be reading at the second grade level: start monitoring progress with the second grade DIBELS and move to higher levels as the student's reading improves.
3. Use the different subtests of the DIBELS to assess and monitor student progress on reading subskills such as Phonemic Segmentation, Nonsense Word Fluency, etc., for any student, no matter their age or grade level, who has not met Benchmark levels on these subskills. This is useful for students who are non-readers, or close to being non-readers, and for whom, therefore, Oral Reading Fluency passages are not very useful.