Your child's elementary school might soon be using a new screening system to assess reading skills.
Staff briefed school board members last week on their plan to begin using the DIBELS Data System to assess the reading skills of students and hopefully intervene before problems get worse.
While staff is recommending that elementary schools use it for the 2009-10 school year, it's not being mandated. That drew some concerns from board members.
Under DIBELS, all elementary students would get three roughly five-minute screenings each year. Teachers would the analyze the results.
Staff said benefits could include early identification of problems to allow for early intervention. It could also help minority students by reducing overidentification for special education and underidentification for academically gifted services.
While the benefits sounded good, staff said they didn't require implementation because principals expressed concerns about not having staffing in place at the beginning of the school year. The requirement that schools only fill 95 percent of position due to the budget situation is making things more challenging.
Staff said principals also expressed concerned about overloading teachers who are adjusting to the new math textbook that Wake will begin using in place of Trailblazers.
School board member Lori Millberg said she's concerned that the schools with the most challenges won't use DIBELS. She said that the schools with the least challenges will be the only ones who can jump in right now.
School board member Beverley Clark expressed the opposite concern. She said she's concerned that the schools with really high needs will jump in while those schools with 80 to 90 percent passing might feel they don't need it, causing some students to fall through the cracks.
Chief Academic Officer Donna Hargens said they'll work with the area superintendents to see which schools should be ecnouraged to participate.
Sherri Merritt, Wake's director of K-12 literacy programs, said all students can benefit. She said it could help with the problems the district has had getting enough growth from the Level IV, non-academically gifted students.
Click here for a handout of the presentation.
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Wrong assesssment tool
Fri, 05/22/2009 - 06:10 — tlg0202I agree that using DIBELS is only one more method of assessing reading ability. I don't think it is the best indicator if a child has a reading problem. Though fluency is important for comprehension there are other assessments that will be better suited to determine reading ability. Using a Basic Reading Inventory would be a better tool since it looks at word identification, decoding, comprehension, and fluency. Although it takes more than the 5 minutes that DIBELS takes, it is a much more comprehensive assessment that would in the end save time and better serve kids in reading groups. I don't think the problem here is grouping of abilities, guided reading will still take place in K-2 classes. It's more about the type of assessment that teachers will use to determine reading level and if there are disabilities so that interventions can take place earlier.
DIBELS = fluency not reading comprehension
Tue, 05/19/2009 - 01:01 — BerniesOk, for those of you who don't know- DIBELS assesses reading fluency. That's it! There is nothing for the teacher to analyze. They count up the words the student has read in a minute and subtract the mistakes and that's your score.
DIBELS doesn't even have the teacher analyze the mistakes- it won't tell them whether it's a visual, a semantic or a syntactic mistake. It only tells if they are reading grade level material fluently. This is definitely a great tool to assess reading fluency but this article makes it sound like DIBELS is really going to change how reading is taught throughout the county. Ridiculous!
Let me assure you, if a student is at a level 4 (which is above grade level) and they are not showing growth... fluency is NOT the problem.
In lieu of "research", how about...
Mon, 05/18/2009 - 22:09 — RiversideRealist... first hand experience?
My sister and I attended the same elem school. She is 5 years my junior. In 1st grade, we were ability grouped. While the kids who needed help were reading 2 and 3 word sentences in their group, my advanced group was reading "The Princess and the Pea". This worked to keep us interested and learning an expanded vocabulary, while also getting anyone lagging behind up to speed.
Contrast that with my sister, who had to be placed into the group that needed extra help. She was grouped by ability for that reason, received some more one-on-one from the teacher and the teacher's aide, and was reading on-grade-level when she was promoted to Grade 2.
I don't understand why ANYone would argue that this doesn't work. It doesn't make sense to have a bunch of kids reading 2 and 3 word sentences if they are ready and able to read "The Princess and the Pea". And with the right formula, you can give EACH group the attention it needs. It's not rocket science for goodness sake!
Clark and Millberg too focused on disparity
Mon, 05/18/2009 - 17:23 — Bob_SconceIt seems to me that if DIBELS makes some kids better off while making no kids worse off, then the district should adopt it. A lesson that Missuses Clark and Millberg apparently have yet to learn.
“School board member Lori
Mon, 05/18/2009 - 12:52 — user1234“School board member Lori Millberg said she's concerned that the schools with the most challenges won't use DIBELS. She said that the schools with the least challenges will be the only ones who can jump in right now.
School board member Beverley Clark expressed the opposite concern. She said she's concerned that the schools with really high needs will jump in while those schools with 80 to 90 percent passing might feel they don't need it, causing some students to fall through the cracks.”
Hmmm … I am guessing the best organization with the best leadership will take advantage of any thing new that will help them attain their goal … I say throw it out there and see who bites and who shows results …. If high needs schools can not implement because of bandwidth, skills or leadership that is one problem and if low high-needs schools are neglecting their high-needs minority that is a separate problems … both failures of leadership, organization and resources won’t be restricted to just this program … I am guessing staff already knows who the innovator and laggards are beforehand …
Maybe if they'd actually
Mon, 05/18/2009 - 12:01 — SouthEastWakeMomMaybe if they'd actually teach/challenge the more advanced kids rather than ignoring them or using them as tutors/babysitters/gophers etc., they'd see some improvement. Teaching to the middle serves only the students at the middle. Ability grouping allows each student to learn at a rate closer to their own capacity.
"Sherri Merritt, Wake's director of K-12 literacy programs, said all students can benefit. She said it could help with the problems the district has had getting enough growth from the Level IV, non-academically gifted students."
"Ability grouping allows
Mon, 05/18/2009 - 13:38 — teach248"Ability grouping allows each student to learn at a rate closer to their own capacity."
Show me the research that proves this. I just don't buy it. This is misinfomation spread by many parents of AG students. The research on this is not so cut and dry as to indicate that ability grouping helps achievement better than non-ability grouping. That blanket statement quoted above is misleading.
Good teachers don't teach to the middle only. It's called differentiation.
if you look at any of the
Tue, 05/19/2009 - 04:52 — aspienatif you look at any of the studies done on the ethnicity gap you will find refrence to the fact that in schools with high LI that the child who was ahead in K is not on grade level by 6. The reason being that the child who was ahead did not recieve teaching at their level but at the group level. Therefore the child was pull down by the lowest members of the group. The studies showing that LI kids do better in a mixed income school with an LI of 20 or less say this happens because the group level is higher and kids recieve instruction at that level. The amount of unprepared kids in K is much lower at high LI
Which is were the by 3 education lobbing and foundation groups come from.
Of course those kids in the original studies are not bussed in or reassigned every year instead the LI parents sacrfice alot of income and time to rent in a higher achiving school. Therefore the LI parents who choose to send their kid to a mixed income schools care more. The KIPP schools try to by pass the parental care factor by having longer days to insure outside class room practice is done. Plus they drill into the kids that they are not their enviorment and that the kids can and will get beyond it
So if you want to see how abilty grouping works studies google the ethnicty gap studies.
The reason abilit grouping was dropped is in the past the lower groups did not recieve extra help to get on grade level. Instead they were treated as un educatable and never helped to advanced beond the lower grouping.
The research is politically biased & flawed on ability grouping
Mon, 05/18/2009 - 17:29 — Voice_of_Reason_I quote from John Hollifield :"Slavin sees as the most compelling argument against ability grouping its creation of academic elites, a practice which goes against democratic ideals. " The fallacy of this argument is that we have private schools and universities that do just that and they add economic status in the mix.
But even Slavin saw merit in ability grouping. Why do most private schools use ability grouping of some form? Why do we have grades and even hold some children back? I don't advocate total ability grouping, but some subjects like math and reading are better taught by ability. They do it in middle schools in WCPSS.
I am sorry, but if you have too wide of range of ability in a classroom most teachers can't adequately handle the differentiation. This is especially true with large classes and few teacher assistants. This is just common sense, not AG parent propaganda.
P.S. Yes, I have taught...albeit young adults.
Well...
Mon, 05/18/2009 - 17:17 — Bob_Sconce(1) You are presuming that every teacher is "Good" (however you define that.) Yet, I certainly have had the experience of being in classes where I was either above or below the median and was either frustrated by being behind or bored by being ahead.
(2) Please show research that disproves it. It's common sense that if you have a group of students with the same ability level, the teacher will be able to focus his/her effort on teaching to that ability level, instead of having to deal with kids at other ability levels. You don't need research to back up common sense, but you do need research to refute it.
The link from the main page
Mon, 05/18/2009 - 09:54 — bu11durmThe link from the main page reads:
"Wake to access (sic) elementary students' reading skills".
Looks like your editors need to access their reading skills as well.
How about this... stop
Mon, 05/18/2009 - 09:51 — rr77rr99How about this... stop pushing kids into kindergarten when they are not ready for it! Assess kids there and if they are not ready (spitting, hitting, can't sit still, can't get along with others, pushing shoving, yelling out, biting, crying, whining, can't accept they are not the center of the universe... then they are not accepted to kindergarten so that those who are ready can begin the rigors of the "learning" process. Oh wait, that's right, the kids are supposed to be reading, writing , and doing basic math before they get to kindergarten.
Pushing kids into Kindergarten
Mon, 05/18/2009 - 13:23 — hazeycThen there would be some adults that would never have made it into school.
Sounds like you want the Kindergarten kids to behave perfectly before they can attend. I think that is unattainable and that Kindergarten is there for the kids to learn how to get along.
Level IV, non-academically
Mon, 05/18/2009 - 09:57 — NWRaleighMomLevel IV, non-academically gifted students.
How do they define levels?
It's similar to the levels
Mon, 05/18/2009 - 11:53 — KeungHui (author)It's similar to the levels used on the EOG exams. Level IV demonstrates mastery of the material beyond grade level expectations. Level III is more or less at grade level. While nearly all AG kids are Level IV, not all Levei IV kids are AG.
The levels on the EOG is not
Tue, 05/19/2009 - 17:37 — dryeraseuserThe levels on the EOG is not the same as the Levels with the grading system. WE have to remember, the EOG's only test grade level material in Reading and Math. The EOG's I, II, II, IV represent the precentage of the questions the students' answered correctly.
I said it's similiar, not
Wed, 05/20/2009 - 06:34 — KeungHui (author)I said it's similar, not that they're the same. Go here for more info.
What bull they know there
Mon, 05/18/2009 - 08:04 — aspienatWhat bull they know there are kids with reading issues now and don't help them. They say get a tutor. Special ED SUCKS in WCPSS. So why wast the money on a new system if you do not do anything when there is a problem.