LFDCS- Literacy Assessments

2007-2008

Kate Allen
LFDCS Reading First Reading Specialist
October 10, 2007
“What gets measured, gets done.”
Dr. Bert Schulte
Deputy Commissioner Missouri Department of Education, July 2007
 LFDCS’ Battery of Literacy
Assessments

● DIBELS

● GRADE

● L-FASTS

● Terra Nova
 School-Wide Reading Improvement
Model
Schools and Children in Trouble
* Prevention model
* Increasing capacity of general education
* Student Literacy Profiles- laser like focus

Goal
* Decrease incidence of children with serious reading difficulty/disability
* Build and sustain capacity of schools

School-Wide Reading Improvement Model

*All students
* All teachers
* General education
* Core comprehensive reading program- five components- Phonemic awareness, Phonics, Vocabulary, Fluency,
Comprehension
 School-Wide Reading Improvement
Model

"Teaching without assessment is like driving a car without headlights."

Foundation
* Knowledge of alphabetic writing system
* Clear instructional standards and priorities
* Research validated reading programs
* Effective instruction
* Dynamic assessment system

For more information go to IDEA at http://reading.uoregon.edu/assessment/dibels.php

Influence of Reading First

● RF is a federal K-3 initiative authorized by the

NCLB act
● Goal that all students reading at grade level
by grade 3
● Goal was established because if students
aren’t proficient readers by grade 4 the
research says they are not likely EVER to be
proficient readers
 Literacy Gap

● About 20% of children enter kindergarten with

the skills of a 3 year old.
● About 20% of children enter kindergarten with
the skills of a 4 year old.
● When students leave kindergarten 3 years
behind in reading they must make 2 years
catch growth plus annual growth in grades 1,
2 and 3 to be at level at the end of third grade!
Statistics from Annual Growth, Catch Up Growth 2007.
 Matthew Effect
Researchers have noted repeatedly that some children come to school
somewhat "wealthier" than their peers when it comes to early reading
skills. As time goes by, those students who start out with some
literacy advantages tend to thrive and grow academically, while their
less fortunate peers tend to get left behind. Like the line in Matthew's
Gospel, the rich students get richer, and the poor students get
poorer. Hence, in 1983, Walberg and Tsai first coined the term the
"Matthew Effect" to describe the fact that, without intervention, some
students rapidly develop and build upon strong literacy foundations,
and other students languish behind their more fortunate peers.
Influence of Reading First

● The Reading First initiative stands on the four

pillars of an effective reading program:
✓ Dynamic Instructional Leadership-administrators must be
ready to provide resources to ensure adequate progress is being made

✓ Professional Development-Strong PD that helps teachers

understand the best Literacy practices that foster high achievement.

✓ Instructional Programs-Effective Scientifically Based programs that

provide the systematic and explicit teaching of the 5 Literacy components- Phonemic Awareness,
Phonics, Vocabulary, Fluency, Comprehension

✓ Valid and Reliable Assessments

We have built these 4 pillars up to support kindergarten-grade 6
Valid and Reliable Assessments-

● An effective reading program will utilize valid and

reliable assessments that help teachers know what
skills students have acquired, which students are
experiencing difficulty, and how much progress has
been made. This is accomplished through the use
of screening, progress monitoring, and outcome
assessments. These assessments are ongoing, and
include both formal and informal measures of
students’ reading skills that guide the teacher in
planning and evaluating the instruction. Reading First 2004.
Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early
Literacy Skills(DIBELS)

Preventing Reading Difficulties Through Early

Identification
● Dynamic - Responsive to Changes in Student Performance
* Identifies students who need additional support
* Evaluates student response to intervention
● Indicators - Focused on an Essential Skill
* Enables assessment to be efficient
● Basic Early Literacy Skills - Relevant to Instructional Planning
* Links essential literacy skills to prevent reading failure
Phonological Awareness

● Is done with the lights out. All listening!! The

manipulation of oral language (speech sound
system)

● Progression =
phonemes (blending segmenting individual speech
sounds c-a-t)--- onset-rime (c-at )--- syllables
 Phonological Awareness
Benchmarks Between
Ages 4-9

Typical Age Skill

4 Production/Enjoyment of Rhyme
5 Rhyme, Phoneme Matching, Clapping Syllables
5. 5 Onset-rime, Initial Consonant Isolation
6 Phoneme Blending, Segmenting
The skills are necessary for long range success.
Underlying phonology problems undermine
readers ability to do a range of language tasks
required by older readers.
4 Processing Systems of the Brain
 Complexity of English Language

● 26 letters
● 44 sounds
● more than 200 ways to spell those sounds
● 5 vowels
● 18 ways to spell vowel sounds
DIBELS

● Fall, Winter and Spring Benchmark

● Administered individually to each student

● Progress Monitoring bi-weekly for those

students who did not make benchmark
DIBELS-Early Literacy Skills, Reading Fluency

● Screening
● Progress Monitoring
● Diagnostic (with expert teacher)
● Outcome (looking a whole group end of year)

● DIBELS provide the feedback to ensure our

program is meeting the needs of all children.
AIM High on the DIBELS

DIBELS benchmarks levels are set below the

average score. Benchmarks in DIBELS
represent the 40th percentile. Therefore, if a
student is at Benchmark, he/she is still
below average.
MCAS Success and DIBELS Indicators

ISF is a predictor of PSF which is a predictor of NWF which is a

predictor of ORF-
Predictors of MCAS Success in 3rd Grade
1. When Entering 3rd grade, students must receive a Fall
ORF Benchmark of 90 + wpm
2. Students must have a Spring ORF Benchmark of at least
90 (Studies have noticed a 2nd grade slump in
phonological knowledge, which negatively affects
students’ achievement on high stake tests in 3rd grade.)
3. Students must be at NWF Benchmark of 50 by Winter
Benchmark of 1st grade, and can successfully blend at
least 15 of the nonsense words automatically
DIBELS

● Kindergarten- Letter Name Fluency, Initial

Sound, Phoneme Segmentation Fluency,
Nonsense Word Fluency (basic phonics)
● Grade 1- LNF, ISF, NWF, Oral Reading
Fluency (44)
● Grade 2- NWF, ORF (90)
● Grade 3- ORF (110)
● Grade 4- ORF (140), Grade 5- ORF (170)
● Grade 6- ORF (170)
DIBLES PM example

● Please see attached in hand out

Group Reading Assessment and
Diagnostic Evaluation (GRADE)

● Fall, Winter and Spring Benchmark

● Administered as a whole group to save

time

● K-8
GRADE-Early Lit. Skills, Word reading, Vocabulary, Sentence/Passage Comp.

● Screening- essential components of literacy

● Diagnostic (with expert teacher)
● Outcome (looking a whole group end of year)

● GRADE provides both group and individual

data- because it is standardized and normed
provides scores in stanines and percentiles
GRADE

● The Massachusetts DOE has correlated the

GRADE to ELA MCAS

● Students have the best chance of scoring

proficient on the ELA MCAS once they reach
a stanine of 7 or higher on the GRADE
 Massachusetts’ High Bar

Nationally a student is considered proficient in

reading with an NPR of 40 or a stanine of 5

In Massachusetts for a student to be

proficient he/she must have a stanine of 7
or a NPR in the range of 75-86
 GRADE-used to determine catch up
growth

● The Kennewick School System in the state of

Washington developed an equation using a
student’s National Percentile Ranking (NPR) in
order to determine how far below grade level a
student is and how much catch growth he/she
needs to make
50-NPR=X/13 = YBGL a rule of thumb is each unit of13 percentile points
from the 50th percentile = a year of growth.

YBGL x 30 = Additional Minutes of Direct Instruction

Needed = CATCH UP GROWTH
An average student needs 80 minutes of Literacy instruction in order to make annual growth. A student
below grade level needs these 80 minutes PLUS Catch Up Growth!!
Action Plan example

● Please see attached Action Plan in hand out

as an example of how GRADE data drives
individual instruction
3-Tier Intervention Model
Intervention Rounds

● Please see attached in the hand out

LFDCS - Formative Assessment
System Teacher and Student MCAS Readiness
(L-FASTS)

Background-November 2006
L-FASTS-comprehension

● Purpose-

●
L-FASTS

● Last year bi-weekly assessments were

developed for grade 3-6- all based on
released items from earlier ELA MCAS
● Administered as a whole group
● Teacher corrects and completes grading
chart, determines class CPI (Composite
Proficiency Index)
L-FASTS example

● Please see attached L-FASTS recording

sheet in hand out
 Data, Data, Data

● Data drives instructional decisions

● Teachers and administrators sit down to analyze
data during monthly Response to Intervention (RTI)
meetings
● Laser Like Focus allows us to develop a Literacy
Profile for each student and a precise Action Plan
for those students below grade level
● All in preventative steps to develop proficient
readers and reverse the Matthew effect