Running Head: STUDENT ASSESSMENT PROJECT 1

Student Assessment Project

Caeli Welker

EDU 325

4/17/18
STUDENT ASSESSMENT PROJECT 2

Student Assessment Project

The assessor chose to conduct the DIBELS Next assessment with Samantha, who is

seven years old and is in 1st grade. Samantha has two older sisters, in grades 2nd and 4th, and

one younger brother. She is a happy, well-behaved young girl who interacts well with her

teacher, her classmates, and her siblings. She has two loving parents who desire all the best for

her and teachers who believe in her abilities. Although she is not outgoing, she operates well in

small circles and prefers the company of a few friends or her siblings. Samantha counts her

siblings as her closest friends and looks forward to spending time with them each day after

school. At school, she is generally well organized and has good decision-making skills.

Samantha’s favorite subject is math, and she also excels in her religion course. She especially

enjoys playing games that help her to learn math concepts in a fun and engaging way. While

Samantha is doing well in math, writing, and spelling, she struggles with reading. Her father

suggests that this is an area in which Samantha could improve and hopes to see her make

significant progress in the coming school year.

Procedures

To begin with, the assessor contacted the mother of Samantha, inquiring if the mother

would be willing to have the assessor conduct the DIBELS Next assessment with Samantha. The

mother was willing and provided available times after school within which the assessor could

come to their home and administer the assessment. The time and location were set. When the

assessor arrived at the house, she began by asking the father for background information

concerning Samantha. This allowed the assessor to understand where Samantha was coming

from, how she performed in school, how she was behaviorally, and how she interacted with her

peers and teachers. The father was also able to describe to the assessor areas in which Samantha
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struggled, such as reading.

After the background information was obtained, Samantha and the assessor moved into

the other room to begin the assessment. The assessor explained to Samantha to simply follow

the assessor’s directions and to try her very best. Because Samantha is in first grade, the

following DIBELS probes were administered: Letter Name Fluency (LNF), Phoneme

Segmentation Fluency (PSF), Nonsense Word Fluency (NWF), and Oral Reading Fluency

(DORF). Each probe was given one at a time, and the assessor and Samantha were able to move

through them swiftly. No reinforcements were necessary as Samantha willingly completed one

probe after the next. At one point during the assessment, Samantha’s younger brother came into

the room and began to speak to them. The assessor used this as an opportunity to give Samantha

a short break where they were able to chat with each other and the young boy. After politely

asking the boy to leave the room, the assessor refocused Samantha, and the assessment

continued. When the assessment was finished, the assessor thanked Samantha and her family for

their time and left.

Shortly after leaving the house, the assessor analyzed Samantha’s scores and determined

if she was performing below, at, or above benchmark for each probe. After organizing the data,

the assessor was able to ascertain with which areas Samantha struggled. It was apparent that

Samantha struggled with oral reading fluency and retell. This suggested that Samantha needs

vocabulary learning strategies to help her with her reading, and that she needs comprehension

strategies to help her with understanding and retelling what she reads. After conducting research

to discover strategies that will help Samantha succeed in reading and comprehension, the

assessor was able to find two strategies to strengthen her vocabulary and two strategies to

enhance comprehension.
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Assessments Given

Overall, there were five assessments administered: Letter Name Fluency (LNF),

Phoneme Segmentation Fluency (PSF), Nonsense Word Fluency (NWF), and Oral Reading

Fluency (DORF). The LNF probe assesses a student’s alphabetical awareness, which is a

student’s knowledge of the names of the letters in the alphabet. During this assessment, a

random array of upper and lowercase letters is presented to the student who is instructed by the

assessor to name each letter one at a time from left to right and down for one timed minute

(Al’Otaiba, Connor, Lane, Kosanovich, Schatschneider, Dyrlund, & Wright, 2008). This

assessment determines if a student is able to name letters. The data collected will help the

assessor to understand the letters with which the student may struggle to know or understand.

The PSF probe assesses a student’s phonemic awareness and a student’s ability to

segment sounds in a word correctly. The assessor says a word to the student, and the student is

expected to orally segment the words into its correct phonemes/sounds (Gyovai, Cartledge,

Kourea, Yurick, & Gibson, 2009). For example, the assessor may say the word “sad,” and the

student should vocally respond “/​s​/ /​a​/ /​d/​ .” The purpose of this assessment is to determine if the

student has a proper understanding of sounds and their presence and purpose in everyday

language. The results of this assessment will inform the assessor of any struggles the student

experiences as well as any misconceptions that may be present in regards to letters and the

sounds that accompany them.

The NWF probe assesses decoding, which is the ability to read words correctly, and

automaticity skills, which is the ability to read words effortlessly and quickly. In order to

perform well on this assessment, a student must have a solid understanding of the alphabetic

principle, which is the understanding of letters, letter sounds, and the relationship between the
STUDENT ASSESSMENT PROJECT 5

two, and be able to apply it to even nonsense words (Fien, Park, Baker, Smith, Stoolmiller, &

Kame'enui, 2010). The student is given an array of 3- and 4-letter words that are not real; they

are nonsense, such as the word “sut.” The student will receive points for whole words read

(WWR) correctly and for using the correct letter sounds (CLS) in each word. The resulting

scores can help the assessor to determine if the student is in need of instruction in regards to the

alphabetic principle, decoding, and automaticity.

The DORF probe assesses a student’s ability to read quickly, accurately and with

expression, and it measures the number of words read correctly per minute (Cadime, Rodrigues,

Santos, Viana, Chaves-Sousa, do Céu Cosme, & Ribeiro, 2017). The student is given a passage

to read while the assessor keeps notes on which words are read incorrectly as well as the

student’s automaticity skills, which includes quick, accurate, and expressive reading. The results

of this assessment will inform the assessor if the student struggles with decoding, automaticity,

and reading text that is at his/her grade level.

The Retell probe assesses a student’s ability to comprehend what they have read in the

DORF probe and if they are able to demonstrate this by retelling what they have read to the

assessor. This is important to determine because these comprehension skills will have a

significant impact on a students ability to read and write (Kim, 2016). The results of this

assessment will inform the assessor if the student struggles with comprehension. For example, if

the student scores a four, he/she has good comprehension and retell skills, but if the student

scores a two or three, he/she most likely struggles with comprehension.

Results & Analysis

For the LNF assessment, Samantha named forty letter correctly out of the forty letters

that were presented to her. Samantha was able to move from left to right and down the page
STUDENT ASSESSMENT PROJECT 6

effortlessly. She had no hesitations and no trouble naming each letter. This revealed to the

assessor that Samantha does not lack knowledge of the alphabet and is in no need for strategic

support in that area.

Samantha scored a 47 on the PSF assessment. This indicates that she performed above

benchmark and is not in need of further development in this area. However, the assessor noticed

a common error pattern that Samantha displayed frequently. As Samantha would segment the

sounds in the words, there were a few instances where Samantha would say the rime of the word,

blending the last two sounds of the word into one sound. For example, presented with the word

“birds,” Samantha vocalized: /​b/​ /​er​/ /​dz​/, when she should have said: /​b/​ /​er​/ /​d​/ /​z​/. While

Samantha is performing above benchmark, the assessor will take note of this mistake and make

an effort to help Samantha with her phoneme segmentation of the rime of words.

During the NWF assessment, Samantha was distracted by the strange words presented.

There were four instances when Samantha was off-ask, either asking the assessor about a

nonsense word or trying to engage in other conversation about the words. Additionally,

Samantha’s younger brother interrupted the assessment because he wanted to talk to his sister.

This proved to be a brief distraction, but the assessor was able to refocus Samantha after a few

short minutes. Concerning the results of the assessment, on average, Samantha scored at

benchmark for the correct letter sounds (CLS) portion of the NWF assessment, and she

performed above benchmark for the whole words read (WWR) portion (See Table 2). Despite

the distractions and interruptions, Samantha performed well on this assessment and does not

need intense or strategic support in this area.

Looking at Table 1, one can see that Samantha scored consistently below benchmark on

the DORF assessment. She had a hard time reading the passages overall because she was unable
STUDENT ASSESSMENT PROJECT 7

to read the words. Her sight words she knew well, but her academic vocabulary was very

underdeveloped. She struggled with these words the most. On average, her words correct per

minute were below benchmark, and her accuracy was 76% and 75%, both of which are below

benchmark. This has revealed to the assessor that Samantha is lacking in vocabulary. She needs

strategic vocabulary learning strategies to help her develop her vocabulary. Lastly, her retell was

below benchmark, and her retell quality was very low. This revealed that Samantha has a

difficult time comprehending what she has read because she has a hard time remembering,

organizing her thoughts, retelling what she has read. Samantha is likely to need strategic support

in reading comprehension.

​ his chart compares the “at benchmark” scores to Samantha’s scores.

Table 1 T

The following chart (Table 2) provides a comprehensive visual of the results of all five

assessments administered to Samantha. The DORF assessment and Retell assessment are

grouped together, because Retell is an extension of DORF. The numbers highlighted in green

indicate that Samantha scored at or above benchmark and is simply in need of continued core
STUDENT ASSESSMENT PROJECT 8

support in that area, while the numbers highlighted in light red indicate that Samantha scored

below benchmark and is in need of strategic support in that area.

First Grade
1 ​Beginning 2 ​Middle 3 ​End
LNF 40 N/A N/A

PSF 47 N/A N/A

NWF
CLS CLS CLS
38 55 32
WWR WWR WWR
7 16 8

DORF N/A

Passage 1 2 3 1 2 3

Words 26 16 30 18
Correct 25 21
4 10 8 6
Errors 8 7
76% 75%
Accuracy

21 0 25 0
Retell 13 14
Retell
2 0
Quality 1 3 0
2
(Median score enlarged)

Table 2​ Samantha’s scores on the DIBELS Next Assessment

Areas Targeted for Improvement

STUDENT ASSESSMENT PROJECT 9

Vocabulary​. The first area in which Samantha needs improvement is vocabulary.

During the DORF assessment, Samantha’s accuracy was 75-76%. This revealed to the assessor

that Samantha is in need of strategic support. Additionally, the assessor noticed that the words

with which Samantha had trouble were the grade level academic vocabulary words. The two

strategies that could be used to help Samantha with her academic vocabulary development are

Response Cards (RC) and List-Group-Label (LGL).

RC are used during whole class instruction. During vocabulary instruction, the teacher

holds up a word, the students say the word, and then write the word on a small whiteboard or

paper. This strategy will help Samantha with her vocabulary development because it is engaging

and multimodal (Munro & Stephenson, 2009).

For the second strategy, LGL, the teacher will present the students with a category. The

students will list as many words as they can that relate to that category. Next, students will

group the words and then label the groups. The purpose of LGL is to activate Samantha’s

critical thinking skills and engage her in discovering new vocabulary (“List-group-label,” 2017).

In order to monitor Samantha’s progress in her academic vocabulary development, the teacher

should assess Samantha on the words they study on a weekly basis. This will help the teacher to

determine if Samantha is making progress and if the two strategies have been helpful for her

vocabulary development.

Comprehension​. The second area in which Samantha needs improvement is

comprehension. The assessor noticed that this area was especially difficult for Samantha. Out of

her six retells, Samantha scored below benchmark on four. For two of her retells, she scored

well below benchmark because she was unable to comprehend and retell anything she had read.

Additionally, each of her retells were of low quality, because she was unable to retell in
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chronological order, and she described only two or fewer details. Samantha is in need of both

strategic and intensive support in the area of comprehension. The Click-or-Clunk (CC) strategy

and the Paired Reading (PR) strategy are among those strategies that could benefit Samantha in

helping her to develop her comprehension skills.

CC is when students continually check their own understanding of what they are reading

during reading. As determined by the teacher, the student can check for understanding after

every sentence, paragraph, or page (“Click or clunk,” 2018). If the student does comprehend

what was read, he/she thinks “click” and places a check mark. And if the student does not

comprehend what was read, then he/she thinks “clunk,” puts an “x,” and revisits the section later.

The purpose of this strategy is to help students to learn how to check for their own understanding

and be able to revisit areas of text that they know they have not understood. To progress

monitor, the teacher should assess Samantha weekly by giving her a passage to read while using

the CC strategy and having her retell what she has read. The retell can be scored similarly to the

DIBELS scoring.

The PR strategy in this paper is defined as a parent reading with his/her child at the

child’s pace (Shah-Wundenberg & Chaplain, 2013). The parent should encourage the child to

read independently but is present to assist the child by joining or by correcting if necessary.

After PR, the parent should question the child, allowing the child to describe and retell what was

read. This strategy is helpful for students because it allows them to think about what they are

reading as they read it aloud to and with a parent. Additionally, PR supports and enhances

comprehension because the child is always questioned at the end of the book and is able to

practice retelling. Parents can monitor their child’s progress by keeping a record of how detailed

the child’s retells and responses to questions are. As Samantha develops her comprehension
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skills, she will be able to recall and retell more and more details of texts that she reads.

Conclusion

Overall, Samantha performed very well on the DIBELS Next Assessment, except for the

DORF probe. Although she performed for the most part at or above benchmark, it was helpful to

determine the areas in which Samantha struggled so that action could be taken on her behalf.

Samantha may seem like a young student who is doing so well in school that strategic support is

not necessary. This assessment has proven that assumption to be incorrect. Although she tends

to perform well, it is important to administer this assessment to every student so as to be sure

he/she is performing at benchmark. For example, Samantha may not have received the support

she needs without this assessment. Her vocabulary and comprehension struggles would have

gone unnoticed. Keeping that in mind, I would like to make two final points regarding the

DIBELS Next Assessment as a whole: First, it should be administered to every student, even if

that student seems to be doing well. And second, DIBELS should not end after it has been

administered. Steps should be taken to ensure that the student is given the proper supports

he/she needs in order to succeed.

STUDENT ASSESSMENT PROJECT 12

References

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Wright, T. L. (2008). "Reading first" kindergarten classroom instruction and students'
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Cadime, I., Rodrigues, B., Santos, S., Viana, F. L., Chaves-Sousa, S., do Céu Cosme, M., &
Ribeiro, I. (2017). The role of word recognition, oral reading fluency and listening
comprehension in the simple view of reading: A study in an intermediate depth
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“Click or clunk?”: A student comprehension self-check. (2018, April 17). ​Intervention Central.​
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outcomes for beginning readers. ​School Psychology Review​, ​39​(4), 631-653.

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intervention: Responding to the learning needs of young at-risk english language learners.
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Kim, Y. G. (2016). Do live versus audio-recorded narrative stimuli influence young children's
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List-group-label, classroom strategy. (2017, October 31). ​Reading Rockets​. Retrieved from
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Munro, D. W., & Stephenson, J. (2009). The effects of response cards on student and teacher
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Shah-Wundenberg, M., Wyse, D., & Chaplain, R. (2013). Parents helping their children learn to
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