Jennifer Clark

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DIBELS Report
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DIBELS Report

The DIBELS initial assessment took place on Tuesday September 3,

2015 at Denison Elementary in Idabel, OK. Upon arrival, Cherie McClellan
and I were escorted to the Kindergarten Building. We were placed in a
storage closest that connected two classrooms. We briefly talked to the
teacher and set up the area to make it as accommodating as possible. The
first student sent in to us was Peyton. Noticing he seemed a bit nervous, we
tried to make him comfortable, reassuring him that he was helping us out
with school and he had nothing to worry about. We started the assessment.
Cherie administered the first section of the test (first sound fluency) and I
gave the second part (letter naming fluency) The events from the adjoining
room were noisy and the teacher was standing very close to the closest
giving directions and warnings to students which was a little distracting.
Cherie and I were a little shaky during this session. We were worried we
would not get the script right and at one time, there was a question as to if
the recording was still going! Despite our fumbles and the noise, Peyton did a
good job concentrating. We thanked him for helping us and gave him a
sucker.
Our next student was Aubry. She seemed a little more relaxed than
Peyton. For this session, Cherie and I swapped tests with me giving the first
assessment and her giving the second assessment. Our first student (Peyton)

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went through the assessments with ease. My son whom I practiced with had
no problem with the assessment. However, from the start, Aubry did not
correctly answer the questions. This threw me off! Instead of giving the initial
sound, she repeatedly gave the letter name. I wanted to keep it from being
obvious that she was not answering right, but stumbled some trying to make
sure I was guiding her with the appropriate phrase. I stopped the assessment
after she missed the first five words. I assumed she was a very low student.
However, on the second test, she surprised me by correctly calling the
names of the given letters. However, she not only gave the name but also
the sound of each letter, showing me that she did know her sounds! So now
my mind was wondering, how How on earth was she not able to correctly
identify the initial sound of the first assessment if she knows what sound
goes with its appropriate letter?? We completed the assessment, thanked
her, and gave her a sucker.
Our last student was Christian. He was very shy. We had trouble
getting him to just look at us. We spent a bit trying to get him comfortable
with us. Once again, Cherie and I alternated giving the assessments.
Christian did a great job with the introduction of giving the sounds, but was
unable to do so when the actual assessment began. Cherie stopped the
assessment and we moved on to the next one. Christian also had trouble on
the second assessment. We thanked and encouraged him and gave him a
sucker.

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This was quite an experience. The conditions were certainly not

perfect, but we made it work. It was very noisy and hot! The children did not
know us, so I think this added to the uncomfortableness. Another thing that
made this difficult was worrying about only saying the allowed phrases. With
some of them only being allowed to say once and some as much as needed,
it was a distraction trying to make sure I was sticking to the script.
especially with the students who were struggling. I am very thankful we were
able to do this with a partner. We were able to guide and help each other
when we were at a loss of which phrase to say.
Cherie and I met afterward to discuss and analyze the assessments.
Based on the scores, we found that Peyton was above benchmark and
needed no further help from us. However, Aubrey and Christian were below
benchmark and were in need of tutoring. We made note of their strengths
and weaknesses and determined a plan of action. Here are our scores and
findings:
Peyton

FSF- 22

LNF- 26

Total 48

According to the DIBELS composite chart, he ranked above benchmark (26+)

and no further action was needed from us. He will receive core support in his
classroom.
Aubrey

FSF- 0

LNF- 15

Total-15

According to the DIBELS composite chart, she ranked below benchmark (1325.) She will need to receive strategic support.
Weaknesses
Isolating initial sounds in
words

Plan of Action
Isolate the initial sounds
/m/, /r/, and /t/ in words.

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Christian

FSF- 0

LNF- 3

Total- 3

According to the DIBELS composite chart, he ranked well below benchmark

(0-12.) He will need to receive intensive support.

Weaknesses
Letter Recognition
Sound Recognition
Sound-Letter
Correspondence

Plan of Action
Identify the letters m, r, and t
and relate them to their
corresponding sounds

Oklahoma Kindergarten Pass Skill Standard 2.5 states that the student
will recognize the same sound in different words. Example: /b/ in ball, big
and bun. We felt that this was where we needed to focus with Aubrey and
made sure our activities stayed aligned with this standard.
We felt that the above standard would also fit Christians needs but
thought he would also benefit from Standard 3.1 & 2 that states the student
will demonstrate the ability to apply sound-symbol relationships to 1. Identify
the alphabet by name & 2. Identify the alphabet by sound.
We chose to focus on three letters; one for each session. We looked up
to see what would be the best sequence to teach the letters. Trying to
adhere as close as possible to what the book (Literacy: Development in the
Early Years) suggested, we chose m, r and s. We chose these based on them
being very common and because we were able to find many activities that
focused on these sounds. However, after some thought and evaluation,

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Cherie and I decided that s, having more than one common initial sound,
might be too confusing. Therefore, we decided to go with m, r and t. We
realized later on in the process that r and t were also a bit of a challenge! We
made sure we stayed away from any blends and focused only on the initial
sound /r/ and /t/.
We were excited to have access to the iPad to use for our sessions. We
were able to find many activities from searching Pinterest. However, we ran
into the problem of not finding learning applications for the iPad where you
are able to choose which letter you want to focus on in isolation. Due to this,
we were unable to use technology for learning purposes. We did make use of
it (the iPad) to show a video that introduced the letter of the day and by
finding the app WritePad Lite where we were able to write out Aubreys story
during the LEA.

Our tutoring sessions took place September 17, 22, and 24th. We met
in the closet and began our first session with Christian. It was not as noisy
this time as the rest of the classes were at the Library. Our strategy with
Christian was to focus on one letter each week. With each letter, we would
focus on recognizing the letter, recognizing the sound of that letter and
knowing that they went together. We started the session by showing a video
that introduced the letter M and its sound. Next we used a print-out that had

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an upper and lower-case m and several pictures of objects that started with
m. We asked Christian what the name of the letter was and if he knew the
sound. At first he said v but he quickly self-corrected. We let him make the
letter m (in upper and lower case) with play-dough. It took some assistance
from us for him to complete this task. Next we discussed the objects in the
pictures and he was able to say what letter they started with and the initial
sound. We then asked him to point to all the ms on the page. He was able to
do so without much problem.
To focus on Christians trouble with identifying the initial sound of
a word, we used an activity that had several objects in a box (all starting with
the letter m) that he could pull out, identify the object and tell us what the
first sound he heard in that object. We made sure to reiterate the name of
the object, the sound it began with and the letter for that sound. Christian
seemed to catch on to this activity very well.
Our next activity was a short story that I read to Christian. After
reading it, we laid it in front of him and asked him put a mini M&M on all the
ms he heard or saw to reinforce the recognition of the letter and the sound
correspondence. He actually read part of the story before I could say it. I am
not sure he did this by sight or from memory. He was really impressing us on
this day as compared to our first assessment with him. We finished up our
session with a quick assessment to see if he was grasping the concept of
letter recognition and sound correspondence with a letter hunt. This print-out

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had random letters on it. Christian was to put an M&M on each M/m he saw
and say the sound /m/ each time. He did this with ease, only missing 2 ms
on the page. We let him keep the M&Ms for his efforts!
Immediately following our session with Christian, we began our session
with Aubrey. It took place in the same closet. Our goal for Aubrey was to be
able to identify initial sounds in focusing on words that began with the letters
m, r, and t. The first session focused on /m/. We began the session with the
same video we showed to Christian to introduce the letter for that day.
Aubrey was very quiet and shy for this session.
After the video, Cherie read If You Give a Moose a Muffin. We asked
Aubrey to listen closely for the /m/ sound at the beginning of words. We
stopped on all words with the initial /m/ sound to place emphasis on them.
To keep the focus on identifying the initial sound of a word, we used
the same activity that we had used for Christian that had several objects in a
box (all starting with the letter m.) She could pull out, identify the object and
tell us what the first sound she heard in that object. We made sure to
reiterate the name of the object, the sound it began with and the letter for
that sound. With some guidance, she was able to successfully complete this
activity.
Our last activity was a condensed version of an LEA. We started by
writing /m/ words on a poster as she came up with them. Next we asked her

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to create a short story using as many of these words as she could. This took
a lot of scaffolding from us, but we got through it! Afterward, as an
assessment to see if she had a better understanding of initial sounds, we
read the story back to her and had her raise the popsicle-stick prop every
time she heard a word with the initial sound /m/. Even though it took a lot of
guidance to create her story, she really enjoyed when we read it back to her!
She also did a great job of recognizing the initial sound /m/.
After the first tutoring sessions, we met to analyze how it went. From
our observations, both Christian and Aubrey seemed to be a little more on
target than what our initial DIBELs assessment had indicated. We felt that
they were still in need of tutoring, but we wondered if the first assessment
was a true indication of the level they were truly at. After some discussion,
we decided to continue with the same plan of action with Christian moving
on to the letter R for our next session. We were a little concerned as to
whether we should continue the LEA with Aubrey. She had a hard time
coming up with a story. We think some of this was due to her shyness. Even
though she had some trouble coming up with a story, the activity seemed to
work for our intended purpose. We decided to try it again, hoping that she
would be more comfortable at our next session.
Our second tutoring session was very similar to the first session. We
did a quick review with each student using some of the items from the box of
objects that began with the letter/sound m. This was to assess if they

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retained the instruction from the first session. They both correctly recalled
the letter/sound. Our focus for this session was the letter r and the /r/ sound.
Christian had a few times were he needed guidance, but over-all , based on
the letter search assessment we did, he had a successful session. Our
session with Aubrey also went well. She seemed a little less shy this time. We
used the book Rainbow Fish to correspond with the letter r. She had read this
book before and was excited to hear it again. The LEA was much better this
time. She needed less guidance and came up with most of it on her own.
Based on our ending assessment to see if she could identify the words with
the initial /r/ sound, our tutoring session was a success. We decided to keep
things the same for final session.
Our third and final session started a little different. Christian was in the
library so we started the session with Aubrey. She had finally warmed up to
us and seemed very comfortable this time. We reviewed the letters m & r
using the box of objects again. She retained the instruction from the previous
sessions and was able to call the initial sound with ease. We began the
session, focusing on the initial sound /t/. She did so much better with the LEA
this time that we had to stop her to keep her story from being too long! We
ended the session by giving her the DIBELS assessment again. Before we
even calculated the scores, we could tell she had improved greatly. Her
results are as follows:
Aubrey

First Assessment

FSF- 0

LNF- 15

Total-15

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Ending Assessment

FSF-33

LNF-22

Total-55

We were ready to begin our session with Christian, but he and another
student were being reprimanded by their teacher for reasons that we did not
know. The teacher finally brought him in to the closest and continued to
scold him in front of us. She proceeded to tell him that we (Cherie and I)
didnt understand baby talk and we didnt want to hear any of that during
our session. Although, I still dont know what he got in trouble for, I truly felt
her actions in front of us were uncalled for. Thinking back on it, his
perception of how we viewed him could have been altered due to her saying
that we didnt want to hear his baby talk. He was very upset and began
crying as soon as she closed the door. We spent several minutes calming him
down, encouraging him to take deep breathes and assuring him everything
was ok. We decided to go ahead with the session. I think we both knew that
he would probably not be at his best. We started the review. He was reluctant
to answer. We had to encourage him through most of the session. It was
certainly not his best session, but after the events of the day, that was
expected. We ended the session by giving him the DIBELS assessment again.
He gave the /s/ sound for most of his answers on the FSF. I feel he only
scored as high as he did because so many of the words started with /s/. He
did improve on his letter naming fluency and his total score did go up. His
scores are as follows:

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Christian

Initial

Ending

FSF- 0
FSF-8

LNF- 3

LNF- 11

Total- 3

Total-19

At the conclusion of this assignment, I am not convinced that DIBELS

was the best assessment to give to these students. I am glad I am more
familiar with the product but I dont think it was the best way to assess these
students who were not comfortable with us. I feel as if this assessment is too
narrow as it does not take into account other factors that can point to how
a child is actually performing. I think using more authentic types of
assessments, types that arent as scripted and timed, would be a great
alternative. Possibly using parts of the IRI or even through observation. I
most certainly think it makes a difference if the child knows you (has some
type of acquaintance with you) and that you know the child when making a
true assessment.
While we saw a great increase in Aubrey, the increase was not as great
in Christian. There are so many other factors that could have something to
do with this that we will never know if the increase was due to our tutoring
sessions. I do think that we gave them some needed support through our
tutoring sessions and that there was benefit from our time and efforts.