What is "dibels"

DIBELS (Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills) is a series of short tests that assess early childhood (K-6) literacy.

It is a set of procedures and measures for assessing the acquisition of a set of K-6 literacy skills, such as phonemic awareness, alphabetic principle, accuracy and fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension. The theory behind DIBELS is that giving primary school students a number of quick tests, educators will have the data to identify students who need additional assistance and to monitor the effectiveness of intervention strategies.

This formative early literacy assessment was created by Dr. Roland Good and Dr. Ruth Kaminski of the Dynamic Measurement Group. Research about this type of testing was first done at the University of Oregon. DIBELS is used by some kindergarten through sixth grade teachers in the United States to screen for whether students are at risk of reading difficulty, to monitor student progress, and guide instruction.

The DIBELS comprise a developmental sequence of one-minute measures: recognizing initial sounds (phonemic awareness), naming the letters of the alphabet (alphabetic principle), segmenting words into phonemes (phonemic awareness), reading nonsense words (alphabetic principle), oral reading of a passage (accuracy and fluency), retelling (comprehension), and word use (vocabulary).