Running head: STUDENT ASSESSMENT PROJECT

Student Assessment Project

Lauren Clark
EDU 325

STUDENT ASSESSMENT PROJECT

Student Assessment Project

Kennedy was assessed using the Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills, also
known as the DIBELS assessment system. She is a first grade student at Wells Academy. This
student is from a rural area where she lives with both her father and mother and six other
siblings. She has good attendance in school and participates well in all her classes. Her current
grades reflect that she understands material and correctly answers questions assigned. Kennedy
has pluss in Reading and Math. She receives checks, which are the equivalent to a B in some
schools, in Science, Spelling and History. This student does not use any specified adaptions for
assessments. Her academic strengths include reading and math. Her teachers say she struggles
with fluency, but still has good comprehension of concepts learned in class. Kennedy is a very
bright and outgoing student. She has many strengths, one of which is her compliance to
directions. She always strives to obey her teachers and her peers. One thing Kennedy could
improve is her exaggerative stories. It can be hard to ask her personal questions because little
things can be turned into an unnecessary event. She has great social skills and can communicate
well with others, but she needs to find the right balance between over exaggerating events and
not explaining herself. She appears to have great organizations skills and stays on task for the
majority of the day. However, when she does become off-task she is easily redirected to return to
her work. Kennedy enjoys stickers and finds them rewarding after performing diligently. Her
parents would like to see her reading skills improve, but they realize she is just learning to put
everything together. Overall, Kennedy has the potential to excel.

Procedures

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Over the course of the semester, I began to gather information on Kennedy both through
the teacher and through the student. The teacher was very detailed in her answers to my
questions which made it easier to connect with Kennedy and ask her opinion on some questions.
I asked her questions as personal as what she planned on wearing for Halloween, to formal
questions involving her thoughts on how she was performing in school. Kennedy feels that she
receives all As and does not feel that she needs help in any area.
I decided to administer the test in the afternoon in a room I sometimes tutor in. In the
room there were many students working with other tutors. My student and I sat side-by-side at a
round desk in the back of the room to help prevent Kennedy from being distracted by all the
other tutors and tutees. As we sat down and I explained to her that I was going to use my phone
to record the one-minute period of time she would have to complete each assessment. Prior to
beginning the assessments, I explained more fully that she was helping me complete an
assignment and this was going to help me see how she was performing. She politely agreed to
work with me and we began. I then took out the assessment and started to read her the directions.
The first assessment that we started with was Letter Naming Fluency (LNF). After trying the
examples together, she seemed prepared, so I began my timer and she read from her portion of
the booklet. Then, the second assessment was Phoneme Segmentation Fluency (PSF). Kennedy
was very compliant and we proceeded with the same routine as we had done with LNF. During
the third assessment, Nonsense Word Fluency (NWF), Kennedy became more aware of the
people around her and tried to hold a conversation between assessments. I quickly redirected her
attention to the assessment and we were able to maintain focus for the rest of the assessments
given. We then proceeded with Oral Reading Fluency (ORF) and she performed appropriately,
until we arrived at the recall portion. When Kennedy was describing the parts of the story she

STUDENT ASSESSMENT PROJECT

remembered for Retell Fluency (RF), she went off on a tangent that had nothing to do with the
characters and brought up some of the points she tried to discuss with me earlier in our session.
Her focus was quickly sent back to the assessment when I started reading the directions for Word
Use Fluency (WUF). She worked diligently for the whole time and we decided that she could
choose three stickers fro my planner.
After assessing the student, I walked her back to her classroom and drove home to score
her assessment. After scoring Kennedys DIBELS assessment, I referenced the DIBELS
benchmark guide to see where she fell based on the standardized scores.

Assessments Given
The first assessment within DIBELS for first grade is: LNF. This assessment is comprised
of a list of upper and lower case letters that the student must read and say aloud. At the same
time, the person administering the test has a matching scoring sheet with the same layout of
letters that they can mark on whether the student read the letter correctly or not. LNF is
important as one of the basic foundation for all students learning to read, to then reading to learn
(Pavri 2012).
The second assessment for the DIBELS measurement is PSF. Students are assessed in
this area of literacy that focuses on the student breaking down the word into its individual
sounds. For example, hawk would be pronounced /h/ /o/ /k/ (Good & Kaminiski, 2007). The
student must replicate this pattern for each word given by breaking it down into the sounds and
saying them aloud. Same comment as given to LNF.
NWF is testing students knowledge of letter sounds. This test is also given in the fall and
can be given throughout the year if desired by the teacher, school or district. In this test, students

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must decode the nonsense words or words that have no meaning, in order to say the word given
to them. Students are, again, given a sheet with all the words on them and the teacher has their
own scoring sheet to check and make sure students are using correct pronunciation. The goal of
NWF is to have the student say the word without sounding it out first. If students can master that,
then it provides evidence that they are comprehending their letter sounds, making fluency a more
natural process (Pavri 2012). However, if students must sound out the letters, the administrator
can still assess whether or not they understand their letter sounds.
ORF requires the student to read three leveled stories that the student is given and, the
teacher follows along with their own copy and marks whether the student is reading words and
sentences correctly. After the one-minute probe is given, the student is then asked to retell what
they remember from the story as the teacher keeps a record of the amount of words the student
used from the story (i.e., RF). The RF helps the teacher grasp whether or not the student
comprehends the plot of the story being read. The student could also be struggling to decode the
whole time and not understand the story because they were primarily focused on the words and
not word meaning. When the teacher assesses the RF it can help them determine what area the
student may need assistance.
Lastly, DIBELS uses the WUF assessment to determine if given a word a student is able
to use that word effectively in a sentence. The administrator of the test is able to tally the amount
of words used in the sentence to see if it was a run on, complex or they were direct and did not
use random thought processes to communicate their thinking. This assessment is optional and
can be given in the fall, winter and/or spring, depending on the schools stance. This assessment
really helps teachers to guide instruction and monitor student progress, if used correctly, in terms
of vocabulary and comprehension of word use.

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Results & Analysis

Kennedy really identified letters well while taking the LNF assessment. For the fall,
benchmark one, she read 50 correctly per minute, which placed her in the core category.
When asked to break down the sounds of the word during the PSF, Kennedy complied
without hesitation. She read an average of 27 correctly. During the assessment Kennedy
occasionally blended a few phonemes together. For example, in the word arms, the correct
segmentation would have been /ar/ /m/ /z/. When Kennedy was segmenting the words arms,
she blended the last two phonemes together to make /ar/ /mz/. Overall, she performed very
well in this section of the test.
In the NWF assessment, Kennedy performed very well when she tried to decode the
phonemes in the words, but when she just read the word without segmentation, she tended to
incorrectly pronounce a few letters. The goal of this probe is to have students try to say the word
without decoding it first. Since she was performing well with the decoding method it could be
assumed that she will start blending sounds to make words more fluent soon. Kennedy read 53
correct letter sounds (CLS) out of 58 for benchmark one. For most of the assessments, Kennedy
was assessed using beginning of the year, but she fell much higher on the spectrum for CLS.
Therefore, this test was administered in October and when reading her scores, she falls
somewhere between benchmark one and two. The score Kennedy would have received for
benchmark two is strategic because she would have fallen in the 48-53 CLS. The total words
read correctly (WRC) was zero. This would put her in the intensive category for fall and winter
as well.

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DIBELS ORF does not provide benchmark one for the fall, thus Kennedy was assessed
on benchmark 2. Throughout the short piece she read, Kennedy really struggled with fluency.
She decoded almost every word, instead of blending the word fluently, leaving her with a score
of 74% WRC. It was noted that she was able to read her sight words without hesitation and for
this reason it put her in the strategic category. Although she was not able to fluently read, it does
need to be observed that this test would originally have been administered in the winter, (i.e.,
January) and it is currently October. Her average RF was about 23 words and she came up with
important key points when asked to summarize.
During the final section of the DIBELS test, WUF assessment, Kennedy barely fell in the
strategic category due to her lack of words used, either correctly or in general. Her sentences
were mostly weak or incorrect. She would start with the first three words of a sentence and then
give up and say, Yeah, I dont know. It can be assumed that Kennedy did not have the
confidence in an elaborate vocabulary to come up with complete sentences. Overall, Kennedy
used 15 words correctly in this assessment.

Areas Targeted for Improvement

Oral Reading Fluency. Kennedy has a strong sense of sight words, but when she
stumbles upon a word she may not necessarily recognize, she tries to decode the phonemes and it
does not always make sense, therefore hindering her comprehension. One way Kennedy could
practice her oral reading fluency is through the use of repeated reading. Reutzel and Cooter
(2012) refers to repeated reading in order to help with automaticity in reading and helping
students remember specific words that they might have had troubles with when primarily reading
the text. Repeated reading consists of a student reading a very easy set of sentences, maybe two

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or three, and continuously reading them until it becomes fluid. After demonstrating mastery and
comprehension, the student would move to more difficult vocabulary in certain sentences or an
increased number of sentences. Again, this would repeat until mastery.
A second strategy, recommended by What Works Clearinghouse (2013), that can be used
to strengthen Kennedys fluency is partner reading. Together students read silently and then
aloud, taking turns in pairs. This strategy is an evidence-based teaching practice, which means it
is highly effective. Teachers can continue to use DIBELS assessments to monitor Kennedys
progress and use the data to tailor instruction to her needs.
Word Use Fluency. Kennedy appeared to exhibit some difficulty with the WUF
assessment. After each word was given, she asked what the word meant before using it in a
sentence. Kennedy scored 15 on the words she used correctly in a sentence. Compared to the
benchmark for the fall, she would be placed in the strategic category. To help foster better word
recognition skills and further her word use fluency, Kennedys teachers should include more
writing assignments and expand vocabulary. As stated by Ballard and Jacocks (2001), reading,
writing and listening can help students activate their schema to thoroughly search context clues
in order to find a difficult words meaning. In order to accomplish success, teachers can model
this strategy through read alouds and writing prompts to do with texts covered in class. If
students were read a story and then given a prompt that students had to elaborate on using key
words, or spelling words, from the text, this could help solidify word-meanings into long term
memory (Ballard and Jacocks 2001).
Another strategy that could boost Kennedys WUF scores, is Peer-Assisted Learning
Strategies (PALS), suggested by Fuchs and Fuchs (2005). PALS pairs together a struggling
reader and a fluent reader. The students take turns helping each other through prompting and

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reading, and give corrective feedback in order to improve each others fluency. This could really
help Kennedy understand the words she is using through orally reading to peers and discussing
words or phrases that each student may be struggling with. DIBELS is uniquely designed to
compare student scores during the fall, winter and spring terms. Through the use of these
assessments, Kennedys teachers can continue to monitor her progress and adjust instruction to
better accommodate her needs.

Conclusion
In conclusion, administering the curriculum based measures (CBM) known as DIBELS
was very helpful in terms of preparing me for my future classroom. By referencing the DIBELS
benchmark goals I was confidently able to better understand Kennedys struggles and prepare for
how I would try to differentiate my instruction to further her knowledge of ORF and WUF. In a
classroom of 25 students I would have a variety of areas to readdress, and it would be more
difficult to individualize my instruction, however, I think with the DIBELS assessment, teachers
can really pin point specific literacy areas. Second, the research I collected really helped narrow
down the strategy I chose to strengthen Kennedys areas of difficulty. Because of the data
representation of success rates in the strategies I chose, I know these tool will help Kennedy to
gain confidence in the places shes struggling. Overall, this project gave me better insight into
progress monitoring and benchmark comparison.

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10
Bibliography

Herlihy, C. & Kemple, J. (2013). What works clearinghouse: Talent development middle grades
program. U.S. Department of Education. Retrieved from
http://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED538670.pdf
Ballard, C. & Jacocks, K. (2001). Improving students reading fluency through the use of phonics
and word recognition strategies. Retrieved from:
http://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED454506.pdf
Cumming, K., Otterstedt, J., Kennedy, P., Baker, S., & Kameenui, E. (2011). DIBELS 6th edition
benchmark goals. Retrieved from
https://dibels.uoregon.edu/docs/marketplace/dibels/DIBELS-6Ed-Goals.pdf
Good, R. & Kaminiski, R. (2007). Dynamic indicators of basic early literacy skills (6th ed.).
Eugene, OR: Institute for the Development of Educational Achievement. Retrieved from
http://oregonreadingfirst.uoregon.edu/downloads/assessment/admin_and_scoring_6th_ed.
pdf
Pavri, S. Effective assessment of students: Determining responsiveness to instruction. California
State University, Long Beach: Pearson Education, Inc.
Reutzel, D. & Cooter, R. (2012). Teaching children to read: The teacher makes the difference.
Boston, MA: Pearson Education, Inc.