DIBELS for progress monitoring

South Australia made the bizarre decision to roll out a Year 2 phonics screening check. We’re gunning for this to be replaced by a more comprehensive screening and progress monitoring tool like DIBELS (Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills), and we’re keen to ensure other jurisdictions don’t make the same mistake.

Indeed, we’d like to see something like DIBELS used nationally, because:

• A phonics screening check does very little except raises the alarm that things aren’t as they should be. It’s a useful screener in that context, but repeating it in Year 2 is a bit like testing someone who has been on the road for a year, to see if they know which pedal is the brake and which is the accelerator.
• If you do find someone who doesn’t know the brake from the accelerator, that wouldn’t just raise questions about the driver, but also the system that enabled that lack of progress to go unnoticed for so long. That’s a problem with the system, and more regular monitoring will address that.
• Raising the alarm again a year after raising the first one, achieves very little.
• DIBELS is far more comprehensive – it doesn’t just tell you something is wrong, it gives more detail and tests other areas as well.
• DIBELS is designed to test three times a year, with ongoing progress monitoring in between those three tests – rather than waiting another full year.
• If schools aren’t using a reliable monitoring tool, they’re just running on ‘feelz’.

DIBELS is free, widely used internationally and in Australia (Tasmania has actually mandated its use), has an edition especially designed for Australia, and is quick to administer.

Why wouldn’t you use it??

Reliable and valid, regular assessment – one more way to flick the switch for poor readers, from “confined” to “confident”.