DIBELS

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The Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills (DIBELS) is a formative early literacy assessment created by Dr. Roland Good and Dr. Ruth Kaminski of the Dynamic Measurement Group. It is used by kindergarten through sixth grade teachers in the United States to screen for whether students are at risk of reading difficulty, and to monitor student progress and guide instruction. DIBELS is an instantiation of Curriculum Based Measurement - an approach to assessment that uses brief, timed measures to track student growth over time.^{[citation needed]}

The DIBELS comprise a developmental sequence of one-minute measures: recognizing initial sounds, naming the letters of the alphabet, segmenting the phonemes in a word, reading nonsense words, oral reading of a passage, retelling, and word use. The measures assess phonological awareness, the alphabetic principle, accuracy and fluency in reading connected text, vocabulary and comprehension. Each measure has been researched and demonstrated to be a reliable and valid indicator of early literacy development.^{[citation needed]} DIBELS results can be used to evaluate individual student development, as well as to provide feedback on effectiveness of instruction. DIBELS has played a significant role in the Reading First programs of more than forty states.^{[citation needed]}