Assessments

Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills (DIBELS)
Which skills do the DIBELS measures assess?

• The DIBELS measures were specifically designed to assess 3 of the 5 Big Ideas of early literacy: Phonological Awareness, Alphabetic Principle, and Fluency with Connected Text. The measures are linked to one another, both psychometrically and theoretically, and have been found to be predictive of later reading proficiency.
• Measures of Phonological Awareness:
  • Initial Sounds Fluency (ISF): Assesses a child's skill to identify and produce the initial sound of a given word
  • Phonemic Segmentation Fluency (PSF): Assesses a child's skill to produce the individual sounds within a given word
• Measure of Alphabetic Principle:
  • Nonsense Word Fluency (NWF): Assesses a child's knowledge of letter-sound correspondences as well their ability to blend letters together to form unfamiliar "nonsense" (e.g., fik, lig, etc.) words.
• Measure of Fluency with Connected Text:
  • Oral Reading Fluency (ORF): Assesses a child's skill of reading connected text in grade-level material.

Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test (PPVT)
The PPVT-III is a measure of receptive vocabulary for standard English and a screening test of verbal ability. This individually administered, norm-referenced instrument is offered in two parallel forms—IIIA and IIIB—for reliable testing and retesting. It is given in fall and spring of Kindergarten.