DIBELS and Fox in a Box

[Jamie Winingham]

Anyone out there using either one of these assessments in their school?

My school district implemented both of these assessments this year. It is new to almost all of us. There has been NO training for the teachers and very little for the reading leaders. Many of us are confused.

Does anyone have any suggestions for administering these? Specifically, how long each child took, what you did with the rest of the class, when you found time for instruction for the whole class.

[tndrmrcies]

I've seen dibels but never used. I have used Fox in a Box. I like that you can give parts in groups, but it does take a while to give. I remember using it as an alternative assessment as a reading teacher and it took me quite a while to get a group of 8 done when I only saw them a half hour a day. It did give a nice pre and post though and I still use it occassionally as another meausure for my students.

[prnewbanks]

What exactly is DIBELS? My daughter (1st grade) has spoken of it often but I don't quite understand it.

[javamomma]

We use dibles in our school. Never heard of fox in a box. :)

[Zookeeper]

When we bought our Reading curriculum (Scott Foresman), we also had dibels. Our K has used it and had some training, however, the 1st grade has had no training. We are looking into using it with limited amount of students this year.

[orlandoteacher]

DIBELS measures reading fluency. In the early literacy stage they are reading nonsense words. It's kind of frustrating when you are trying to get them to read REAL words. In upper grades, 3rd in my case, it's just a timed reading fluency test. They give them a passage to read and they get one minute to read as many words as possible. It's a good indicator of reading struggles but tells you nothing as to WHAT the problem is. It does nothing with comprehension. Just a small piece of the puzzle if you ask me!

[Brimir]

A friend of mine told me that her Kindergartener took the Dibles the second week of school. Are Dibels like a standardized test. Is that normal to do right at the beginning? To me it seemed harsh for the beginning of kindergarten.

[orlandoteacher]

Many schools are pressured to be "data driven" even in K. You need the data at the beginning to plan your instruction from. It is young, but it is also reality for a lot of school systems these days.

[mom2twinkies]

and it is a good indicator for future success in reading. it begins with letter sounds, phoneme segmentation, nonsense words, fluency, and retelling.

it does test comprehension because it does the retelling of the story.

i am a new 2nd grade teacher, so have limited knowledge, but i do think that it is helping to pinpoint reading deficiencies.

[teach1027]

We use DIBELS and TPRI in my school it is pretty easy with the palm pilot. Never heard of Fox in a Box sounds like a Dr. Seuss book. LOL