DIBELS

This presentation focuses on a study carried out in a French immersion charter school on the scores first-graders obtained on two reading benchmark tests, the DIBELS and its equivalent in French, the IDAPEL. A statistical analysis of the results shows a strong correlation between the scores on the two tests for all the categories of reading predictors and indicate that the students’ level of French can account for some of the score differences observed between the two tests. This study thus questions the necessity of conducting two separate reading benchmark tests and offers insights to educators on reading remediation strategies.

A significant number of research studies have shown that phonemic awareness has a large contribution to reading acquisition. Hoover (2002) claims that to be able to read a word that consists of letters, one should first acquire phonemic awareness skill, thus concluding that without acquiring phonemic awareness skill, a person will not be able to read. Moreover, Hoover states that phonemic awareness is a “cognitive skill” which consists of three pieces: (1) the phoneme which is a linguistic unit; (2) the explicit conscious awareness of that unit; and (3) the ability to explicitly manipulate that unit. Thus, phonemic awareness is concerned about the “manipulation of language at the level of phonemes.”
Since reading acquisition usually starts to develop in school, our study focuses on preparatory pupils. International Reading Association (IRA, 1998) suggests that it is important for children to learn rhymes, beginning sounds, and syllables through various activities that provide them the opportunities to acquire phonemic awareness. Bradley and Bryant (1985) also reported that children’s phonemic awareness can be improved through explicit training. They trained children over a two-year period of time and they concluded that it had a positive effect on reading success. The explicit instruction included alphabetic principle, rhyme and alliteration activities, and tasks that discriminated onset and rime. In addition, Bentin et al. (1991) looked at the effects of schooling and aging on the development of phonological awareness and they suggest that schooling is a major factor that largely affects children’s phonemic awareness development. To support Bentin’s theory on how schooling affects phonemic awareness development, an investigation was done by Cunningham and Carroll (2010) to determine the effects of age and schooling on children’s phonemic awareness development. They found that the effect of one year schooling has roughly twice as large as the effect of up to one year’s difference in age, thus proving that schooling has a strong effect on the development of phonemic awareness.

Basándonos en estudios previos que demuestran que las destrezas de decodificación, fluidez oral y comprensión lectora están íntimamente relacionadas tanto en una lengua materna como en una segunda lengua, este estudio investiga la competencia en las destrezas de fluidez y compresión lectora de 30 estudiantes españoles de Educación Secundaria que aprenden inglés como lengua extranjera. El propósito de este estudio es comprobar la eficacia de un programa de intervención para mejorar el desarrollo de la fluidez lectora oral del alumnado. Para conseguir este objetivo e identificar a los estudiantes con dificultades lectoras, al alumnado se le administró las pruebas de fluidez en la lectura oral –velocidad y precisión- y fluidez en el recuento oral –comprensión- del test estandarizado DIBELS-6, al comienzo y al final del estudio. De interés también son las pautas proporcionadas para que el profesorado pueda diseñar e implementar un futuro programa de intervención que subsane los problemas lectores identificados en su alumnado. Los resultados indican que la intervención mejora la fluidez oral, velocidad y precisión lectora del alumnado; sin embargo, su efecto en la comprensión lectora no es estadísticamente significativo. Este resultado puede deberse al bajo nivel de competencia en la lengua extranjera del alumnado comparado con las medias de la población general de DIBELS. No obstante, para que esta herramienta sea práctica para los docentes en el aula, se necesitan medidas estandarizadas de fluidez en la lectura oral y comprensión lectora adaptadas al contexto de adolescentes españoles que aprenden inglés como lengua extranjera.

Based on previous studies showing that decoding and oral reading fluency skills are strongly related to better reading comprehension in both a first and a second language, this study investigates the reading fluency and comprehension proficiency of thirty Spanish-speaking Secondary students learning English as foreign language. The purpose of this study is to test for the efficacy of a training program aimed at improving students´ oral reading fluency development. To achieve this objective and also to identify those students with reading difficulties, the oral reading fluency –speed and accuracy- and the retell fluency –comprehension- measures of the standardized test DIBELS-6 were administered, before and after training. Of interest are also the guidelines provided for teachers to implement and design a future training program which may remedy participants´ reading problems encountered during the reading process. Results show that the training program improves learners´ fluency, speed and accuracy in oral reading; however, its effect on reading comprehension is not statistically significant. This finding may be due to the low foreign language proficiency level of the participants since the beginning of the study. Compared with the average rates provided by DIBELS benchmark scores, even after the intervention students are at some risk of reading failure. However, for teachers to use DIBELS as a user-friendly tool in the classroom, oral reading fluency and reading comprehension standardized scales adapted to the context of Spanish teenagers learning English as a foreign language need to be developed and provided.

A significant number of research studies have shown that phonemic awareness has a large contribution to reading acquisition. Hoover (2002) claims that to be able to read a word that consists of letters, one should first acquire phonemic awareness skill, thus concluding that without acquiring phonemic awareness skill, a person will not be able to read. Moreover, Hoover states that phonemic awareness is a “cognitive skill” which consists of three pieces: (1) the phoneme which is a linguistic unit; (2) the explicit conscious awareness of that unit; and (3) the ability to explicitly manipulate that unit. Thus, phonemic awareness is concerned about the “manipulation of language at the level of phonemes.”
Since reading acquisition usually starts to develop in school, our study focuses on preparatory pupils. International Reading Association (IRA, 1998) suggests that it is important for children to learn rhymes, beginning sounds, and syllables through various activities that provide them the opportunities to acquire phonemic awareness. Bradley and Bryant (1985) also reported that children’s phonemic awareness can be improved through explicit training. They trained children over a two-year period of time and they concluded that it had a positive effect on reading success. The explicit instruction included alphabetic principle, rhyme and alliteration activities, and tasks that discriminated onset and rime. In addition, Bentin et al. (1991) looked at the effects of schooling and aging on the development of phonological awareness and they suggest that schooling is a major factor that largely affects children’s phonemic awareness development. To support Bentin’s theory on how schooling affects phonemic awareness development, an investigation was done by Cunningham and Carroll (2010) to determine the effects of age and schooling on children’s phonemic awareness development. They found that the effect of one year schooling has roughly twice as large as the effect of up to one year’s difference in age, thus proving that schooling has a strong effect on the development of phonemic awareness.