Suzanne, one of our readers writes about an assessment question:

Dear Sisters,

I read on your site that you are referred to as somewhat of assessment gurus? Our school is making some fast, not so good for kids, changes.  Our literacy coach wants to use DIBELS as our only assessment.  As a first grade teacher, I know that doesn't even sound "sound."   Do you have a few ideas?  I'd love your input. 

— Suzanne

Hi Suzanne,we have all felt the "assessment woes" just as you! In a nutshell, this is some info that might help:

There are 4 types of assessments:

1) Screening - taking the child's temperature, DIBELS is a great one for this. It is quick, lets us know if there may be a problem and we need to dig deeper right away.  This assessment is done on every child, but is not diagnostic.

2) Diagnostic:  for your level, we find the very best one is DRA.  It can also be used as a screener (as we do at my school because we give it to EVERY child reading at K-2nd grade level) Once children are able to read at 3rd grade level, we move them into an IRA (we love  the Burns and Roe) Both of these assessments are diagnostic and can inform instruction.

3) Progress monitoring.  This type of assessment is used to check back and see how your instruction is impacting student  progress.  DIBELS can be used for this (tier three and four kids get progress monitored quite often)  on our Tier two and three kids, we use DRA and IRI to monitor progress.

4)Outcomes These are your state assessment. They are indicators for building trends and district trends.

Hope this helps!

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