How DIBELS Testing Aligns to PLD Programs & Processes

The Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills (DIBELS) 8th Edition is a norm-referenced assessment used to assess reading skills from the beginning of schooling through the end of eighth grade. DIBELS is also a criterion-referenced assessment (meaning it measures a student’s performance against a fixed set of predetermined standards or benchmarks.) DIBELS can be used for:

• Screening: To identify students who may be at risk of reading difficulties (with administration up to three times per year).
• Progress Monitoring: To document students’ progress of reading skills as a consequence of special intervention programs.
• Benchmark Goals: To provide minimum levels of performance for all students to reach to be considered on track for becoming a reader.

DIBELS 8 Subtests and Skills Assessed

The assessment offers six subtests designed to assess component skills involved in reading. These subtests are aligned to four of the five “Big Ideas” in reading and also identify risk for reading disorders:

Skills Assessed	DIBELS Subtests Assessed
Phonemic Awareness	Phonemic Segmentation Fluency (PSF)
Alphabetic Principle	Nonsense Word Fluency (NWF), Word Reading Fluency (WRF), Oral Reading Fluency (ORF)
Accuracy and Fluency with Text	Word Reading Fluency (WRF), Oral Reading Fluency (ORF), Maze
Comprehension	Oral Reading Fluency (ORF), Maze
Risk for Reading Disorder	Letter Naming Fluency (LNF), Phonemic Segmentation Fluency (PSF), Nonsense Word Fluency (NWF)

Should the School Replace Any of the PLD Testing if Using/Considering DIBELS?

Even if schools are completing the DIBELS testing, PLD recommends completing PLD spelling and reading assessments. 

• The PLD placement tests are central to establishing teaching levels (and groups) within each specific classroom for the upcoming terms. 
•  Note that in the final columns of PLD tracking sheets are columns for integrating PLD with standardised testing. A student’s DIBELS results of either ‘Red Range’, ‘Yellow Range’ or ‘Green/Blue Range’ can be added in the standardised scores area at the end of PLD’s tracking sheets. 

A table comparing the skills tested between DIBELS and PLD has been summarised below:

DIBELS Subtests Assessed	DIBELS-8	PLD Classroom Programs	PLD Support SSP Kit
Identify PLD Stage	✗	✓	✓
Identify Skill Difficulties (in the following areas)
Letter Sound Knowledge	✗	Early Years & Foundation ✓	✓
Letter Sound Formation	✗	Early Years & Foundation ✓	✓
Letter Name knowledge	✓	✗	✗
Oral Blending	✗	Early Years & Foundation ✓	✓
Oral Segmenting	✓	Foundation ✓	✓
Phonic Reading	✓ *non-words	Foundation, Year 1 & 2  ✓	✓
HFW Reading	✓	Foundation, Year 1 & 2  ✓	✓
Oral Reading Fluency	✓	WCPM Year 1–6  ✓	✓
Maze Comprehension	✓	✗	✗
Phonic Spelling	✗	Foundation, Year 1–6  ✓	✓
Criterion and norm-referenced	✓	✗	✗
Timed	✓	✗ *except for WCPM	✓

How To Use PLD Resources To Support Difficulties Identified In The DIBELS?

For students encountering difficulty in PLD Stages 1, 2 or 3 and/or scoring below benchmark in the DIBELS, the Integrated SSP Support Kit is recommended. 

• The PLD Support Kit is designed to provide targeted intervention and to support struggling readers and spellers. The targeted sessions need to be delivered for a minimum of twenty minutes and at least 3 times per week. 
• The general classroom programs can also be used for struggling readers. 

		Support Kit  (Withdrawn Intensive Sessions)	Foundation Programs  (In-Class)	Year 1 & 2 Programs (In-Class)
Letter Naming Fluency (LNF)  In DIBELS Letter Naming Fluency is intended to be a test of rapid automatic naming. This skill is used to determine the risk of reading disorders and hence is not a skill focused on in the intervention. The skill of letter naming is focused implicitly in the PLD program after students have acquired fast, automatic sound knowledge of letters.		Webcodes: SP1 & SP2	Webcodes: Mlff2 & CCal	Webcodes: SP1 & SP2
Phonemic Segmentation Fluency (PSF)  Within the PLD process, segmentation commences at a Foundation level (at an auditory and oral level) and then continues up to Stage 6.  The skill of segmenting is applied during the orthographic mapping speech-to-print mapping exercises.  Difficulties that arise in segmenting are identified within the first term of teaching and all junior primary classroom packs target this essential skill.		Webcode: CCread & CCspell Stage 1 Target 1: web code Bcvc Stage 1 Target 2: web code Bblends Stage 1 Target 1: web code Bblends Stage 1 Target 1: web code Bph2	Webcodes: CCpfr & CCpfs	Webcodes: CCpfr & CCpfs
Nonsense Word Fluency (NWF) Students require strong letter-sound knowledge and the ability to blend in order to decode real and nonsense words fluently.		60 Second Speed Reads	Real & Nonsense Words Stage 1 Target 1: CVC Real & Nonsense Words Stage 1 Target 2: sh, ch, th, oo, ee, qu, wh, ck Real & Nonsense Words Stage 1 Target 3: CCVC & CVCC Real & Nonsense Words Stage 1 Target 4: ar, or, er, ai, ay, oi, oy
Word Reading Fluency (WRF) Students will require strong skills in High-Frequency Words to read the words from WRF. PLD presents:  FLASH Words: are regular and decodable. These words are used frequently, and so students need repeated decoding and encoding practise, so that they can be recognised (read) and reproduced (spelled) in a flash. HEART Words: contain an irregular concept which cannot be decoded or a complex phonic concept not yet learned. The difficult part of these words  must be learned by heart.		Website code: HFW	Foundation HFW Charts: Download here	Year 1 HFW Charts: Download here Year 2 HFW Charts: Download here
Oral Reading Fluency (ORF) Words become automatically read once sufficiently decoded and encoded enough to be stored in a student’s mental graphemic representations for quick and automatic retrieval. PLD regularly presents single-word and passage-level speed reads as fluency practise when a student’s accuracy is high, but they are still decoding many words.			Webcode: SSPts1	Webcode: Md1, Md2, Md3
Maze: Comprehension requires both sufficient reading fluency and language comprehension. To develop both reading fluency and their understanding of the text they have read, ask students to retell or summarise what they have read. The decodable reading books factor in scripted vocabulary and comprehension questions. Additionally, explicitly teaching the vocabulary found on the word lists or within the passages will also support reading comprehension. For example, ‘stew’ has multiple meanings: (1) a dish of food cooked slowly together and (2) a state of worry, e.g. ‘don’t stew over what he said’.			More info on the website here.	Vocabulary instruction focus Webcode: SSPts1 & SSPts3

For more information on PLD’s Decodable Reading Books, visit our website here: https://pld-literacy.org/decodable-reading-books-landing/