Background: For the past several years my current elementary school has engaged in a focused effort to improve reading fluency among our students. The use of student data has been instrumental in guiding these efforts, and as such has led the way for other data-driven decisions across the curriculum.
Using the Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills (DIBELS) assessment, oral reading fluency - rate & accuracy - are assessed for students acorss each grade level. The initial data from the Fall screening is used in conjunction with teacher input and an additional decoding assessment to assign students to reading groups.
Reading groups "walk" to reading each day, meaning that during this reading block which focuses primarily on decoding skills and word work students leave their regular classroom and are taught by another teacher or reading specialist. Regular progress monitoring makes it possible to move students up or down group levels throughout the school year.
My role each year has been to carefully use this data to diagnose and prescribe specific intervention or instruction to students in my reading group. To date the program has been quite successful with much greater increases in student fluency than previously as well as a larger percentage of students being categorized as at "low risk" for continued reading difficulty.
The table below shows the previous year's performance of my 4th grade class. (This year's final data is not yet available) As the table indicates, students in my classroom overall experienced an increase on average of both rate and accuracury. The color coding shows green for low risk, yellow for moderate risk, and red for high risk. One interesting thing to note is that some students, even while improving their fluency scores may not see a change in risk level. Also important to note is that the target scores for rate and accuracy increase for each assessment. In fourth grade, the fall target for rate is 90 correct words per minute which increases to 115 at year's end.
One clear limitation from my perspective of our current approach is the absence of a similar focus on reading comprehension. As more of our students become fluent in basic skills, it only seems logical that an emphasis be placed on students' understanding of what they read.
Using the Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills (DIBELS) assessment, oral reading fluency - rate & accuracy - are assessed for students acorss each grade level. The initial data from the Fall screening is used in conjunction with teacher input and an additional decoding assessment to assign students to reading groups.
Reading groups "walk" to reading each day, meaning that during this reading block which focuses primarily on decoding skills and word work students leave their regular classroom and are taught by another teacher or reading specialist. Regular progress monitoring makes it possible to move students up or down group levels throughout the school year.
My role each year has been to carefully use this data to diagnose and prescribe specific intervention or instruction to students in my reading group. To date the program has been quite successful with much greater increases in student fluency than previously as well as a larger percentage of students being categorized as at "low risk" for continued reading difficulty.
The table below shows the previous year's performance of my 4th grade class. (This year's final data is not yet available) As the table indicates, students in my classroom overall experienced an increase on average of both rate and accuracury. The color coding shows green for low risk, yellow for moderate risk, and red for high risk. One interesting thing to note is that some students, even while improving their fluency scores may not see a change in risk level. Also important to note is that the target scores for rate and accuracy increase for each assessment. In fourth grade, the fall target for rate is 90 correct words per minute which increases to 115 at year's end.
One clear limitation from my perspective of our current approach is the absence of a similar focus on reading comprehension. As more of our students become fluent in basic skills, it only seems logical that an emphasis be placed on students' understanding of what they read.