Week 9- QRI5 and DIBELS

DIBELS: The Dynamic Indicator of Basic Early Literacy Skills (DIBELS) is a series of research-based, norm-referenced assessments, consisting of short (one minute) fluency measures which assesses the mastery and achievement of early literacy skills, such as phonemic awareness and fluency, from kindergarten through sixth grade. It is conducted at intervals that align with benchmark goals and helps evaluate and monitors students’ individual progress. It serves as an indicator to how the students can be expected to perform as the year progresses as well as where they are holding at the present regarding their foundational literacy skills.

QRI-5: The Qualitative Reading Inventory (QRI5), is an individualized, non-standardized, and informal reading assessment that teachers can use to determine students' reading abilities and level, instructional needs and appropriate level reading material, in grades P through 12. The QRI-5 has been used for over forty years to identify students’ reading levels, which include Independent, Instructional and Frustration. It is also used to provide valuable diagnostic information. QRI-5 provides graded word lists and numerous passages designed to assess oral and silent reading and listening abilities of students from pre-primer1 through high school levels (Leslie & Caldwell, 2010). The QRI-5 provides a number of assessment options where results can be used to estimate students’ reading levels, to group students for guided reading, or to choose appropriate books for Literacy Circles, reading workshop and independent reading. The students’ scores are interpreted for the individual not as a group norm (Leslie & Caldwell, 2010).

The DIBELS caters to students in grades kindergarten through sixth, as opposed to the QRI, which assesses students in pre-primer through high school. Aside for targeting more grade levels, the QRI is an informal inventory, which is individualized per students while the DIBELS is a series of standardized, norm-referenced assessments, as in they are more or less the same for everyone, and are brief as well, each not taking longer than a minute. Both are administered one-on-one by educated professionals and both can be helpful in targeting areas of weakness in a child, albeit different methods going about the assessments. For example, the DIBELS uses pictures and one-minute assessments while the QRI focuses on getting the assessments targeted specific to the individual child’s level, starting the evaluation two grades lower than the students’ actual expected level and then is adjusted accordingly.

Both assessments can be used to provide data to drive overall literacy instruction and to determine students’ reading levels. They can also assist teachers when choosing appropriate books for book clubs, reading workshops, grouping students for guided reading, and independent reading.  Data can also be used to construct and implement intervention instruction and aid teachers in student skill recognition both in weak and strong areas.I feel that both are beneficial and can both be implemented as effective tools and assessments regarding literacy instruction, such as the DIBELS at the beginning of the year and throughout to determine where the students are holding in different areas of literacy instruction and where they are weaker, alongside the QRI5 which can help the teacher determine their individual preliminary reading levels. This way, students can receive both standardized assessments (in comparison to their peers to see how they’re holding up) and also individualized evaluations of progress, which should be monitored as well.

Works Cited

Leslie, L., & Caldwell, J. S. (2010). Qualitative Reading Inventory (5th Edition). Pearson Education.