I have to say this fall started in an absolute chaos.  All of our elementary buildings use the DIBELS Next universal screener to identify students who may be at-risk for reading difficulties.   Shortly after our first few days of school we received Part II:  DIBELS Next Benchmark Goals from the University of Oregon Center on Teaching and Learning (CTL) in which the benchmark goals for each assessment dramatically increased.  Let me give you an example.  In the fall of first grade, using last year’s benchmark goals, we would expect a child to achieve 27 correct letter sounds (cls) and 1 whole word read (wwr) on the Nonsense Word Fluency assessment.  Using the new “recommended goals” proposed by the CTL, we now

Oh, Yeah! It’s DIBELS testing week.  I absolutely love listening to those kiddos read and seeing the progress they’ve made since the beginning of the year.   Okay, I’d admit, after the 5th day of testing, I nearly have the story of the “Cocoa Stand” memorized and I am a little giddy.  I test over 200 students in a week, and typically first graders, so I can almost recite those oral reading passages verbatim. Over the past few years we’ve developed numerous versions of our parent handout that we provide for parents following each benchmark period.  It’s a little tricky coming up with a handout that explains the assessment and the results in a way that provides them with the information we feel that they