The Truth About DIBELS: What It Is - What It Does ( Paperback ) by Goodman, Ken published by Heinemann

by Kenneth S. Goodman

DIBELS is the worst thing to happen to the teaching of reading since the development of flash cards.
- P. David Pearson

Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills (DIBELS) is wildly popular up and down the local and state education hierarchies. It's easy, quick, and an approved Reading First assessment tool. So what's not to like?

Everything.

In The Truth About DIBELS you'll find out why teachers, administrators, and reading researchers nationwide are emphatically resisting the insidious influence of DIBELS. Well-known education writers - including P. David Pearson, Robert Tierney, Sandra Wilde, and Maryann Manning - tell you how DIBELS hurts students and teachers and why impairs learning and teaching. They present chapters that:

dispel the science and methodology that "support" DIBELS critique the validity of the information that DIBELS spits out demonstrate how DIBELS warps instructional planning to fit its limited measurements - and to fit the political ends of its creators and supporters expose the fiction behind its supposedly miraculous success rates

If DIBELS is creeping into your classroom, school, district, or state - or if it's already taken over - read The Truth About DIBELS. Then use its accompanying CD, loaded with a complete anti-DIBELS PowerPoint presentation, to show colleagues, policy makers, or parents that when it comes to reading assessment, DIBELS just doesn't work.

Genres: Academic

Paperback

First published September 5, 2006

Reviews

[Kimberly]

Best. Book. Ever.

[ResearchOnDIBELS]

This collection of research and personal accounts of using DIBELS includes:

P. David Pearson's analysis of the research on DIBELS,

Kenneth Goodman's critical analysis of each DIBELS subtest,

A piece by Alan Flurkey on defining "normal" reading, with regards to accuracy and fluency,

A piece by Robert J. Tierney and Catherine Thome on education policy and DIBELS,

A summary of Sue Seay's dissertation on DIBELS and the SAT 10 test,

An analysis by Sandra Wilde on DIBELS and "scientifically based reading research",

and Maryann Manning, Constance Kamii, and Tsuguhiko Kato's summary of research of correlations of DIBELS to a writing assessment, as well as correlations of DIBELS subtests to other subtests.