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. Its easy, quick, and an approved Reading First assessment tool. So whats not to like?
Everything.
In The Truth About DIBELS youll find out why teachers, administrators, and reading researchers nationwide are emphatically resisting the insidious influence of DIBELS. Well-known education writersincluding P. David Pearson, Robert Tierney, Sandra Wilde, and Maryann Manningtell 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 measurementsand 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 stateor if its already taken overread 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 doesnt work.
About the Author: Kenneth S. Goodman was Professor Emeritus, Language, Reading, and Culture, College of Education, University of Arizona, where he spent a long professional life observing the reading process in active use. From his earliest miscue research published in 1965 to the most recent presentation of his understanding of the reading process in 1997, he continued to fuel thought-provoking discussions of the nature of reading. His research earned him major awards from NCTE, IRA, NRC, and NCRLL. An elected member of the Reading Hall of Fame, Goodman is a past president of IRA, NCRLL, and the Center for Expansion of Language and Thinking.
