The purpose of this study was to examine the predictive strength and decision-making utility of the Dynamic Indicators of Early Literacy Skills (DIBELS). Specifically, the study examined whether DIBELS benchmarks correctly differentiated among students who were at-risk for reading failure and those who were not as measured by end-of-third-grade achievement on the Pennsylvania System of School Assessment (PSSA) in Reading First schools. More broadly, this study addressed the effectiveness of DIBELS for early identification of children considered to be at-risk for reading failure using the author-recommended benchmarks. Additionally, data were analyzed to determine whether first grade cut-points were appropriately sensitive and specific in relation to long-term predictions (end of third grade) of special education status. When comparing within-year achievement trends, results indicated that DIBELS was generally predictive of first through third grade students Fall to Spring achievement. However, some students did demonstrate erratic achievement. Receiver Operating Characteristic (ROC) analyses revealed that the author-recommended cut-points for the Fall subtests resulted in concerning numbers of false negative and false positive predictions of reading achievement. In fact, the cut-points for the phoneme segmentation fluency (PSF) subtest were found to have a statistically inappropriate balance of sensitivity and specificity. Hierarchical Linear Modeling (HLM) analyses of students long-term achievement showed that the DIBELS measures administered early in first grade were generally not predictive of third grade reading achievement for students in these Reading First schools. In fact, first grade results explained only 18% of the variability in students third grade reading scores on the PSSA. Finally, logistic regression results suggest that students socio-economic status and race were more accurate predictors of end-of-third grade special education status than their first grade reading achievement on the DIBELS. The overall limited predictive value of DIBELS on students long-term reading achievement raises important concerns about over-reliance on DIBELS in an early intervention framework like Pennsylvanias Reading First initiative and in school-wide educational decision making systems such as Response-to-Intervention (RTI).
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:PITT/oai:PITTETD:etd-12072006-100936 |
| Date | 29 January 2007 |
| Creators | Kloo, Amanda M. |
| Contributors | Audery T. Kappel, Rollanda O'Connor, Rita M. Bean, George J. Zimmerman, Naomi Zigmond |
| Publisher | University of Pittsburgh |
| Source Sets | University of Pittsburgh |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | http://etd.library.pitt.edu/ETD/available/etd-12072006-100936/ |
| Rights | unrestricted, I hereby certify that, if appropriate, I have obtained and attached hereto a written permission statement from the owner(s) of each third party copyrighted matter to be included in my thesis, dissertation, or project report, allowing distribution as specified below. I certify that the version I submitted is the same as that approved by my advisory committee. I hereby grant to University of Pittsburgh or its agents the non-exclusive license to archive and make accessible, under the conditions specified below, my thesis, dissertation, or project report in whole or in part in all forms of media, now or hereafter known. I retain all other ownership rights to the copyright of the thesis, dissertation or project report. I also retain the right to use in future works (such as articles or books) all or part of this thesis, dissertation, or project report. |
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