Week 9: Assignment 3

QRI5: Qualitative Reading Inventory is an individually administered informal reading assessment for students in grades K through 12. The assessment uses graded word lists and passages to asses oral, silent, and listening skills. The qualitative reading inventory provides information about conditions where students can identify words and comprehend text, and conditions that result in unsuccessful word recognition and comprehension ability. Results used to estimate student’s reading levels, choose appropriate books for literature circles, reading workshops, and independent reading. And to group students for reading instruction and to help identify reading levels of independent, instructional, and frustration level. The QRI5 Provides information for designing instruction and tracking student progress, it is not a standardized assessment which means that information taken from the results are for individual students and not compared to any norm group.

DIBELS: Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills is an individually and group administered assessment that measures specific literacy skills for students in grades K-6. These different methods of assessment focus on the five main areas of literacy which include phonemic awareness, alphabetic principal, accuracy and fluency with text, vocabulary, and comprehension. The purpose of the DIBELS is to determine students who may be at risk for reading difficulties, low performance levels, and problems reaching early literacy benchmark goals. Short fluency assessments administered at least 3 times a year (beginning, middle, end) produce results that are used to identify students who need extra instruction to meet benchmark literacy goals. The dynamic indicators of basic early literacy assessment tools provide information for designing instruction and tracking student progress. DIBELS is a standardized assessment tool allowing for students to be compared to a benchmark or norm group of students at their grade level.

Similarities: With both the QRI5 and DIBELS being assessment for literacy, fluency and comprehension are a focus of both assessment types. Both can be used to inform instructional design based on the needs of the students, and both can be used to monitor and track student progress.

Differences: The biggest difference I noticed between the QRI5 and DIBELS is that they are assessments for different grade levels. Where the QRI5 assesses student literacy for grades K through 12, DIBELS assesses students in the earlier grades, K through 6^th. DIBELS focuses on aspects of literacy that the QRI5 does not. Another difference between the two is that the QRI5 is not a standardized assessment tool. All results are dependent on the individual student, where DIBELS is standardized, and results are compared to a norm group of other students at the same grade level.