Week 9 Assignment #3

       QRI-5, Qualitive Reading Inventory-5, is an assessment method used to determine a child’s independent, instructional and frustration level. It is given to students in the most unofficial manner. students are given word lists and a few passages which determine the child’s ability to identify words, and the child’s comprehension skills. This method helps teachers determine what level text to use in the classroom, determine whether a child needs extra help, and group students properly for reading sessions.

      The Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills (DIBELS) are a set of procedures for assessing the acquisition of early literacy skills. They are designed to be short (around one minute) fluency measures used to regularly monitor the development of early literacy and early reading skills. DIBELS subtests measure critical skills and abilities that are necessary for reading success and most offer both benchmark and progress-monitoring forms. When used, the measures form an assessment system of early literacy development that allows educators to readily and reliably determine student progress. It’s a good and quick way of getting an initial understanding of where the student stands in terms of level. Screening tests such as DIBLS help the districts place students in appropriate classes, and help get students the initial appropriate interventions.

The QRI-5 and DIBELS have some things in common the first thing being that both can be used to assess students in the crucial areas of fluency, comprehension, and vocabulary. Both can also be used to decide on intervention.

However, there are some strong differences that set them apart. se two assessments differ in many ways: While the QRI-5 provides assessment for students in grades K-12, DIBELS only offers from Kindergarten- 6. Another important difference is that the QRI-5 assessment tool is very different and much more intensive then the DIBELS system. This system uses a combination of Miscue analysis, site words, retelling and implicit and explicit questions to assess comprehension of both narrative and expository texts. This system is much longer, and a more rigorous form of assessment which gives you more detailed information about the students’ literacy level, and comprehension. This is also particularly useful for understanding if the student is better at comprehending narrative or expository text, or what type of weaknesses the students may have in terms of literacy. The QRI-5 is also one of the strongest methods for finding and forming and intervention strategy for a student. 

In my opinion, educators will benefit most when both assessments are used in tandem.