Re: Dibels reading assess.
Posted by k teacher on 6/02/07

On 5/30/07, a reading teacher wrote:
> On 11/02/06, Sandi wrote:
> The point that students never need to read "nonsense" words is only
>> partially true. Any word unknown to a student may be nonsense to him/her.
>> That's the point of decoding. It's impossible to learn every word in the
>> dictionary, but our brains can learn patterns, thereby helping us decode those
>> unknown or "nonsense" words. DIBELS isn't just encouraging kids to read mumbo-
>> jumbo, but nonsense words are the only true way to know if a word has been
>> decoded or become a part of the sight vocabulary. I also believe when students
>> start decoding multisyllabic words, these early DIBELS skills will serve them
>> well.
>
> It would help if the "nonsense" words didn't sound like real words. One
example, 'sok'. They know
> enough to know this doesn't sound like nonsense and it doesn't look right.
> If we taught more of the Making Words and Words Their Way kinds of things the
kids would have what is
> necessary to decode those big words.
>
> Perhaps the nonsense word portion would be more appropriate for upper grade kids.
>
> It's also a problem when the kids have begun to learn about long vowels. They
want to just use long
> vowel sounds (and yes, I know they have to learn the pattern), and new learning
is what they want to try
> first. If you only have one minute to 'read' 24 to 50 'words' (depending on what
time of year), you don't
> really have time to make sure it's correct and you have no way to make sure it
makes sense.
>
> To me, this test doesn't make sense.

Our first grade teachers decided the students needed Saxon Phonics because of
decoding wrds. They feel that by the end of the year the students have learn the
word families but they do not have the skills needed to code the words. So to
solve their problem they needed Saxon Phonics. Since they are teaching Saxon
Phonics they wanted kindergarten to teach Saxon as well. We tried to tell the
administrators that we did not need Saxon. However, we did not understand how
important it was that we teach Saxon. We tried to make Saxon fit with our
Researched based reading program. They wanted us to just replace the phonics part
of our reading program. But we still had to use the reading series. We were to
just skip around Saxon and try to make it work. It was horrible. At the end of
the year our nonsense words on dibels dropped because they tried to make the vowels
long. When we started Saxon it was Christmas. Our students were already reading.
The administrators told us to follow Saxon rules and codes so we started coding.
My kids got confused when we started coding the words. It was a terrible year.
And it looks like next year will be the same. Please tell me how you would mix
Saxon phonics with your research based reading series. The letters are introduced
in different order so it has limited us on our reading material. We are working
ourselves to death tryin go make it work for two teachers that do not understand
kindergarten. One of the teachers husband is an assistant principal and the
principal will not listen to us. If you have an suggestions please give me your
suggestions.

Posts on this thread, including this one

• Dibels reading assess., 2/25/04, by Nancy.
• Re: Dibels reading assess., 2/29/04, by Amy.
• Re: Dibels reading assess., 5/15/04, by Rachel.
• Re: Dibels reading assess., 6/05/04, by ellie.
• Re: Dibels reading assess., 7/03/04, by Rose-Ann McKernan.
• Re: Dibels reading assess., 3/25/05, by Cheryle.
• Re: Dibels reading assess., 3/25/05, by Cheryle.
• Re: Dibels reading assess., 7/14/05, by A.
• Re: To A:Dibels reading assess., 7/14/05, by kteacher271.
• Re: Dibels reading assess., 7/14/05, by Cheryle.
• Re: Dibels reading assess., 10/26/05, by Jeff.
• Re: Dibels reading assess., 10/31/05, by Monica.
• Re: Dibels reading assess., 11/27/05, by Mary Kay Starkey.
• Re: Dibels reading assess., 12/08/05, by Maureen.
• Re: Dibels reading assess., 12/08/05, by Maureen.
• Re: Dibels reading assess., 1/11/06, by Kim.
• Re: Dibels reading assess., 2/04/06, by Pearl.
• Re: Dibels reading assess., 2/08/06, by Darlene.
• Re: Dibels reading assess., 2/11/06, by been there, done that.
• Re: Dibels a toothpick!, 2/11/06, by Nancy.
• Re: Dibels reading assess., 3/04/06, by Kathy.
• Re: Dibels reading assess., 4/04/06, by Margaret Turner.
• Re: Dibels reading assess., 4/06/06, by Nancy.
• Re: Dibels reading assess., 6/28/06, by Kathy.
• Re: Dibels reading assess., 7/06/06, by Robin.
• Re: Dibels reading assess., 9/03/06, by Ginny.
• Re: Dibels reading assess., 9/03/06, by Ginny.
• Re: Dibels reading assess., 9/10/06, by Parent1115.
• Re: Dibels reading assess., 9/23/06, by Kathy.
• Re: Dibels reading assess., 9/23/06, by Kathy.
• Re: Dibels reading assess., 11/02/06, by Sandi.
• Re: Dibels reading assess., 11/22/06, by Ms. Altman.
• Re: Dibels reading assess., 12/03/06, by Jane Bain.
• Re: Dibels reading assess., 1/01/07, by plcarlson.
• Re: Dibels reading assess., 1/30/07, by Kristin.
• Re: Dibels reading assess., 5/15/07, by Thomas Davis.
• Re: Dibels reading assess., 5/30/07, by a reading teacher.
• Re: Dibels reading assess., 5/30/07, by a reading teacher.
• Re: Dibels reading assess., 6/02/07, by k teacher.
• Re: Dibels reading assess., 3/10/08, by JULIE.
• Re: Dibels reading assess., 3/10/08, by julie.
• Re: Dibels reading assess., 3/11/08, by capitalize I.
• Re: Dibels reading assess., 4/17/08, by Michelle.