Dear Parents and Guardians,
The teachers and administrators at our school are committed to helping your child become a successful reader. As part of this commitment, West Holt Public School has chosen to use an assessment called Acadience to help us examine how your child is doing in learning important reading skills. We will begin the second of three Acadience assessments on Monday,
December 11th, and hopefully have all grades completed by Friday, December 15th. We will share the results with you when we are finished.
DIBELS stands for Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills. Acadience assesses four skills that are necessary for learning to read. Children who learn these skills become good readers. The skills are:
Phonemic Awareness: Hearing and using sounds in spoken words
Phonics: Knowing the sounds of the letters and sounding out written words
Accurate and Fluent Reading: Reading stories and other materials easily and quickly with
few mistakes
Reading Comprehension: Understanding what is read
DIBELS is made up of six individual assessments. Each Acadience assessment focuses on a different skill and takes about one minute to do. Your child may be given two-four of the assessments depending on his or her grade level. The assessments for each grade are as follows:
K: Letter Naming Fluency, First Sound Fluency (goal 30), Phoneme Segmentation Fluency (goal 20), and Nonsense Word Fluency (goal: 17)
1st grade: Nonsense Word Fluency (goal: 43 sounds and 8 whole words read) and Oral Reading Fluency (goal: 23 words correct per minute)
2nd grade: Oral Reading Fluency (goal: 72 words correct per minute),
Retell (goal: 21 words)
3rd grade: Oral Reading Fluency (goal: 86 wpm), Retell (goal: 26 words), DAZE (goal:11)
4th grade: Oral Reading Fluency (goal: 103 wpm), Retell (goal: 30 words), DAZE (goal: 17)
5th grade: Oral Reading Fluency (goal: 120 wpm), Retell (goal: 36 words), DAZE (goal: 20)
6th grade: Oral Reading Fluency (goal: 109 wpm), Retell (goal: 29 words), DAZE (goal: 19)
Acadience is used to help identify children who may need extra help to become good readers and to make sure those children are making progress. Acadience will not be used to grade your child.
We are working hard at school to make sure that every child is on target for success, and we thank you for your efforts at home. Together, we will help your child become a successful reader.
Sincerely,
Mrs. Randolph
Ms. Elm