Reading - Progress Monitoring Reports (K-4)

Key Features of DIBELS Progress Monitoring

1. Frequent Assessments
DIBELS assessments are quick and done regularly, such as every two weeks, monthly, or during benchmark periods. How often depends on your child’s needs and risk of falling behind. Each assessment only takes a few minutes and helps track your child’s progress over time.

2. Focus Areas
The skills tested depend on your child’s grade level and usually include:

Letter Names (LNF): Assesses a student's ability to recognize individual letters and say their names.
First Sound Isolation (FSI): Measures a student's ability to isolate the first sound in spoken words.
Phoneme Segementation Fluency (PSF): Assesses the student's fluency in segmenting a spoken word into its component parts or sound segments. If the teacher says the word "fish" the student says /f/ /i/ /s/ /h/.
Nonsense Word Fluency (NWF): Measures a student's ability to decode make-believe words that are based on the alphabetic principle. Examples: "fop, gip, mork, zop"
Word Reading FLuency (WRF): Assesses a student's ability to read real words out of context in a list-like format. Example: "Cat, Big, Happy, Jumping, Different"
Oral Reading Fluency (ORF): Measures a student's ability to accurately and fluently read words in connected text. Example: "The big red dog ran fast in the sun."
MAZE: Assesses the student's ability to construct meaning (reading comprehension) from text using word recognition skills, vocabulary knowledge, and backgroun information.

3. Data-Driven Decisions
Teachers use the results to:

Spot students who may need extra help.
Change lessons or add supports to match what each child needs.
Check if teaching strategies or interventions are working over time.

4. Scoring and Benchmarks
Each score is compared to grade-level expectations (benchmarks) to show if your child is on track, needs help, or is excelling. This helps teachers understand your child’s progress and plan for their success.

Which students are progress monitored and when?

Summary of Progress Monitoring Schedule

DIBELS Performance Level

Above Benchmark

(Exceeding Expectations)

At Benchmark

(Meeting Expectations)

Below Benchmark

(Support Needed)

Well Below Benchmark

(Intensive Support)

Schedule

(Fall, Winter, & Spring)

1x per month

Bi-Weekly to Monthly

At Benchmark or Above Benchmark:

Students scoring in this range are meeting grade-level expectations. Their reading progress will be checked again at the next benchmark period (i.e., Fall, Winter, or Spring). The report you will receive will look like below:

Below Benchmark: Monthly Progress Monitoring

Students scoring in this range need some support to meet grade-level expectations. Their reading progress will be monitored one time each month, until the next benchmark screening period (i.e., Fall, Winter, or Spring). The report you will receive will look like below:

Well Below Benchmark: Bi-Weekly Progress Monitoring

Students scoring in this range need intensive supports to meet grade-level expectations. Their reading progress will be monitored bi-weekly, until the next benchmark screening period (i.e., Fall, Winter, or Spring). The report you will receive will look like below:

DIBELS Progress Monitoring Graphs

The Student Progress Monitoring report provides a quick and visual way to see how your student is doing over time in meeting grade level reading goals.The graph is color-coded to show whether the student is performing above, at, below, or well below grade level benchmark.

Each time a student's progress is monitored, their score is plotted on the red, yellow, green, and blue shaded area of the graph.

Blue = Above Benchmark
Green = At Benchmark
Yellow = Below Benchmark
Red = Well Below Benchmark

Example Graph # 1

Example Graph #2

Example Graph # 3

mCLASS: Progress Monitoring Report Walk-Through