How might parents, teachers, principals, district administration, and the state use the data from DIBELS?
DIBELS was developed to identify students at risk of reading failure so that appropriate interventions could be put into place that would remediate the deficiencies. In that spirit, the information gained from DIBELS assessment should be used to support children in their acquisition of reading skills, to determine how children can best be served within their classroom, to evaluate the effectiveness of remedial instruction, and to determine the resource and staff development needs of teachers to achieve success for all students. Each school district and the state will likely consider DIBELS data while evaluating the effectiveness of the state’s Reading First grant to accomplish the goals set forth in the application for federal funding. • Should DIBELS be used to make decisions about student promotion or retention, to evaluate teachers, or to determine if a teacher should receive merit pay based on student performance on DIBELS measures? DIBELS was not designed for any of these purposes
