This week marked my 6th year teaching Exceptional Needs students in Lakewood. It also means the usually beginning of the school year changes. My team has two big changes this year--1) a new Exceptional Needs Teachers who's joining us from the great Arizona and 2) DIBELS Next.

Well to be fair, everyone in the building is taking on DIBELS Next. So what the big deal, its not that different than DIBELS 6th edition. I like that Initial Sound Fluency is no more. YEAH!!!! This was a pain. Instead its First Sound Fluency which replaces Initial Sound Fluency of early phonemic awareness. The Oral Reading Fluency is closer and consistency at grade level across all passages. Plus the retell means something.  New scoring directions for Nonsense Words. We'll have to see how it all goes Friday, when we have flex testing. I'm looking forward to seeing how students score on this version and if it provides better information to place students in interventions to help them make moves. Anyone use DIBELS Next?? I'd love to here how it helped students.




I hope that the beginning of your school year is awesome!!