Part of DMG's commitment to helping all children on the path to school success includes ongoing research and development on current and new assessments. All research projects are designed to improve outcomes for struggling students by helping teachers make informed decisions on effective instruction.

DIBELS Survey emerged from repeated requests by DIBELS users for guidelines when "back testing" students who are below grade level expectations in their reading skills. The DIBELS Survey process will help educators identify appropriate materials to monitor the progress of students who are considered at-risk of not becoming readers as well as set ambitious goals to accelerate student progress. Survey will also help educators better target an entry point into DIBELS Deep (see below). Multiple districts across the US are currently collecting data with a beta version of DIBELS Survey as part of a longitudinal study of the validity and utility of this assessment tool. For more information on DIBELS Survey, read the "Next Step: DIBELS Deep and Survey" article in the December 2007 DIBELS Newsletter.

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In response to the demand for diagnostic reading assessments that are cost effective, time efficient, reliable and valid, DMG is developing a new assessment series called DIBELS Deep. Deep will better provide educators with specific information for developing instruction corresponding to each of the key basic early literacy skills: Phonological Awareness, Alphabetic Principle, Accuracy and Fluency with connected text, Comprehension, and Vocabulary. The intent is to help teachers improve reading outcomes for struggling students by more precisely targeting deficit skills during instructional interventions. Current research for DIBELS Deep includes looking at the relationship between performance on Deep and DIBELS benchmark measures and finding out to what extent teachers and examiners find the measures useful for planning instruction. For more information on DIBELS Deep, read the "Next Step: DIBELS Deep and Survey" article in the December 2007 DIBELS Newsletter.

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DMG is in the early stages of research and development on measures to assess early numeracy and computational math skills of students from kindergarten to fifth grade. Current research includes creating forms sensitive to student growth over time and analyzing the predictive validity of DIBELS Math measures to state-wide assessments of math proficiency.

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The Indicadores Dinámicos del Éxito en la Lectura (IDEL) are a reinvention of DIBELS for children learning to read in Spanish. IDEL has been extensively researched with native Spanish-speaking populations in the US and current research projects include work in Latin America. The IDEL measures carefully take into account the orthography, phonology, and linguistic structure of the Spanish language. For more information on IDEL research, development, and training, visit the IDEL Home Page.

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The Indicateurs dynamiques d'habiletés précoces en lecture (IDAPEL) are a series of brief measures designed to assess the early literacy skills of students learning to read in French. IDAPEL is designed to assess the core components of early French reading instruction and includes indicators from the following skill areas: phonemic awareness, alphabetic principle, accuracy and fluency with connected text, and comprehension.

A validation study evaluating the psychometric properties of the measures was conducted in 2002-2003. Longitudinal IDAPEL research is currently being conducted in Canadian and American French immersion schools. Future research plans include validation studies with French-speaking students in Canada. Current IDAPEL measures are:

• Facilité à reconnaître le premier son (FPS)
• Facilité à dénommer des lettres (FDL)
• Facilité à segmenter les phonèmes (FSP)
• Facilité à lire des non-mots (FNM)
• IDAPEL Facilité en lecture orale (FLO)
• Rapport oral du récit (ROR)

Ongoing research and development is also focused on creating a measure to assess French-speaking students' knowledge of word use. This measure would assess French vocabulary and oral language development.

Visit the Training and Professional Development page to learn more about scheduling an IDAPEL training in your school or district.

For more information on IDAPEL research and development, email info@dibels.org. You can also learn more about ongoing IDAPEL research projects by subscribing to the French-language newsletter, La gazette IDAPEL. Email gazette@dibels.org to start receiving your electronic copy today!

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