Living and Learning in Central Oregon

When I read articles like this it helps us put our testing into perspective.  While I think that our fluency testing is important I also think that at some point it reaches a max point.  There is a direct correlation between 3^rd grade students passing dibels and 3^rd grader students  passing their comprehension tests.  But at what point do we scale back fluency and concentrate on comprehension and vocabulary building?  I recently had a meeting with Jon Bullock the principal of the high school on the topic of dibels.  Jon’s previous experience was as an elementary principal.  When he took over his former school only 50% of his students were reading at grade level.  When he left the school over 95% were at grade level. Dibel assessments and the interventions put in place after these assessments played a big part in this transformation. One of the statements he said that made me really think was “Show me the 5^th grader not passing his reading comprehension test and I will show you the kindergartner who did not pass his letter naming fluency.” Hmmm.

So what do you think?  Your comments are always appreciated.