The above graph shows DIBELS Nonsense Word Fluency (NWF) and Oral Reading Fluency (ORF) test data for grades K-6 from the spring of 2004 (before DI) and in the spring of 2007 (after 3 years of DI). These DIBELS tests are good predictors of the risk of student reading failure in subsequent grades. The graph shows the percentage of students meeting the benchmark goals. Meeting the benchmark indicates a low risk of reading failure.
The students in K-2 have been in DI since they began school. The students in gardes 3-5 have received three years of DI, i.e., for example the fifth grade students received DI in grades 3-5, but did not receive DI in grades K-2. The students in grade 6 only received a single year of DI in sixth grade.
As you can see from the graph, all grades, despite many students not receiving DI in each gradehave made substantial gains and their risk of reading failure has been significantly reduced. The kindergarten class of 2007, for example, is performing above the top 1 percentile based on these scores.
Here is a graph of grades 1-5 showing the performance of economically disadvantaged students on the same tests.
Not unsurprisingly, in 2007, the low-SES students in grades 1-5 outperformed the low-SES students in 2004. What is surprising is that the low-SES students in 2007 also outperformed all 2004 students in each grade, not just the low-SES students. That's impressive. So much for socio-economic status being a determining factor of academic success. With effective instruction, the predictive value of socio-economic status is diminished.
In case you were wondering how this performance translates to reading performance. Below is a graph of Terra Nova Reading scores for the fifth grade class of 2007 (which received only three years of DI instruction) with the performance of three cohorts of seventh graders who did not receive any DI instruction. Terra Nova is a nationally normed standardized test.
As you can see from the graph, the fifth graders who received three years of DI outperformed the seventh graders who did not.
Continued in third post.
April 14, 2008
Some Results Out of Gering
Following up on my previous post on Gering Public Schools which have implemented the whole school Direct Instruction (DI) reform with the help of The National Institute for Direct Instruction (NIFDI) beginning in the 2004-2005 school year. The intervention has been in place for three years so far and is beginning to generate some useful data.