DIBELS vs. QRI5

QRI-5 (Qualitative Reading Inventory) can be compared to using a running record and miscue analysis and a checklist for comprehension all rolled into one.  QRI-5 is an informal reading inventory that has word lists and passages per the student’s grade level.  Additionally, QRI5 assess a student’s fluency in WPM (words per minute) and retelling of a story using explicit and implicit knowledge.   Furthermore, it asses oral and silent reading and listening skills and can be used from pre-k to high school.  The QRI-5 can help determine a student’s independent, instructional and frustration level in reading.

DIBELS (Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills) is a set of procedures and short measures to assess early literacy skills at the elementary level.  They are used to regularly monitor fluency development and early reading skills.  Fluency is not the only measures; it also measures phonemic awareness alphabetic principle, reading comprehension, vocabulary, and accuracy.   This assessment is designed to for early identification of reading difficulty.  DIBELS is only one type of assessment and can be used in combination with other reading assessment tools.  DIBELS is used to assess students at the beginning, middle, and end of the year. 

 

DIBELS has many parts and acronyms.  There categories at every level from kindergarten to sixth grade.  Kindergarten seems to have the most categories for assessing early literacy.  For example there is the ISF (Initial Sound Fluency).  The assess the student’s phonological awareness (the ability to recognize initial sounds of a word) and the LNF (Letter Naming Fluency) which tests the student’s recognition of upper and lower case letters.  At the kindergarten level there is also PSF (Phonemic Segmentation Fluency).   In this assessment, students have to segment three and four phoneme words into their individual phonemes.   At the first grade and other levels, students do not have the letter recognition, but the levels have ORF (Oral Reading Fluency) and RTF (Retelling Fluency).  The higher grades (5^th and 6^th) only have ORF and RTF assessments.  More assessments are done in the early grade to identification reading difficulties quickly.

 

QRI5 and DIBELS are similar in their assessment of student reading fluency, vocabulary and comprehension.  Each tool analyzes student miscues in reading utilizing a running record.  However, DIBELS assess phonological and phonemic awareness along with alphabetic principal with early readers.  QRI5 can be used in the classroom through high school.  Yet DIBELS is used for kindergarten through sixth grade.  Even though QRI5 can be used as an ongoing assessment, DIBELS has a rubric to rate students as At-Risk, Some –Risk and Low Risk for beginning of the year assessments and Deficient, Emerging and Established during the middle and end of year assessment.  Whereas QRI5 rates students according to their reading level: independent, instructional, and frustrated.  QRI5 does not identify if the student is having trouble with phonics or phonemes.  

 

QRI5 and DIBELS have differences; however, each can be used to assess student reading levels and provide information for intervention and differentiation of learning.    In the classroom, QRI5 can be used to prepare leveled readers for students and for ability grouping for instruction and small group activities.  DIBELS can be used to identify areas of weakness within an individual student's fluency, whether it be in phonological or phonemic awareness.    Both assessment tools can be used in conjunction with other assessment used by the school or school district.  The information gathered from both assessment tools will help the teacher design meaningful lessons to increase student reading fluency and comprehension.