A reliability and validity study of the dynamic indicators of basic early literacy skills-modified

This study examined the psychometric properties of a set of preliteracy mea sures modified from the Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills ( DIBELS) with a sample of 75 kindergarten students. The modified battery (ca lled DIBELS-M) includes measures of Letter Naming Fluency, Sound Naming Flu ency, Initial Phoneme Ability, and Phonemic Segmentation Ability. These mea sures were assessed through repeated administrations in 2-week intervals at the end of the kindergarten year. Interrater reliability estimates and coe fficients of stability and equivalence for three of the measures ranged fro m .80 to the mid .90s with about one-half of the coefficients above .90. Co rrelations between DIBELSM scores and criterion measures of phonological aw areness, standardized achievement measures, and teacher ratings of achievem ent yielded concurrent validity coefficients ranging from .60 to .70. Hiera rchical regression analysis showed that the four DIBELS-M measures accounte d for 73% of the variance in scores on the Skills Cluster of the Woodcock-J ohnson Psychoeducational Battery-Revised (WJ-R). The results of the analysi s support the use of the DIBELS-M measures for identification of kindergart en students who are at-risk for reading failure and for progress monitoring . The contributions of the study, including psychometric analysis of the DI BELS-M with a new sample and formation of composite scores, are discussed i n relation to the extant literature.