TWGPC20: Linking academic and functional outcomes using the DIBELS

[00:00:00] It's Cheri from The Writing Glitch Pocket Cast. Yeah, you have missed a few weeks with me because. The holiday brought us a vacation with our daughter, and I followed up with some bronchitis. Oh, well, but you know, such as life. Anyway. We are back in the swing of, uh, sessions. Uh, for people to get their dysgraphia certification. [00:00:32] At our last event. We had this discussion about DIBELS. DIBELS is a reading fluency assessment that many teachers do. They also can do. Similar ones. In the school district. Anyway, DIBELS. It is a reading fluency assessment. And. [00:01:00] [00:01:00] We, as OTs, don't necessarily understand all that's involved. [00:01:09] Uh, assessing. That formative assessment of the reading. [00:01:16] And. [00:01:18] This discussion that you were going to hear. It was a monthly discussion that meets on a monthly basis. To earn their dysgraphia certification. [00:01:32] They're currently, we were discussing module two. And that is all about reading and writing. And what are the definitions of dysgraphia? [00:01:44] So this is a little excerpt from that. Evening. About the DIBELS.[00:01:55] Cheri: Does your school use DIBELS? That was one of the things we were going to follow up on. [00:01:59] Carol: I [00:02:00] had never heard of it before. [00:02:02] Cheri: My school just started it again. Okay. [00:02:05] Teresa: But it's only, I think it's K 1 2. The other kids continue their actions, but K 1 2. We had it. We lost, we left it. They came back with it because of the new guidelines.[00:02:18] Carol: I'm pretty sure we pulled it up because we looked at what they ask for in high school and what they ask for in kindergarten.[00:02:24] Cheri: I put that question in because I wanted us to think about, as OTs, we understand neuroscience.[00:02:36] Cheri: We understand since preprocessing, we don't understand academics. And that's why I built that module up, and I added all that information about assessments in there because I didn't know that either. And I was like, Oh, I got to share this. Oh, I got to share this. Oh, I got to share this. And when I realized how [00:03:00] intense the DIBELS is.[00:03:02] Cheri: I wanted to ensure people were aware of it and align it with your school's program. [00:03:11] Carol:  I wasn't sure when you said the reading participation, but as far as an assessment, I think you're right.[00:03:15] Carol: We don't know. And like Teresa said, we. We're unfamiliar with what it is, but to work holistically with this child, we need to know all that and not necessarily take it. What is written in the evaluation report or IEP, they're reading at this level? I do think, and I mentioned it a lot at my meetings after evaluations, that we often ask, I'm like, what is their reading level? Because we are looking at the reading and the writing. Usually, it goes hand in hand, and if we've got reading up here and our report is down here.[00:03:46] Teresa: When you go to those meetings, and you tell the team that this kid can't write, and they'll go, but they can read.[00:03:53] Teresa: So they don't understand that they're two separate pieces where you'll tell them. Yes, they can read and they may be at grade [00:04:00] level for reading, but they don't get the concepts of the writing and they have so because they can read and a lot of our dysgraphic kids can read, but are they, and then you can go into to they understand understanding what they're reading?[00:04:12] Teresa: Because some of those kids Can read, but can they understand it? Can they, that comprehension you're going to read? You know what I'm saying? So you'