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Below Benchmark. Between the benchmark and cut point for risk is a range of scores where students’ future
performance is more difficult to predict. For students with scores in this range, the overall likelihood of achieving
subsequent early literacy and/or reading benchmarks is approximately 40% to 60%. In this range, a student’s future
performance is harder to predict. These students are likely to need strategic support to ensure their achievement of future
benchmarks. Strategic support generally consists of carefully targeted supplemental support in specic skill areas in which
students are having difficulty. To ensure that the greatest number of students achieve later reading success, it is best for
students with scores in this range to be monitored regularly to ensure that they are making adequate progress and to
receive increased or modied support if necessary to achieve subsequent reading benchmarks.
Well Below Benchmark. For students who score below the cut point for risk, the overall likelihood of achieving
subsequent early literacy and/or reading benchmarks is low, approximately 10% to 20%. These students are identied
as likely to need intensive support. Intensive support refers to interventions that incorporate something more or
something different from the core curriculum or supplemental support.
Intensive support might entail:
• delivering instruction in a smaller group or individually,
• providing more instructional time or more practice,
• presenting smaller skill steps in the instructional hierarchy,
• providing more explicit modeling and instruction, and/or
• providing greater scaffolding and practice.
Because students who need intensive support are likely to have individual needs, we recommend that their progress be
monitored frequently and their intervention modied dynamically to ensure adequate progress.
To gain a better understanding of what Acadience Reading results mean in a local context, districts and schools can
examine the linkages between the Acadience Reading benchmarks and cut points for risk and their own outcome
assessments, such as state-level criterion-referenced tests. By comparing Acadience Reading measures to an outcomes
assessment (e.g., Buck & Torgesen, 2003; Wilson, 2005), and by calculating conditional probabilities (e.g., “80% of
students at benchmark on Acadience Reading ORF at the end of third grade met the Procient level on the state criterion-
referenced test”), schools can determine how the Acadience Reading benchmarks compare to their own external criteria.
The Acadience Reading benchmarks and cut points for risk, along with a brief description of how the Acadience Reading
benchmarks were developed, are described in the sections below.
Table 1 summarizes the design specications for achieving later reading outcomes and provides descriptions for the likely
need for support for each of the benchmark status levels. It is important to note that while there is an overall likelihood for
each benchmark status level, within each level the likelihood of achieving later reading outcomes increases as students’
scores increase. This is illustrated in the rst column of Table 1.
Development of Benchmarks
The Acadience Reading benchmarks, cut points for risk, and Composite Score were developed based upon data collected
in a study conducted during the 2009–2010 school year. The benchmarks are based on research that examined the
predictive probability of a score on a measure at a particular point in time, compared to later Acadience Reading measures
and external measures of reading prociency and achievement. The external criterion measure of reading prociency was
the Group Reading and Diagnostic Evaluation (GRADE; Williams, 2001). The 40th percentile on the GRADE assessment
was used as an indicator that the students had adequate early literacy and/or reading skills for their grade. Data for the
study were collected in thirteen elementary and middle schools in ve states. Data collection included administering the
Acadience Reading measures to participating students in grades K–6 in addition to the GRADE. Participants in the study
were 3,816 students across grades K–6 from general education classrooms who were receiving English language reading
instruction, including students with disabilities and students who were English language learners, provided they had the
response capabilities to participate. The study included both students who were struggling in reading and those who
were typically achieving. A subset of the total sample participated in the GRADE assessment (n = 1,306 across grades
K–6). Additional information about the study can be found in DIBELS Next®
1
: Findings from the Benchmark Goals Study,
available from www.acadiencelearning.org.
1
Acadience
®
Reading K–6 is the new name for the DIBELS Next
®
assessment. Acadience is a registered trademark of Acadience Learning Inc. The DIBELS Next copyrighted content is owned by
Acadience Learning Inc. The DIBELS
®
and DIBELS Next registered trademark was sold by Acadience Learning Inc. to the University of Oregon (UO) and is now owned by the UO.