Initial Sounds Fluency

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Description of Measure

The DIBELS Initial Sounds Fluency (ISF) Measure is a standardized, individually administered measure of phonological awareness that assesses a child's ability to recognize and produce the initial sound in an orally presented word (Kaminski & Good, 1996, 1998; Laimon, 1994). The ISF measure is a revision of the measure formerly called Onset Recognition Fluency (OnRF). The examiner presents four pictures to the child, names each picture, and then asks the child to identify (i.e., point to or say) the picture that begins with the sound produced orally by the examiner. For example, the examiner says, "This is sink, cat, gloves, and hat. Which picture begins with /s/?" and the student points to the correct picture. The child is also asked to orally produce the beginning sound for an orally presented word that matches one of the given pictures. The examiner calculates the amount of time taken to identify/produce the correct sound and converts the score into the number of initial sounds correct in a minute. The ISF measure takes about 3 minutes to administer and has over 20 alternate forms to monitor progress.

ISF is a measure that assesses phonemic awareness skills. Phonemic awareness is the ability to hear and manipulate sounds in words. It is essential to learning to read in an alphabetic writing system. To learn more about phonemes, phonemic awareness, and how to design and implement effective phonemic awareness instruction, visit the Big Ideas in Beginning Reading Phonemic Awareness pages.

Recommended Administration Periods

The Initial Sounds Fluency measure is typically given in pre-school and Fall and Winter of Kindergarten.

Technical Adequacy Information

Alternate-form reliability of the OnRF measure is .72 in January of kindergarten (Good, Kaminski, Shinn, Bratten, Shinn, & Laimon, in preparation). While that level of reliability is low with respect to standards for educational decision-making (e.g., Salvia & Ysseldyke, 2001), it is remarkable in a one-minute measure, especially one that can be repeated. By repeating the assessment four times, the resulting average has a reliability of .91 (Nunnally, 1978). The concurrent criterion-related validity of OnRF with DIBELS PSF is .48 in January of kindergarten and .36 with the Woodcock-Johnson Psycho-Educational Battery Readiness Cluster score (Good et al., in preparation). The predictive validity of OnRF with respect to spring-of-first-grade reading on CBM ORF is .45, and .36 with the Woodcock-Johnson Psycho-Educational Battery Total Reading Cluster score (Good et al., in preparation).

Resource Links

The following resources are available for this measure:

	DIBELS Administration and Scoring Guide: For complete administration and scoring with more examples than are available in the tutorial.
	Online Tutorial: For administration and scoring directions online with video and audio clips.
	Benchmark Booklets: For the complete set of DIBELS measures administered across a school year.
	Progress monitoring / alternate forms: For a complete booklet of all 20 alternate forms of the measure for regular progress monitoring.
	Big Ideas in Beginning Reading: Learn more about phonemic awareness.

This research is supported, in part, by the Early Childhood Research Institute on Measuring Growth and Development (H180M10006) funded by the U.S. Department of Education, Special Education Programs.