Letter Naming Fluency

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Description of Measure

DIBELS Letter Naming Fluency (LNF) is a standardized, individually administered test that provides a measure of risk. Students are presented with a page of upper- and lower-case letters arranged in a random order and are asked to name as many letters as they can. Students are told if they do not know a letter they will be told the letter. The student is allowed 1 minute to produce as many letter names as he/she can, and the score is the number of letters named correctly in 1 minute. Students are considered at risk for difficulty achieving early literacy benchmark goals if they perform in the lowest 20% of students in their district. The 20th percentile is calculated using local district norms. Students are considered at some risk if they perform between the 20th and 40th percentile using local norms. Students are considered at low risk if they perform above the 40th percentile using local norms.

Recommended Administration Periods

Letter Naming Fluency is given in Fall, Winter, and Spring of Kindergarten, and Fall of First Grade.

Technical Adequacy Information

The 1-month, alternate-form reliability of LNF is .88 in kindergarten (Good et al., in preparation). The median criterion-related validity of LNF with the Woodcock-Johnson Psycho-Educational Battery-Revised readiness cluster standard score is .70 in kindergarten (Good et al., in preparation). The predictive validity of kindergarten LNF with first-grade Woodcock-Johnson Psycho-Educational Battery-Revised Reading Cluster standard score is .65 and .71 with first-grade CBM reading (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.

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.