LR440 Interim Study Plan: Reading Screeners and Third-Grade Reading Proficiency

My Views Are My Own

By Lisa Schonhoff, Ed.S.

7/27/2026

Nebraska has invested approximately $80 million to improve literacy statewide. Currently, 59% of students are proficient on the Nebraska Student-Centered Assessment System (NSCAS). To accelerate progress, the Nebraska Department of Education (NDE) has set an ambitious goal: 75% of students proficient in reading by the end of third grade by 2030. A key pillar of this initiative is the statewide adoption and implementation of the DIBELS early literacy screener.  Last week I had the opportunity to attend an Interim Study with Senator Jana Hughes, causing me to dig into the advantages and challenges of mandating a literacy screener for all 244 school districts in Nebraska.  

What is DIBELS?

The DIBELS screener is an assessment that will be given three times a year to help flag students who may be in jeopardy of falling through the cracks in reading.  The NDE put out the following statement:  “To achieve Nebraska’s goal of at least 75% proficiency on Grade 3 state reading assessments (NSCAS-ELA), it has become clear that a system allowing wide variability in K-3 screening tools will not produce the consistent outcomes our students deserve.” 

 DIBELS ® (Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills) is a set of procedures and measures for assessing the acquisition of literacy skills. They are designed to be short (one minute) fluency measures that can be used to regularly detect risk and monitor the development of early literacy and early reading skills in kindergarten through eighth grade.

The measures are consistent with many of the Common Core State Standards in Reading, especially those for Foundational Skills. When implemented as recommended, DIBELS results can be used to evaluate individual student development as well as provide grade-level feedback toward validated instructional objectives.

A Brief History of the Steady Decline of Literacy in the United States

Looking back at the 1970s and 1980s, stagnating national proficiency rates sparked a "Back to Basics" movement that placed a heavy emphasis on systematic phonics. However, as literacy scores continued to decline into the 1990s, the educational pendulum swung dramatically toward Whole Language instruction. Whole Language was heavily marketed as the reading approach backed by sixty years of evidence showing its success in improving literacy outcomes.  

Over the next several decades, as the Whole Language approach spread across classrooms nationwide, literacy proficiency rates continued a steady and alarming decline. As lawmakers and education experts now work to correct course, it is crucial to ground future policy in a comprehensive understanding of effective literacy instruction—rather than falling prey to catchy taglines that merely trigger another reactionary pendulum swing.

DIBELS in Nebraska

Selecting a single universal screener for the entire state is a bold initiative—one that requires continuous reflection and open dialogue.  Prior to this statewide selection,16 Nebraska school districts were already using the DIBELS screener.  In my ongoing conversations with educators statewide, I continue to hear a wide range of perspectives on the effectiveness, particularly regarding the need for robust professional development to ensure it is used effectively.

When gathering feedback on the DIBELS screener, educators frequently note that the one-on-one administration can be both time-consuming and logistically challenging. While teachers value the consistency of a unified statewide tool, many feel DIBELS falls short in assessing comprehension.  In education, we know that what gets assessed ultimately gets taught. Currently, the assessment relies solely on the Maze strategy for comprehension—a standardized task where every seventh word is replaced with a multiple-choice box of options. Because students simply select the word or phrase that fits, this measures low-level, word-by-word processing rather than a student's holistic understanding of the passage as a whole.

A key strength of the DIBELS screener is its evaluation of reading fluency—an essential component of reading proficiency. However, the assessment places a heavy emphasis on speed and words-per-minute. This approach risks shifting the focus away from true comprehension, prioritizing rapid reading over meaningful understanding of the text. Consequently, it is critical that educators remember the true purpose of a screener: to flag students who may need additional support, rather than serving as a curriculum itself.

A significant portion of the DIBELS screener assesses phonics nonsense word fluency. While this metric can be useful for identifying risk factors like dyslexia, heavy emphasis on non-words offers limited instructional value for most students. Furthermore, it can create unnecessary confusion for Emergent Bilinguals and Multilingual Learners who are actively building real-world English vocabulary.

While no literacy screener is perfect, anticipating and addressing their inherent gaps is essential.  Another critical, yet often overlooked component of literacy is writing, which plays a vital role in advancing overall literacy outcomes. While DIBELS measures foundational phonics skills, it will be essential that teachers have an understanding of the limitations in using a screener as a means to a comprehensive curriculum.  With that being said, the screener may be impactful in determining which classrooms and schools are successful with literacy instruction and those that may need to make some serious shifts with reading instruction.