development of phonological awareness, alphabetic understanding, and automaticity and

fluency with the code. Each measure has been thoroughly researched and demonstrated to

be reliable and valid indicators of early literacy development and predictive of later

reading proficiency to aid in the early identification of students who are not progressing

as expected. When used as recommended, the results can be used to evaluate individual

student development as well as provide grade-level feedback toward validated

instructional objectives. The website http://dibels.uoregon.edu displays reliability and

validity information for the DIBELS ORF: test-retest reliability for elementary students

ranges from .92 to .97; alternate form reliability ranges from .89 to .94, and criterion-

related validity ranges from .52 to .91. Spring benchmark goals for a trajectory of

progress of words correct per minute in grade-level material (Good, Simmons, &

Kame'enui, 2001)

 Comprehensive Test of Phonological Processing (CTOPP). In order to assess

phonological awareness and rapid-naming, the Comprehensive Test of Phonological

Processing (CTOPP) is used. In particular, two subtests including a test of phoneme

elision and blending into words is utilized for assessing phonological awareness. The

subtest of CTOPP, the Phonological Awareness Quotient (PAQ), measures an

individual's awareness and access to the phonological structure of oral language.

Specifically, these two measures were administered to determine students' abilities to

process and manipulate sounds. One subtest of CTOPP, the Rapid-Naming Quotient

(RNQ) measures the examinee's efficient retrieval of phonological information from

long-term or permanent memory, as well as the examinee's ability to execute a sequence

of operations quickly and repeatedly (Wagner et al., 1999). A serial naming of digits and