Monomoy holds parent literacy night to explain I‑Ready diagnostic and DIBELS screener

Monomoy Regional School District hosted a parent literacy night where district leaders outlined how the new I‑Ready diagnostic and the DIBELS early‑literacy screener inform classroom instruction and summer practice. Lindseay Hooper, the district’s ELA and humanities director, opened the session and said the event’s goal was to give families strategies to prevent the “summer slide.”

The presentation focused on two tools. Hooper described I‑Ready as an adaptive computer diagnostic used in reading and math across grades K–8 and said it is administered three times a year. “We’re going to talk about I Ready, which is our new diagnostic,” Hooper told attendees. Dr. Millan, identified during the presentation as the assistant superintendent, referred to I‑Ready as a “Goldilocks test,” explaining the program adjusts question difficulty to find the level where learning can occur.

Why it matters: I‑Ready results are used to plan tier‑1 whole‑class instruction and to identify students who need tier‑2 or tier‑3 interventions, presenters said. Hooper said families will receive individualized I‑Ready reports sent home along with a one‑page guide to help interpret the graphs.

Presenters also described DIBELS (presenters pronounced it “Dibbles”), an early‑literacy screening battery given three times a year in Monomoy’s elementary grades. “We conduct the dibbles testing on every student K through four,” Amanda Julen, one of the reading specialists, told the audience. According to the presenters, DIBELS includes brief one‑minute subtests that sample phonemic awareness, phonics, nonsense‑word decoding, word‑reading fluency and a maze comprehension check. Staff said DIBELS also supports progress monitoring for students who are flagged; progress monitoring typically occurs twice a month.

The team walked parents through the subtests and what each measures: phonemic awareness (segmenting and blending sounds), phonics (letter–sound knowledge and decoding), nonsense‑word reading (ability to apply phonics rules to unfamiliar words), oral reading fluency (accuracy, rate and expression) and the maze comprehension task for grades two–four. Presenters said fluency targets about 95–96 percent accuracy and stressed that automaticity in word recognition supports comprehension.

Resources and summer access: Hooper said the district provides a MyPath learning component that personalizes lessons from I‑Ready and will be available to students through Aug. 14. Staff reported that professional learning guidance from I‑Ready recommends about 39 minutes per week as a “sweet spot” for summer use to limit screen time while maintaining progress.

An audience member asked whether the DIBELS screening is administered one‑on‑one or on a computer. Presenters clarified most DIBELS subtests are administered one‑on‑one by a teacher and that only the maze comprehension piece is typically completed on a computer in class. Attendees were invited to visit elementary, middle, high‑school and library tables after the presentation for more specific strategies and community resources.

The district said it will post resources and links online and send I‑Ready reports home with students; parents were encouraged to contact their child’s teacher with further questions.