Running Records
What Are Running
Records?
• Written record of reading behaviors
• Assessment for analyzing students’ strengths and
needs
• Assessment of reading level
• Guide to choosing appropriate reading material
• Assessment to determine focus of instruction
• Assessment for monitoring student progress
Why Do We Take
Running Records?
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
To show how students process print
Appropriateness of text
Grouping Students
Monitoring progress
Determines lesson focus
Provides long-term documentation
Focus on strategies used
Steps to Take
• Reading and Record Taking
• Calculate error, accuracy, and selfcorrection rate
• Analyze the running record for cues
used
• Identify appropriate teaching focus
Step 1
Reading and Record Taking on Seen
Text
• Text -the book introduced/read the previous day
• Take the running record
You can use a blank sheet of paper or form
Student reads:
Independently and unprompted
Record text lines as printed in book
**This running record will be used for teaching and planning
instruction
Reading and Record Taking on
Unseen Text (ex. Dominie)
• Select Text
• Short Blurb
• Take the running record
Student reads:
Independently and unprompted
Record text lines as printed in book
** This running record will be used for assessment purposes
Step 2
• Calculate error, accuracy, and self-correction rate.
• Score the following:
Error Rate:
Running words = Error rate
Errors
Self-Correction Ratio:
Errors+ Self-corrections = SC Ratio
Self-Corrections
**Good SC rates are: 1:1, 1:2, 1:3, 1:4, 1;5
Step 3
Running Record Analysis:
A Search for sources of information used by readers:
Why Running records?
Marie Clay (1993) developed running records as a useful, daily, and
more reliable measure of how well children read printed text. Clay
felt teachers could use these records to guide them in their
decisions about any of the following:
evaluation of text difficulty
grouping children
acceleration of a child
monitoring progress of children
allowing different children to move through different
books at different speeds while keeping track and
records of individual progress
observing particular difficulties in particular children
Cont.
• In order to accomplish the goals listed ,
the teacher must analyze running records
to determine the child’s reading behavior.
By analyzing substitutions and selfcorrections made while reading, the
teacher can determine the sources of
information used and the reading
strategies the child has under control.
Sources of Information in
text
•
Printed text contains three sources of information which
the reader used to determine the author’s message. In
addition, the reader brings background information and a
level of understanding of language to interact with these
cues, The sources of information in text are often called
the three reading cue systems. The teacher’s analysis of
the child’s use of meaning, structure, and visual cues is an
important part of the running record analysis. They analyze
the running record by asking themselves, ”up to the point of
this error or substitution, what cue was the child using?”
When a child self-corrects, they also ask themselves, ”what
source of information did the child consider to assist him in
correcting the substitution?”
Step 4
• Identify Appropriate Teaching
Focus- strategies, not skills
Plan instruction based on
student strengths and needs
Select new reading material at
instructional/independent level
Tallying Errors and Self-Corrections
1. Total each line separately going across the line of text.
2. An uncorrected substitution, omission, or insertion counts as one error.
3. Unsuccessful multiple attempts on one word count as only one error
house here her
home
4. An error on a proper noun is counted only on the first error. Subsequent
errors on that proper noun are coded but not tallied.
5. If a word is mispronounced due to a speech problem or dialect, it is coded
but is not an error.
6. Repetitions are coded but are not errors.
7. Waits are coded but are not errors.
8. Sounding the first letter is coded but does not count as an error if the word
is subsequently read correctly.
9. TTA- Try That Again= 1 error
10. Told= 1 error
11. Contractions count as one error
12. Each insertion counts as one error
13. Skipped line- each word counts as an error
14. If a child invents text, just write inventing at the bottom of the
page unless he invented on one line, then count each error
15. The only time the teacher can say anything is when the child
says something like, “I don’t know this word.” If that happens,
code an A on the top line and say ,”Try it.”
Reading Cue Systems
What Are Meaning Cues?
Does it make sense?
Prior Knowledge
Story Sense
Illustrations
Did the child’s attempt make sense up to the point of error? The
teacher might think about the story background, information from
the picture, and meaning in the sentence in deciding whether the
child was using meaning as a source.
Ex.
Child: “Stop”, said the mail man, but the truck went on.
Text: “Stop,” said the mail carrier, but the truck went on.
What Are Structure Cues
•
Does it sound right?
Natural Language
Knowledge of English
Grammatical patterns and language
structures
Structure refers to the way language works. It is often referred to
as a syntax. It is the unconscious knowledge of the rules of
grammar of the language the reader speaks. This helps as he
eliminates alternatives. Using this knowledge, the reader checks
whether the sentence “sounds right.”
Ex.
Child: “Stop,” said the girl, and the truck went on.
Text: “Stop,” said the girl, but the truck went on.
What Are Visual Cues?
•
Does it look right?
Sounds and symbols
Analogies
Print conventions
directionality
words/spaces
letters
beginnings/endings
punctuation
Visual information refers to the way the letters and words look. IF
the letters in the child’s attempt are visually similar to the letters
in the word in the text, it is likely that the reader has used visual
information. Analyzing the reader’s visual attention to words can
be difficult. The child may only be looking at the beginning sound.
He may be only looking at the end. Just knowing that the child is
using some visual information in reading isn’t enough. The teacher
must attend to the types of visual information the child is picking
up.
Ex.
Child: The boat was in the pool.
Text: The boat was in the pond.
What Are Self-Corrections?
When strategic readers monitor their reading, they often
notice that a substitution does not conform to all cues in
text. They notice the discrepancy, go back and sample
other sources of information (cues), and correct their
error. Self-corrections require the readers to search for
and use other cue sources, making sure they are
interpreting the author’s message.
It’s important for a teacher to understand which cues a child
used to make an error as well as the cues used to correct
the error.
Strategic Behaviors to look
for…
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Rereads to search for information
Takes the word apart to figure it out
Tries multiple strategies
Rereads to make sense
Keeps reading after attempting unknown word
“Hears” mistakes that don’t sound right or make sense
Takes actions to fix errors
Cross-checks for beginning visual
Puts words together in meaningful phrases
Predicts an unknown word using meaning
Searches pictures or letters in words to make meaningful
guesses
Recording Noticings
Turn and Talk
• How will you record what you notice
regarding a child’s use of strategic
behaviors?
Now…
• Let’s Practice taking and analyzing a
running record