Sarah Sell
ELD 307- Emergent Literacy P-3
Dr. McKool
March 28, 2011
Assessment: Running Records
14
Purpose of Assessment
Running records have a distinct purpose in literary instruction. As Rutzel and Cooter stated “It is
important that teachers follow student’s phonics and words attack skills throughout the year. The
most widely used method for doing so is called the running record” (Rutzel and Cooter, 38).
Running records are also a way to analyze students reading behaviors by monitoring student’s
decoding skills in reading fluency and comprehension strategies while reading. Marie Clay
formalized the methodology of running records as an assessment to analyze oral reading errors.
What makes running records so effective and efficient is that they are “… an informative
assessment procedure with a high reliability that inform teachers regarding students decoding
development” (Rutzel and Cooter, 42). When conducting a running record, the assessor is to be
looking for/ recording miscues the child makes while reading. Clay has developed a systematic
method for identifying these errors, known as the MSV analysis. “This interpretative strategy
enables you to determine whether that student uses three primary cues when she encounters a
new word and a miscue occurs: meaning cues (M), syntax cues (S), visual cues (V)” (Rutzel and
Cooter, 43). Running records should be conducted at the beginning, middle and end of the year
to note the student’s progress in reading fluency and comprehension. In addition to fluency and
comprehension, a running record is also a beneficial tool in identifying student’s sight word
proficiency level, vocabulary stage, reading rate, and oral language comfort level. Running
records are essential to conduct on emerging readers continually to identify areas of difficulty
that can aid and supplement in designing and implementing reading instruction.
Introduction to Child and Setting
On March 15, 2011 I conducted the second of four running records with a female student, Jill,
from Mrs. Cox’s third grade class. The time was approximately 10:45 when we ventured out into
the hallway for her to read to me her selected folktale Borreguita and the Coyote by Verna
Aardema. Jill is a polite and cooperative student although academically, she is a remedial reader
and struggles in mathematics as well. Her reading and fluency rates are low and comprehension
of her readings askew. She is a diligent student who works hard at literacy instruction by paying
close attention in lecture and avidly reading during SSR and at home as seen in class and in her
reading log. However, she still has difficulty cohesively reciting text and furthermore processing
what she reads into a proper sequence of events.
Methodology
The method used to conduct the running record was the format as described and illustrated in
Reutzel and Cooter’s The Essentials of Teaching Children to Read: the Teacher Makes the
Difference. To notate miscues, Figure 2.8- Notating miscues in a running record were employed
(Rutzel and Cooter, 44). From it, the assessor is able to identify:
 Accurate reading in the form of checkmarks
 Self- Corrections denoted by a SC
 Omissions with a line over the word omitted,
 Insertions with a strike under the word inserted,

Students appeals noted with an A next to the line above the word in the text the students
needed assistance with
 Repletion with and R where the reader stopped reading and an arrow to where they
started at again
 Substitution was denoted by the substituted word over the word in the text
 and Teacher assistance was given after five seconds of waiting for the child to respond
but failed to do so and it is marked with a T next to the word and a line above it as well.
After miscues were noted from a text the child was reading, the miscues were evaluated using
Clay’s MVS analysis. These cueing strategies consist of:
 M for semantic or meaning (does it make sense?)
 S for Structure or syntax (does it sound right?)
 V for Visual or Graphophonic (Does it look right?)
These notes were recorded on a typed copy of the text and one 127 word passage was translated
onto a miscue grid for clearer interpretation.
The student was able to select the text of their choice but because the running record was
conducted when students were instructed to read their folktales, Jill read the folktale she had
selected from a Latin American bin of folklore. We sat side by side, and I introduced the
assessment to her by reminding her that I was studying to be a teacher, and just as Mrs. Cox
listens to her read, I wanted to participate in this as well. She was reluctant to read to me, and
thus, I began the running record on a blank sheet of paper and later copied the text and
transcribed the miscue notes and analysis to it.
Description of Findings
After analyzing Jill’s running record for Borreguita and the Coyote of miscues, it was concluded
overall that on average for every 100 words she read, 98 of them were correct putting her at a
98% fluency rate and at the independent level of reading. This percentage was formulated from
the number of words she had corrected out of a one hundred word passage. In identifying her
miscues, it was concluded that the majority of them were visual, eleven to be exact while one
was a syntax miscue. Her vast amounts of visual miscues were deduced from the similar look of
the word in the text to the word she stated. They contained a majority of the same letters and
same number of letters. This proves Jill is attempting to apply her knowledge of phonics to assist
her in decoding unknown words. It is her lack of fluency and miscues that ultimately caused her
greater fault in comprehension of the text.
While her fluency was proficient in this particular text, her comprehension of it was less than
satisfactory. Her response when asked to restate the text was that ‘the coyote was after the sheep
but the sheep would escape’. When I asked for more details she explained the story to me with
the events out of order, omitting many and primarily only stating events in the beginning and the
ending. She also analyzed the story more than retold it in terms of its moral and characters. Also,
because I had pulled her out to read to me when that class was identifying folktale elements, I
asked her what the elements of folktales were in this particular text. Jill struggled to recall all of
the elements of folktales except for the moral which was a substantial answer. However, I had to
prompt her in recalling the other five/six elements of folktales we had discussed only a few days
prior and then guide her to where these elements were in Borreguita and the Coyote. I attempted
to organize her thinking and draw more information about the story out of her by asking non
2
direct questions such as what happened first, second, next, etc. With this she was able to provide
me with a detailed retelling of the story that I was initially hoping she would provide.
Using Findings to Inform Instruction
Upon entering the classroom from the hallway after conducting this record, my cooperating
teacher asked to see the results, and then nonchalantly asked me, “now what are you going to tell
her?” I was blinded by this question and fumbled for an answer, but I understand now with
further study of running records, conducting more of them and with the guidance from my
cooperating teacher, that to Jill specifically, I would focus on how her miscues affected her
comprehension of the text. One simple strategy I would use would be after a miscue to give a
simple ‘hmm’. My hope is that this cues the students to realize that something was read
incorrectly and so they must reread to uncover and correct their error. Similarly with this
message, it should prompt the students to be conscience while they read, and my tip off should
indicate to them that of what they are reading, some part of it did not make sense to me and
therefore the story should no longer be comprehensive to them. I want Jill to be using
comprehension strategies while she reads as opposed after. Therefore, another strategy I would
exercise might be to instruct her on comprehension strategies while reading considering that
comprehension of the text was the area in which she had the most difficulty. I might instruct her
to internally questioning herself as she reads asking after a page or a paragraph ‘is the story
making sense?’ or ‘did this page/paragraph make sense?’ Other creditable comprehension
strategies I might refer to her after conducting the record would be a graphic organizer because
for narrative texts, many make clear distinctions of sequence of events words including, first,
second, presently, suddenly, etc. which I feel would best help her to organize her thinking.
Another comprehension strategy I would enforce would be encouraging Jill’s
metacomprehension. I feel that this will be a beneficial strategy for Jill specifically because
“If a reader fails to detect comprehension breakdowns, then she or he will take no action to correct
misinterpretation of the text, However, if a reader expects that text should make sense and has the ability to
strategically self correct comprehension problems, then reading can progress as it should” (Rutzel and Cooter,
182-183).
Two ways of scaffolding children to monitor their comprehension processes is through ‘Click or
Clunk’ and ‘Fix-ups’. The final comprehension strategy for Jill would be instruction on
summarizing. “Summarizing is important because it helps readers select and store relevant main
ideas and details from their reading to form memory structure for text” as we want Jill to do
(Rutzel and Cooter, 184). To instruct upon the summarizing process, the steps to producing a
summary by Hare and Borchordt (1984) had been proven as highly effective. They suggest using
collapsed lists, topic sentences, omitting unnecessary details, collapsed paragraphs, and the
polish summary of collapsing many paragraphs into one.
As for Jill’s miscues, since almost all of them were visual means that she is working to apply her
phonics skills in decoding difficult words. Therefore, the instruction I would implement would
be more teaching of phonics. I feel that one of the most beneficial forms would be Synthetic
Phonics instruction. Jill’s decoding of the word in the text is very similar to what is actually
printed, and therefore, by working with her more on the strategy of sounding the word out, she
can master the word on the page. I would also do more imbedded phonics instruction with her as
it is an implicit approach that fosters other decoding strategies such as using context and pictorial
3
cues. Also, for a third grader, teaching phonics should be more imbedded into reading as with
time phonics becomes an innate process and no longer instructed upon in higher grade levels.
Finally, I would inform her of how to attack unknown words using structural analysis with is a
method used to decode words by breaking them up into chunks. “Structural analysis of word
takes decoding to a new and higher level. This is a particularly important strategy for children in
the second and third grade, during which multisyllabic word become common and must be
decoded into chunks” (Rutzel and Cooter, 31-31).
Overall, I was pleased with Jill’s performance and feel that all she needs is more instruction on
comprehension strategies and on phonics. When provided the proper tools to decode text and
interpret it, she will be well on her way to becoming a more proficient reader.
4