Chamari Davis
Early Childhood Education
Running Records
April 17th, 2013
Burke interviews, running records, and retelling discussions are ways in which
you can assess students to get a better understanding of children’s reading strategies and
behaviors. I conducted each of these types of assessments with two first graders attending
Lebanon Elementary School. This essay will include an analysis of each assessment
along with the overall importance they play in providing a great education to children that
is developmentally appropriate.
The overall purpose of the Burke reading interview is to assess children’s purpose
of reading and the strategies they use when they come across material they are unfamiliar
with. Through this interview you can also find out information about the readers’
attitudes and confidence about reading, how much reading goes on at home, etc. A simple
interview done by the teacher will make them aware of which children are only familiar
with one strategy or simply lack awareness of others. The necessary actions of
intervening with that child, providing examples to different approaches in front of the
classroom, and a constant reminder to children to use different strategies before giving up
should be done in order to make your classroom better readers. Making predictions, using
context cues, visualizing the text, asking questions, making connections, and
summarizing the text are examples of effective strategies an active reader can use to
better comprehend the text. You want children to understand that the overall purpose of
reading is to understand, not to just finish the book. Active readers are those that are
aware of their thinking while reading and take action when they get lost in the meaning.
Chamari Davis
Early Childhood Education
Running Records
April 17th, 2013
All students should strive to become active readers since it will allow them to better
comprehend and make even “boring” texts meaningful.
Young children are not completely at fault at picking up the most common bad
reading habit of decoding the words. The typical thing for an adult to say to an early
reader who come across words they don’t know is sound it out. What many fail to realize
is that if a child focuses and spend lots of time decoding the words being read, that will
decrease their fluency, which then decreases their overall comprehension of the text.
Teaching children that reading is simply saying all of the words on the page correctly,
will not encourage behaviors of critically thinking, asking questions, and most
importantly self-monitoring their comprehension of the text. A race to the end would be
the subliminal message children would think of when reading if only being reminded to
sound things out.
To perceive the awareness of reading strategies of these two children I simply
asked them what they already knew. The first child interviewed was a boy named
Jeremiah who very confidently stated, “I don’t get any words wrong.“ when asked what
he does when he comes across a word he doesn’t know. In this particular classroom they
have a reading system in that Ms. Rackliffe help determines which level they are on and
what level books they should be bringing home every night to read. Jeremiah expressed
that he is aware of his reading level based on the reading system in the classroom and he
already knows what levels he’s already completed. When asked about the use of reading
Chamari Davis
Early Childhood Education
Running Records
April 17th, 2013
strategies, Jeremiah said that he uses the skip and return strategy in that you skip the
word you don’t know, continue reading, and then returns back. This tells me that
Jeremiah uses and is aware of the importance of context cues that is there to help provide
comprehension. Using context cues in text are good clues of self-monitoring and being an
active reader, which are behaviors we should encourage. If I were Jeremiah’s teacher I
would compliment him for using the skip and return strategy and tell him it shows me
that he’s reading to understand. Although I have no directional suggestions I would still
make sure he had a reading strategy bookmark just to remind of things to do when his
strategy doesn’t work.
On the other hand, the other child interviewed was Abigail who may need more
direct instruction when it comes to reading strategies. Abigail was unaware of any
strategies and said she just sounds a word out if she doesn’t know it. She also stated that
she tries to identify little words within a big word if she cannot read it. Both responses
tell me that Abigail is only familiar with decoding as a strategy whether it be by sound or
by chunking the words. Although some reading strategies may seem automatic to us so
we can’t recognize them, as an early reader this may be a problem. First graders should
definitely be aware of the term reading strategies and what they consist of since this age
group are beginning to read and should comprehend what they read. This allowed me to
predict that Abigail may be a reader that focuses so much on finishing a book rather than
understanding it, so she may have trouble with the retelling portion of this observation.
Suggestions for Abigail’s future with reading would include direct instruction on
Chamari Davis
Early Childhood Education
Running Records
April 17th, 2013
awareness of different reading strategies and huge reminder to her the importance of
reading is to understand. As a first grade educator I would constantly stress in my
classroom that without comprehension, reading has no purpose.
The second part of this observation was doing the running record with the two
children. Running records is a way to assess children’s text reading one on one. Sharon
Taberski believes “Running records provide greater flexibility and many more
opportunities for assessment since they can be taken “on the run” using any text a child is
reading.” in comparison to other forms of assessment before this. According to Marie M.
Clay, running records have 3 main purposes; to guide teaching, to assess text difficulty,
and to capture progress. Doing running records allow teachers to observe a student’s
reading strategies, how they integrate the three cueing strategies, and other reading
behaviors. Like stated previously, reading strategies are the techniques used when there is
a lost of comprehension during reading. A child self-monitoring and self correcting their
reading will give you an understanding of why a child may have messed up in their text.
There are three cueing systems that we use to comprehend things we are confused
during reading. The first cueing system is the semantic cue whose focus is meaning. This
is when we ask ourselves does the reading make sense. Context clues and the use of prior
knowledge will allow you to make sense of the text. The more prior knowledge or
schema someone has on what is being read, the more familiar they will be with the
vocabulary which will then allow the reader to be fluent. If a child lacks the schema, it
will slow down their fluency, which then affects their comprehension. A child
Chamari Davis
Early Childhood Education
Running Records
April 17th, 2013
self-correcting their reading mistakes often does so because it doesn’t make sense.
Instructional strategies to help children enable the semantic cueing system is to allow
children to make predictions, fill in the blank, create webs, and encourage making
connections to the text. However, if a young reader is dependent just on meaning they
may omit or add many words to the texts so you also want to encourage looking at the
letters and sounds.
The second cueing system is the syntax cue which primary question is does it
sound right. Syntax looks at the rules of a language and if the words in the sentences
come together to make sense. This cue comes from the student’s knowledge of oral
structures that can be extremely difficult to understand when trying to learn in a different
language. For example, there are different oral language rules when talking in Spanish so
a student who may be learning English may have trouble understanding the structure of a
sentence. English language learners and English as a second language students will have
lots of difficulty in this area especially with unique phrases since they are still developing
orally and still cant distinguish is something sounds right. Behaviors that indicate a child
is using the syntax cueing system is if a child says a different word than the text but yet it
still follows the rules of language and makes no grammatical error. Examples of teaching
strategies that can be effective for readers having trouble with syntax are covering up the
next word in text and modeling complex structured sentences. However, if a child just
relies on syntactic cues you want to promote the importance of semantic cues as well as
visual cues.
Chamari Davis
Early Childhood Education
Running Records
April 17th, 2013
Our last cueing system is the visual cues which focus question is does it look
right. Breaking down words by their sounds, syllables, compound, etc. derive from a
child’s phonological awareness that letters and sounds have a relationship and is how
letters are formed to then create words. Children often use this decoding strategy when
they sound a word out as they are trying to match the text on the page with what they are
saying. Instructional ideas that should be used for children having difficulty with using
visual cues are practice with word families, syllables, affixes, as well as exposure to big
words. Making big words will allow the class to see the letter sound relationship letters
have that come together to create words. The purpose and meaning of the literature
should be asked to the child if they are using visual cues to complete texts.
Besides being able to observe children’s reading strategies and behaviors, the
second purpose of conducting a running record is to assess the text difficulty. The
readability of the text can change throughout the story so you want to make sure the text
is just right for the reader. There are even specific accuracy rates that determine if the
book is the perfect match. Ninety-six percent and above means the text is too easy.
Ninety-one through ninety-five percent means the text fall right in the zone of proximal
development which means guidance and instruction should be needed. A child scoring
anything fewer than ninety would mean the text is too hard. Hard texts means there
would be a lack of fluency, decrease in comprehension, decrease in confidence, and an
increase in frustration. According to Taberski, “Matching them with the “just-right” book
allows them to use a variety of information sources and strategies as they read and stay
Chamari Davis
Early Childhood Education
Running Records
April 17th, 2013
engaged in their reading longer.” It is important that as an educator we make children feel
confident and comfortable in reading but also challenge them to use strategies on their
own to become even greater active readers.
The last very meaningful purpose of running records is to capture the progress
being made overtime. With running records you are able to make judgments about what
the child have already accomplished as a reader, what the child needs more work on, and
how far the child must go in order to reach a goal. Children love being able to see how
much they have progressed as a learner, so being able to compare their past behaviors as
a reader and difficulties, increases their confidence level since they can themselves
witness change. Running records allow a teacher to be one on one with a child to remind
them what they’re already doing well and is where teachers can suggests new readings
that would be appropriate for them. Now that the importance of running records has been
discussed, here is what happened during my observation in Lebanon Elementary. Both
children read a seen and unseen book to me that I did a running record on. After doing
this I was able to learn more about the reader’s strategies, use of cues, and pick up on the
children’s patterns of errors if any.
Jeremiah first read the book “Boring Old Bed” by Joy Cowley. This book would
be considered easy based on his accuracy rate of ninety-seven percent. With only six
mistakes made and one self-correction, I analyzed those mistakes to see if there were any
patterns of errors. I found that there was an even amount of use of semantics and syntax.
This tells me that when Jeremiah comes across a word he doesn’t know, he makes sure
Chamari Davis
Early Childhood Education
Running Records
April 17th, 2013
the word he says still makes sense, and sound correct. Although he used visual cues
during this reading, his substitutions were either synonyms or closely spelled words that
still makes sense that is signs of understanding. In fact, his only self-correction in this
book used the semantic cue in order to make sense. After reading this book with no sign
of frustration, I was eager to see how he would do on a book that he hadn’t read before.
The second book read by Jeremiah was “Mad Dog” by Marjorie Adams. During
this running record he made eighteen mistakes that calculated to a ninety three percent
accuracy rate making this book great for guided reading. With three self-corrections the
ratio is 1:7. The pattern of errors that immediately stuck out to me was the use of short
vowels. Jeremiah made mistakes on the words puffs, smells, stamps, pants, get, and say.
Another pattern of errors I noticed was the trouble of adding a plural s to the end of a
word and the difficulty with tense. Jeremiah would change a word to the present tense but
didn’t recognize that it didn’t make sense. He mainly used visual cues to help his come
across a word he doesn’t know which tells me there is a lot of time being spent on
decoding. Although Jeremiah previously stated that he uses the skip and return strategy, I
didn’t see any behavior of that while doing this running record since there would have
been lots of omitting and repetition.
After looking at the running records of Jeremiah’s reading there are a couple
suggestions I would make to better his comprehension. Since Jeremiah mainly used
visual cues as a strategy, he needs to be aware of the using context clues and making sure
text makes sense and sounds right. By changing the tense or not making a word plural,
Chamari Davis
Early Childhood Education
Running Records
April 17th, 2013
you are making the text not make sense, which is the overall purpose of reading. Reading
texts that just look like the original words, doesn’t help when trying to make predictions
and make connections since the information you would be inferring is incorrect. Practice
with syntax would be a very useful strategy to Jeremiah since it would teach him how we
structure our sentences to both sound right and to help with our comprehension.
The next running record was on Abigail who first read the book “Two Crazy
Pigs” by Karen Berman Nigel. Overall she made very little mistakes and had a ninety-six
percent accuracy rate making this book easy. This book had included proper names such
as Henhawk, Fenster, and Shirley that she messed up on. Proper names are very difficult
for early readers since they are forced to use phonics to decode the word. Visual cues
were the strategy used for other mistakes as well which makes leads me to believe that
Abigail isn’t questioning if things make sense or sound correct. The second book Abigail
read was “Staying Alive” by Jenny Feely. Since this is a non-fiction book about animals,
I knew that Abigail probably needed a lot of prior knowledge in order to have the
necessary vocabulary to understand and read this book. Like I predicted, there were some
very unique words for a first grader to know. Poisonous, predators, and echidnas were
some of the terms included in the book that Abigail had an error on. Abigail used visual
cues for all of her errors. This is not surprising since she had no idea of what reading
strategies were and said she sounded out words when she came across a word she doesn’t
need. With Abigail relying on visual cues, that means she spend more time decoding the
texts than reading for meaning which then decreases fluency and affects comprehension.
Chamari Davis
Early Childhood Education
Running Records
April 17th, 2013
If she is constantly substituting words that simply look like the word, the texts can gain a
different meaning and become only more confusing. Direct reading instruction may is
necessary for Abigail in order to understand that reading has a purpose which is to
understand.
Retellings and discussions about the text are ways to assess children’s
comprehension. By simply asking them to tell you what they have read, you can infer the
amount of information they comprehend and their understanding of what was read. Their
response will also let allow you to include the type of comprehension they use to
understand things. If a reader is able to only describe the details and facts of a story by
describing the page-to-page action, there is only a comprehension on the literal level.
This may mean little thought was put into thinking beyond the texts and the overall
bigger message the author wanted to get across. If a reader is able to read “between the
lines” of the text and can make inferences, they should be able to make predictions about
the sequence of the book or state the overall moral of the book. Inferential
comprehension requires the reader to blend the literal comprehension of the text with
their prior knowledge, imagination, and analytical judgment. The highest and most
difficult level of comprehension obtained is referred to as evaluative comprehension. This
comprehension levels is the term used to describe students who are able to evaluate the
texts, compare and contrast the text, and make connections to real life. Evaluative
comprehension readers refer to the students evaluating the text to make it meaningful l
therefore making it easier to understand. The reader is able to critically thinking and
Chamari Davis
Early Childhood Education
Running Records
April 17th, 2013
evaluating text, the more understanding they will have. However, if a child cannot
comprehend text on the literal level, making inferences and evaluating the text will be
impossible.
Techniques to teach the comprehension strategies of summarizing, predicting,
asking questions, inferring and analyzing could be done in either an implicit or explicit
way. Explicit comprehension instructions are specific drills that follow a specific
progression pattern. This scope and sequence technique is what teachers often do to
instruct the entire classroom in hopes of every student being able to internalize the
information and self-regulate their own comprehension. Explicit comprehension
instruction Taberski encourages is direct instruction, modeling, guided practice, and
independent practice. This type of instruction approach teaches children that learning is a
developmental process and when to apply the different strategies when they are alone.
When asked to retell the “Boring Old Bed”, Jeremiah said the book was about a
boy who didn’t like to sleep in his own bed. He turns the pages and says that the
character tried sleeping in the drawer and everywhere. With his actions of flipping
through the pages and only stating factual information, I can conclude that Jeremiah has
only comprehended the text literally. Jeremiah doesn’t make inferences throughout the
book, predict the sequence, or get the moral that there is no place like home. Jeremiah
doesn’t make connections to the story while retelling that tells me he hadn’t evaluated the
text. For the second book “Mad Dog” Jeremiah starts the retell by saying that Mad Dog
was a dog that was very mean to everyone. He ruined things and took things away from
Chamari Davis
Early Childhood Education
Running Records
April 17th, 2013
others and that is why the kids didn’t want to play with him anymore. It isn’t until Mad
Dog is nice that the kids want to play with Mad Dog again. Jeremiah then makes the
statement that “ You should be nice to your friends because then no one will play with
you.” His retelling of Mad Dog displays both his inferential and evaluative
comprehension of the text. Jeremiah is able to make inferences about the character and
make connections to the world of what happens when people aren’t nice to others. His
ability to retell the stories in a more critical approach goes to show his overall
understanding of the text.
Abigail’s retelling of “Two Crazy Pigs” was a very literal response of reiterating
facts and details from the book. She stated how there were two crazy pigs that bothered
all of the far, got kicked off the farm, and then went back to their original home. I believe
the author wrote this in hopes of it being humorous for the young reader, however I
didn’t notice positive behaviors such as smiling or laughing throughout the story. I’m not
sure the reader, Abigail, was able to grasp the author’s purpose of the humor. Nothing
was inferred or evaluated by the reader in order to comprehend this text. For the second
book, “Staying Alive” Abigail really didn’t have too much to say about it besides that it
was about different kinds of animals. Since Abigail did need teacher guidance to
complete this book, I do believe her comprehension of the book was affected with the
overuse of visual cues. A lack of schema or knowledge about the specific animals talked
about may be an issue as well since she would lack the vocabulary needed in order to
read fluently. Abigail’s retelling of her books means that there should be practice and
Chamari Davis
Early Childhood Education
Running Records
April 17th, 2013
instruction regarding inferring text and things you can do to evaluate text to then better
understand it.
In conclusion conducting the Burke interview, a running record, and asking for a
re-telling of a story has given me a better understanding of reading comprehension,
reading strategies, and what I need to do as a teacher to make great readers. Something
very important I got to witness was the effect of bad literature of children’s
comprehension. If a story is poorly written, we can’t expect early readers to have a
complete understanding of the text. Therefore, we want to make sure that children are
provided with text that is rich and meaningful in content. Most importantly, you want
children to understand the purpose of reading is to gain understanding. Although reading
may seem very hard to early readers, they should be aware and familiar with all of the
different strategies you can use before giving up. The use of effective reading strategies is
what will enable them to finish and understand books. For example, making inferences
and connections to the text allow all readers to build the bridge between the known and
new and build upon their prior knowledge. No matter how difficult learning how to read
is to students, especially for students whose first language is not English, it the teachers’
responsibility to build their confidence and teach effective strategies they can use to be
active readers, which I hope to create in the future.
Chamari Davis
Early Childhood Education
Running Records
April 17th, 2013
CFRT
Running Record: Use of phonics refers to the understanding of letter/ sound
relationships and the use of alphabetic principle while reading. This is one strength of the
Jeremiah’s running record of “Mad Dog”. This strength is displayed by the use of visual
cues in his errors. Since Jeremiah used phonics to decode the unknown words, that shows
that he understands words are made up of different letters and sounds to make specific
words and that is why he stated a similar looking word even if it didn’t make sense. For
example, Jeremiah stated smiles instead of smells, and chumps instead of chomps. One
of Jeremiah’s weaknesses was the use of context clues, which are the other sources of
information outside of the words to help comprehend the text. For example, Jeremiah
mistaking saw for say and saws for says and not correcting himself tell me that he didn’t
ask himself if the text made sense or sound correct. Jeremiah’s analysis of word structure
of recognizing some prefixes and identification of sight words is what allowed Jeremiah
to feel confident that he read all of the text correctly.
Retelling: Reading comprehension is the understanding of what is being read. Based on
Chamari Davis
Early Childhood Education
Running Records
April 17th, 2013
Jeremiah’s retelling of “Boring Old Bed” a strength he has is literal comprehension,
which is when the reader can recall the direct details of a plot. Jeremiah was able to
include in his retell the locations the main character tried instead of his bed such as the
drawer and bathtub. On the other hand one of Jeremiah’s comprehension weaknesses was
the inferential comprehension that is being able to make inferences and reading between
the lines of the text. Not once did Jeremiah make a prediction of what he expected to
happen next or infer what the overall meaning the author wanted to you to take away
from that text. Very few mistakes were made while reading this text that tells me that
Jeremiah was fluent in reading. A very fluent reader is a sign that the reader also
comprehends what is read.