Running records are used to asses a student's reading performance. They can be a great tool for checking fluency and to see what kind of mistakes they are making when reading a text and why they are making that mistake. When educators grade running records, they analyze the errors that were made and see if they were based on meaning, syntax or visual. This helps us understand if the student is reading for meaning and what kind of clues they are using when they are reading a text. This provides next teaching steps.
I conducted running records on two first grade students. Both of the students are ELL students and do not speak English at home. Even though English is not used at home, but of these students are able to speak fluently in English in the classroom. The first student, Ximena, speaks Spanish at home. Jonathan, the second student, speaks Hmong at home. Both of these students are on grade level.
Ximena read a first grade text with a 103 words with no picture support. She read fluently and with expression. However, Ximena made mistakes in the text that showed me that she was not reading for meaning. For example, the text said "I had so much fun." Ximena said, "I had a much fun." Her mistake was structural, as she replaced an article for an article. Further down the text said "I was afraid of the big slide." She said, "I was after of the big slide." Again, this showed me that Ximena was not reading this passage for meaning but she used visual cues when replacing a word that began with 'af' with a different word that began with 'af.' When she didn't know the word "thought" she said "thogger" which also tells me that she was trying to use the initial sound to come up with a word with the correct diagraph that she already knew. Ximena also replaced the word "bring" for "birds." She self corrected one error out of the 9 errors she made throughout the passage.
This running record showed me a lot about Ximena as a reader. It definitely makes sense that she is an ELL learner and does not speak the language at home. Even though she did not read for meaning, she had good reading strategies and knew a lot about sounds. She knew diagraphs and was able to read the passage with expression and sounded very fluent while she read. She did use visual clues for decoding words and syntax clues sometimes during her reading. However, Ximena was not aware of her errors and did not notice her mistakes. Next steps for teaching will be working on comprehension strategies. I will prompt her by stopping her after a miscue and asking her what the story was about so far or asking if that sentence made sense. This will take time and a lot of practice learning more vocabulary. Ximena also needs to learn how to check for understanding as she is reading. She has great strategies that she can use if she would focus on meaning as well.
The second running record that was conducted was with another first grader, Jonathan. Jonathan's native language is Hmong but he is reading at a first grade level. He read this 103 word passage fluently and was very cautious of making errors. The mistakes he made did not affect meaning for the most part. He self corrected four times after he read the sentence. One of his errors was he added the word 'and' in the beginning of a new sentence. If you were to read the sentence it would have still made sentence because it was connected to the previous sentence. Later, the text said "Then we went down the slide." Jonathan said, "Then I went down the slide." Again, this shows me that he was reading for meaning and that it would still make sense if the story said that. He substituted a pronoun for a pronoun so he used syntax clues while he was reading. When he read the sentence "My mom and dad went on it," he added "My mom and my dad went on it." Again, the sentence would still make sense if you add that word in the sentence. When the word didn't make sense in the passage, like when he said 'I' for 'it," he quickly corrected his mistake.
Jonathan did skip the word 'thought' and 'air' because he said he didn't know it.
This running record showed me a lot about Jonathan's reading strategies and comprehension skills. He read for meaning and was able to reread and correct words that didn't sound right in a sentence. The errors he did make did not affect meaning and the sentence still made sense. Next steps for Jonathan would be exposure to a lot of different texts and building up his vocabulary. Because he doesn't speak English at home, his academic vocabulary is limited but he has great reading strategies and knows how to read for meaning.
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