Running Records

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Running Records

• Dr. Christine Peterson

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Running Records Defined

• A record of errors, or miscues that readers make
  as they are reading.
• Developed by Dr. Marie Clay
• Quickly and easily assess students reading
  behaviors

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Miscues Defined

• Include omissions, insertions or repetitions,
  substitutions of one word for another, and
  insertions.
• Ken Goodman
• Miscues are windows into the reading process
• Give you a clear picture of the cueing systems
  that each student knows how to use and which
  systems s/he needs to learn.

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Reading Process Cueing System

• Semantic or meaning cues- applying background
  knowledge and the context of the sentence or
  passage to identify words.
• Graphophonic or visual cues- applying what is
  known about letter-sound correspondence to decode
  words.
• Syntactic or sentence structure cues- applying
  what is known about how our language goes
  together to identify words.

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Running Records Help Teachers

• Monitor ongoing students progress in reading
• Find out which particular skills and strategies
  students are using
• Focus on specific needs of individual children
• Group together children with similar needs for
  reading instruction
• Choose books at an appropriate level for your
  students

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Taking the Running Record

• Sit with the child beside you and explain that
  you want her/him to read the book independently.
• Read the title of the book to the child.
• Give the child the book and use a record form or
  a blank sheet of paper to mark the students
  reading behavior and record miscues.
• When a child stops during reading, it is
  important that you allow enough time for him/her
  to work on the problem before you supply the
  word. Do not wait so long that she/he loses the
  meaning of the story while trying to solve the
  unknown word.

• Use a standardized system to record words read
  correctly, substitutions, omissions, deletions,
  and insertions.
• Also take note of self-corrections. When a
  student corrects a miscue herself, it is an
  indication that she is monitoring her own
  comprehension.
• You may also wish to note hesitations,
  repetitions and other reading behaviors which may
  not affect accuracy but provide information about
  the strategies the reader is using.

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Scoring the Record

• Substitutions, insertions, omissions,
  teacher-told responses score as errors.
• Repetitions are not scored as errors.
• Corrected responses are scored as
  self-corrections. There is no penalty for
  attempts that result in a correct response.
• Multiple unsuccessful attempts at a word score as
  one error only.
• If a child omits a line or lines, each word
  omitted is counted as an error.

• If the child omits a page, deduct the number of
  words on the page from the total word count.
• If the child repeatedly makes an error with a
  proper noun, count this as an error the first
  time only. All other incorrect responses count
  as errors each time.
• Pronunciation differences are counted as reading
  errors unless accompanied by incorrect locating
  responses.

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Calculating Accuracy

• Divide the number of words read
• correctly by the total number of
• words and multiply by 100 to find
• percentage of accuracy.
• Example
• 80 words read correctly 0.8 x 100 80
• 100 words in passage

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Checking on Cues

• For each miscue try to determine whether the
  child is using cues from the meaning (semantics),
  the structure of language (syntax), the visual
  information contained in the print
  (graphophonics) or a combination of these.
• For self-corrections, you may want to analyze
  what led the child to make this error and what
  cueing system she has used to correct it.
• Tally the cues used to find out which cue or cues
  the child is using predominantly. The aim is for
  the child to use all cue sources together in
  order to decode accurately.

10
Checking on Comprehension

• You may choose to do a comprehension check as
  part of the miscue analysis.
• If you are using the check for your own teaching
  purposes, you might want to simply have the
  students retell the story in their own words. A
  retelling gives an indication of what the child
  knows about story structure, sequencing and the
  relative importance of information as well as
  details from the story.
• For a quicker and more objective check for
  reporting purposes, or if you are working with
  children who are unfamiliar with retelling, use
  comprehension questions. This will give you
  insights into which part of the comprehension
  process the child finds difficult. It is a good
  idea to ask a combination of literal and
  inferential comprehension questions.

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Assigning a Reading Level

• Use the accuracy of the data to ascertain the
  level- easy, instructional or difficult for the
  selected text.
• Independent reading level- over 95 accuracy
• Instructional reading level- 90-95 accuracy
• Frustration reading level- below 90 accuracy

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Questions and Answers

• Q. When should I begin using running records?
• A. Begin using running records as early in the
  year as possible. This is an ongoing assessment
  tool that can be used with any book!

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Questions and Answers

• Q. Can I use the same book more than once with
  the same child?
• A. No. Each running record that is used for
  report card purposes is based on a cold read.
  That means that you give a book introduction and
  invite the child to take a picture walk through
  the book (you do not talk during the picture
  walk) and then the child reads the book aloud
  independently. If you run out of designated
  assessment books at a certain level you can use
  any book from any company as long as the book has
  been officially leveled by Reading Recovery.

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Questions and Answers

• Q. Who should take running records?
• A. The classroom teacher or the ESOL teacher
  should take running records because they are the
  teachers who work directly with the children. It
  is not recommended that reading specialists do
  running records in regular classroom situations
  it is classroom teachers that must become adept
  at helping children to become strategic readers.

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Questions and Answers

• Q. Whats the difference between a cold read and
  a warm read?
• A. When teachers use running records as part of
  their ongoing instructional and assessment
  program, they sometimes have children do warm
  reads. That means it is alright that they have
  heard or read the book before. When running
  records are done for report card purposes and/or
  /Title I purposes, it must be a cold read. That
  means that the child has never read or heard the
  story before.

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