Taking Running Records

Reference: Marie M Clay: An Observation Survey of Early Literacy Achievement Second Edition.

(2002) Chapter 5 pp 49-81

What is a Running Record?

• It is the most important task for assessing text reading

• A child’s reading is calculated on a piece of text; looking at their successes and their errors

• It shows what strategies they are using and ignoring when they are reading

• Competence at being fast, fluent and phrased• A score is determined as a percentage of the words

correct

Uses of Running Records

•     Finding the appropriate book level for a child

•    Grouping your children for guided reading groups

•      Evaluate whether their has been a lift in text level

• Monitor what a child is actually doing while they are reading

ConventionsConventions

AnalysisFor any occurrences of error behaviour or self correction ….

Try to work out whether the child was using information from:

• The meaning of the text (M)

• The structure of the sentence (S)

• Sometimes from the visual cues (V)

To explain the error consider the behaviour up to the point of the error

To explain self-correction consider what led the child to spontaneously correct the error

(An observation Survey, pages 69-70)

Calculations

• Error Rate: Running Words

Errors

e.g. 150 = Ratio 1: 10

15 Accuracy 90%• Self-Correction Rate

E=SC e.g. 15+5 = Ratio 1:4

SC 5

( An Observation Survey page 66)

Running Record Scoring

• Easy- any score over 95%

• Instructional- 94 to 90%

• Hard- 89% and below

How does the reading sound?

• At the end of running record, write down how it sounded

• Easy: Fast fluent phrased. Some intonation

• Instructional: Some phrasing, varing pace, some intonation

• Hard: Word by word, ignoring punctuation, laboured, ignoring meaning

When do you do running records?

• Emergent readers every 2-4 weeks

• Emerging: 4-6 weeks

• Competent: once a term

• Strugglers: Fortnightly