Literacy Lab 3:

Running Records Assessment and Vocabulary Instruction

Teacher Name: Ms. Church
Student Name:
Grade Level:
1. Running Records
a. Independent
i. How Rocket Learned to Read written by Tad Hills
1. Pictures that support the text
2. Words that I know he will know
3. A couple sentences per page
4. Sentence length is appropriate because it varies page to page
5. Grade level vocabulary
ii. What cueing systems did the reader have command over?

iii.

What is just out of reach?

iv.

Recommendations for case study?

b. Read with Support

i. Owney the Mail-Pouch Pooch written by Mona Kerby
1. Picture relates to story but does not indicate exactly what the text
says
2. Higher level vocabulary. For example, straggly and canvas
3. Smaller font size
4. Longer sentence length. For example, He sniffed around until he
found just the right spot, where he circled twice, curled up, and
went to sleep.
ii. What cueing systems does the reader have command over?

iii.

What is just out of reach?

iv.

Recommendations for case study?

c. Pose a Challenge
i. The Story of Jonas written by Maurine F. Dahlberg
1. Chapter book
2. Small font size
3. No illustrations
4. High Vocabulary. For example, stiff and hemp
5. Multiple character names and places to pronounce
ii. What cueing systems does the reader have command over?

iii.

What is just out of reach?

iv.

Recommendations for case study?

2. Vocabulary Instruction: Word Detective

a. To be a word detective means that we are curious about words.
b. Make a chart about strategies that word detective may use
i. Use Context Clues
1. What is a context clue?
a. Context clues are hints that an author gives to help define a
difficult or unusual word. The clue may appear within the
same sentence as the word to which it refers, or it may
follow in a preceding sentence.
ii. Saying the beginning sounds
iii. Moving across the whole word
iv. Looking for parts of the word that we do know
v.
Looking at the picture to see if it matches

1. Remember when we were reading Come on, Rain last time we

were together? There was a tricky word phonograph in there. Do
you remember how we found out what that word meant? We
looked at the picture and it told us that it was like a radio,
something that plays music.
vi. Ask yourself, does this make sense?
vii. Ask yourself, does this look right?
viii. Ask yourself, does this sound right?
ix. Go back and reread the whole sentence
x. Make a connection to personal experiences
c. Talk about Charlotte's Web
i. Do you remember the first time we were together and we made All
About Me books? Well I had wrote that my favorite book as an
elementary student was Charlotte's Web. Today, I want to share with
you a part of this book.
d. Read the expert
i. Salutations Hmm I read this word and had a hard time
understanding what it meant when I was in 2nd grade like you. What are
some things that we can do to help us figure out this word?
ii. Circle clues and discuss ideas on chart paper
e. Hand out graphic organizer
i. First, I am going to have you complete this mind-map but I did one also
that we will get to compare. I tried to think back when I was a second
grader when I made my mind-map.
ii. Show my mind map.
iii. Did we use the same clue? Why did we have different clues? Was our
thinking alike or different? Why or why not?
iv. We use different strategies because we are different readers
3. High Interest Read Aloud
a. A Pet for Miss. Wright written by Judy Young
i. Cover : What do we know by looking at the cover of the book and
reading the title? What can we predict?
ii. Title Page: What do we call this page? Can these illustrations help us
predict further?
iii. Page 1: Hmm exotic is a weird word. How can we use what we
learned today to figure out what that word means?
iv. Page 4: Why would Miss. Wright want to go to the pet store? It sure is
pretty quiet in her house. Why is it quiet in her house?

v.

vi.

vii.
viii.
ix.
x.

Page 8: Wow! Miss Wright might need to take the monkey back too.
Would you be able to write a story if there was a monkey in your house?
Do you think she will take the monkey back?
Page 10: There is another tricky word hypnotized. How can we use the
illustration to understand the meaning of that word? Lets be word
detectives together!
Page 16: I have a dog at home and I get my work done. Lets see if a dog
works for Miss. Wright What do you think?
Page 22: Why do you think the dog thinks that the story is not finished?
Page 23: What is a thesaurus? What is a dictionary?
THE END Why do you think a dog was better than any of the other
animals?

4. Joke
a. Where do library books like to sleep?
- Under their covers!