Lauren Paz

ELD 307

McKool

Assessment 3

Running Record

The purpose of the assessment:

The purpose of this assessment is to assess the “students phonics and word attack skills

development (Reutzel & Cooter p.38).” By doing this I am able to see if the student has improved his or

her reading skills through out the year. After evaluating the assessment I will be able to determine what

the student needs to work on to improve his or her reading skill. From this assessment I can also figure

out the thinking process of the student.

Introduction of the child and setting:

Jim is a seven year old first grader at Wicoff elementary school. Academically Jim seems to be

on a first grade level. When it comes to reading he has some trouble but he works through it and is not

discouraged when he makes mistakes. The assessment was conducted during the day in the students

classroom. I administered the assessment at a table in the classroom that was separated from the other

students in the class so he was not distracted. At first Jim seemed a bit nervous but once I explained to

him that I needed his help he was eager to get started. I sat next to Jim during the assessment so I was

able to follow along with him as he read.

Methodology for using this assessment tool:

The method used for this assessment was a running record. The running record is the “most

widely used method teacher’s use to follow students’ phonics and word attack skills development

throughout the year (Reutzel & Cooter p.38).” For the running record assessment I chose a book for Jim

to read using only the first one hundred words which I had counted out prior to the assessment. Using a

piece of paper and pen I followed along as Jim read aloud. For every correct word Jim read I placed a

check mark on my piece of paper. I took note of words he pronounced incorrectly, omitted, added and
self corrected. I then evaluated my findings to see Jim was at in his reading and to find the areas that

needed improvement.

Description of your finding:

After conducting the running record and scoring the responses I learned a lot about Jims phonics

and word attack skills. From the assessment I was able to see that he had an error rate of ten percent,

leaving his accuracy rate at ninety percent. According to Clay, a New Zealand educator this would place

Jim at the Instructional level which is ideal for teaching (Reutzel & Crooter p.42). This came as a surprise

to me at first. Listening to Jim read the story he appeared to have little to no problem reading the book

but after looking at it on paper I was able to see all the miscues he had made. The majority of Jim’s

miscues was due to the name of the child in the story. The main character was “Debbie”, Jim confused

this word with “David.” Once he established that this was the name of the child in the story he repeated it

each time he saw “D.” After reading about miscues I came to the conclusion that Jim used semantic

clues to come up with the name of the child. To him it made sense because the child in the story was

playing baseball which is associated with boys. Also Jim may have used visual cues as well, the first

letter is “D” and the name “David” begins with the same letter. The majority of Jim’s errors came from

semantic miscues. To him they made sense but did not match up with what the author wrote. Jim

substituted a few words here and there but then self corrected himself and at one point omitted a word but

was unaware that he skipped over the word. From my findings I am able to see that Jim is visually aware

of what he is reading and it sounds right to him but in context does not make sense. Using this

information I would find a way to help him improve the meaning behind what the author is writing.

Discussion of how you would use these findings to inform instruction:

Using my findings about Jim’s reading level I would adjust my instruction to help him become

better at understand what the author is writing. Jim is able to use visual and structure cues to help him

with his reading but has difficulty making sense of it. Having the ability to make sense of what you are

reading is an important skill to have as a reader. It allows you to better understand what you are reading

and can help in identifying words that one may not be able to read while still making sense. Using what I
learned about Jim I would think about working with him one on one with a book that is his level or lower.

By doing this I know that he will be able to read all or most of the words in the story. I would have him

read a line or two and then discuss with him what he read. I would ask him to look at the picture and

decide if his response matches what the picture indicates.

 Bibliography

• Reutzel, D. Ray, and Robert B. Cooter, Jr. The Essentials of Teaching Children to Read: the Teacher

Makes the Difference. Boston: Allyn and Bacon/Pearson, 2009. Print.