By C. Elkins, OK Math and Reading Lady – with adaptations from Marie Clay and Scholastic
Taking a running record is written documentation of a child’s oral reading. It consists of listening to a child orally read a passage while you document it as best you can on paper. As the listener, you note errors (such as omissions, insertions, substitutions), pay attention to strategies they are using or neglecting, and are alert to what is easy and what is hard. Many publishers now provide a written page of the text for you to keep track of the child’s reading page by page, while experienced notetakers can do it at a moment’s notice on any blank paper.
I attended a Reading Recovery workshop about mid-way into my teaching career, and heard from two teachers who described how to take a running record and then analyze the results to determine which strategies students were using or neglecting. That one workshop forever changed how I listened to my students read, and how I talked to parents about their child’s reading successes or difficulties. About 8 years after that I had formal training in Reading Recovery methods, and subsequently completed a Masters in Reading . . . all because of that workshop! I learned all mistakes are not equal and provide a huge clue as to what cueing system a child is using. I learned that I can help steer a child toward a neglected strategy by carefully crafted teacher prompts. I learned that there are much more effective prompts than the standard, over-used: “Sound it out.”
The benefits of running records
- Identifies accuracy of reading (independent, instructional, or hard)
- Provides a record of strategies used, errors, corrections, phrasing, fluency
- Helps teachers identify cueing systems the child is using / neglecting (meaning, visual, structural)
- Documents progress over time
- Can help determine a level for guided reading purposes (Fountas and Pinnell, Reading A-Z, DRA, etc.)