Running Record Analysis

Running Record Analysis

Basic Background:

Ryan is a first grade student. He has just turned 7. Ryan is small compared to the other children in class, but appears social and seems to enjoy interacting with other students. I also observed Ryan reading independently at his desk, and appeared to be enjoying the book he picked from the class bookshelf. 

Text:

I asked Ryan to read My Cat Is Sad by Katrina Streza. This book is categorized among the easier books in the class library.

Running Record Analysis:

I counted a total number of 5 miscues during Ryan’s reading. However, I did want to note Ryan’s attempts to self-correct, so there are two errors that I have also categorized as “self-correction,” for a total of 7 miscues. Ryan had three authentic self-corrections during his reading.

Ryan seemed comfortable with the material, and did not seem intimidated by any words at all until he reached the words “thirsty,” “bored,” and “blanket.” I felt that the word “blanket” was one which he had seen before. Ryan scanned the illustrations for contextual information to confirm, but second-guessed himself and asked for the word, which I provided.

I did note one graphophonic error when Ryan encountered the word “bored.” I do not think he had ever seen this word. He guessed “big” instead of “bored,” which told me two things: that he was looking for a word that might fit semantically and make sense with a subject who had the ability to play with a dog, and secondly that Ryan focused specifically on the beginnings of words without considering the whole word. If he had, he would have noticed that “big” is a very short word, while “bored” has more letters. This is also an example of the semantic error I noted in Ryan’s reading.

Strengths and Challenges:

Based on my observation and record of Ryan’s reading, it is clear to me that he has a strength in phonics. I observed this when he was able to break the word “dirty” into phonemes based on the letter combinations that he saw. Ryan is also an eager reader and even though he hesitated on two words, I felt that he was really not shy about any of the others.

Because Ryan was able to break down the word “dirty” but not the words “thirsty” or “blanket,” I am wondering if it is possible that Ryan had actually seen the word “dirty” before. This means he relies a lot on his semantic strength in order to decode words. Another challenge to address for Ryan would be his ability to use expression when reading. I was a little surprised about this, given his strength in semantics, but Ryan seemed not to observe much phrasing in regards to punctuation. I have a feeling if I asked him to read it again, he would likely include more fluency and expression. At no point did Ryan ask me what a word meant, or even wonder. This further confirmed for me that Ryan was relying a lot on his own background experience and information. I reflected later about Ryan, wondering if this could indicate that he might be a visual learner, and it also made me curious to know how he might be doing in writing.

Other Considerations: 

Due diligence regarding this data also prompts me to reflect on the level of difficulty of the book itself. I listened to Ryan read a book that had a lot of repetition, which means Ryan would have lots of opportunities to read the same phrase, as well as be able to predict that the same phrase would reappear on the following pages, time after time. Most of the words in this book are also monosyllabic. This was clearly a strength for Ryan, and he really only struggled with words that had multiple syllables.

The other thing for me to consider regarding this running record is the fact that it is the very first one I have ever done with a student. I found it a little challenging to keep up with his reading, even with material that was a little easier. I believe that I will get faster and more familiar with the symbols during my experience in subsequent running records. 

Proposed Course of Instruction:

Ryan is a great candidate for continuing to build vocabulary by reading consistently and often. I also think it would be beneficial for Ryan to continue learning syllabic analysis. The synthetic approach to phonics, described on page 180 of the text, would likely be a great start to emphasize an approach that also included analytic exploration (Gunning 2016). An example of how this may have helped Ryan in this reading would be with the words “dirty” and “thirsty.” They are both words which have two syllables, and they both end in “y.” With more phonemic awareness, Ryan could have decoded the word “thirsty,” since he already had the knowledge of the word “dirty.” The fact that he did not decode “thirsty” but was able to decode “dirty” tells me Ryan found the information from his background experience.

This approach would also help Ryan assess whole words instead of relying solely on the beginnings of words. I saw an example of this when Ryan replaced the word “bored” with the word “big.” Knowing he already has the habit of looking at the beginnings of words, more phonemic awareness training like this would help acclimate him to looking at the endings of words as well. This would also increase his experience in blending and fluency.

Finally, building Ryan’s vocabulary through scaffolding by pairing him with a classmate who is also an independent reader would likely appeal to both Ryan’s social strengths, and his strengths as a possible auditory/visual learner—particularly if he were to listen to his classmate read while also having access to the text. This classmate would not have to be a perfect reader. In fact, it would be more beneficial if Ryan could observe a classmate breaking a word down into syllables and decoding it from there.

Sources:

Gunning, T. Creating Literacy Instruction For All Students. 9^th edition. Boston, MA: Pearson.