Week #4 - Blog #7

This activity was one of those activities that you wish you didn't have to do, especially when you have almost no training or experience with Running Records.  Before my school bag and computer were stolen I had a running record for two kindergartens at Goddard.  I had to improvise after the theft.  At my school I sponsor an after school homework club and asked a couple of our ELL families if I could do a Running Record with two of our students' siblings.  Anthony W. is a Hispanic third grader and brother to Dominick.  Julie E. is a Thai female and sister to Jaimie.  I borrowed a DRA text from a friend who teaches at the elementary level.  I could not attach the test form to this but e-mailed a copy to my professor for her perusal.  Not being an expert at this type of testing I will try to make some educated recommendations for the two students.

Anthony completed the text with a minimal amount of errors.  He operated at an independent level on this particular text.  The DRA level was a 12 on the story, The Great Pumpkin.  His significant error was in regards to contractions, a syntax error.  He read both as though they were not a contraction, indicating that he understands what they are.  From my limited Spanish background, I do know that contractions are not used and thus Anthony does not have a lot of practice in using them in his native tongue.  It would be good to go over contractions with him, their purpose, their construction and their usage.  Some short independent practice on contractions and then a reassessment should be sufficient.

Julie completed the same text also with a minimal amount of errors.  She operated at an independent level on this particular text.  Her significant error had to do with vocabulary, mistaking great for giant and struggling twice with the word cradle, prompting intervention from the teacher.  Helping to refresh Julie's word attack skills would help her make sense of the words she struggled with on this particular reading selection.

Morrow, in her text Literacy Development in the Early Years:  Helping Children Read and Write, recommends Running Records be given once a month to track students' progress with reading.  Certainly, they could be a valuable tool in judging the progress made by ELL students as they work at acquiring reading skills.  It is recommended, however, that another tool or method be utilized to assess fluency as Running Records really have no section that does that.