Tyburczy Nicole Tyburczy Professor Rich Miscue Analysis/Running Record

Reading is such an essential part of the whole in educationand a large part at that. It is up to teachers to value reading within their classrooms, as well as to foster and nurture students reading skills appropriately. As educators, we aim for our students to love readingfor them to embrace that passion, but in order for that to even be possible, students need to be reading on their just-right level. A level at which they can comfortably read, but also improve in. Running records are administered to students so that teachers can place students in their just-right reading level, and evaluate possible teaching points. This ongoing assessment gives teachers valuable information regarding students progress and should be given regularly. Directly referencing the Learning A-Z website (a website geared toward easy-to-use teacher and student resources), aspects of running records are often controversial, There are conflicting views on whether students should be assessed using a book they have never read versus using a book they are familiar with. We believe using a book that has not been previously read will give a more accurate measure of a student's ability to handle text at the assessed level. I personally agree with this argument, students should absolutely be assessed with a book that they have not read before. Assessing a student with a book that they are already familiar with runs the risk of reading being pure memorization of the speech patterns, sequence of events, and comprehension of the text. With the possibility of this risk it can

Tyburczy then be likely that you as the teacher, are not collecting accurate information for students reading progression. This semester I interned at a public school in Central New Jersey in a second grade class. Upon completing the running record assessment, my cooperating teacher, Miss DEF, recommended that I work with her second grade student, ABC. For the purpose of this assignment, my cooperating teacher had me administer a running record that was three levels above ABCs just-right level. Her reason being that I would have more to observe and analyze. Currently, ABC is at reading level L, the text that I gave him was level O. The specific version of the assessment that I used was from the Teachers College Reading and Writing Project. I pulled ABC during first block reading workshop. I approached him after Miss DEFs mini lesson and told him that I want to do a special activity with him. When we stepped outside the classroom into the hall I told ABC that Im going to do an assessment similar to the assessments that Miss DEF givesI assured him that he would not be graded. I told him I wanted him to take this assessment because I want to know more about him as a reader. I elaborated in saying that I was giving him this assessment because I wanted to find out what makes him an awesome reader, and that I also wanted to find out in what ways I could make him an even better reader! This eased his nerves and he was eager to begin. Before I further explain the unraveling of the running records process, it is important to know that the Teachers College Reading and Writing Workshop model of the assessment does not provide actual books. Students read a specific part of the text directly from a sheet of paper. That being said, they do not have any pictures to reference;

Tyburczy full comprehension will then come from the text by itself, rather than both text and illustrations. To launch the assessment, I first gave ABC a brief book introduction of what was currently happening in the part of the story he was about to read. I followed the directions of the assessment in directly saying to ABC, Joels bike is old and creaky. He needs a new bike to be able to keep up with t he other boys at the bike track, especially a kid named Blake, who makes fun of Joel and his bike. In this scene, Joel is with his little sister Ocean. I also explained to ABC that the names in this story were a little bit tricky so I pointed them out and had him repeat them with me and then repeat them once on his own. After cueing him in on what he was going to read, I asked him to please read aloud the first section. The first section ended at a line with a break in the page (I also clarified this for him by pointing it out). After he finished reading the first part, he was to read the rest of the story independently and quietly to himself. The assessment ended with me asking him to retell the important things that happened in the story, along with him responding to other comprehension related questions that I asked. Regarding the portion of the assessment that ABC read aloud, his final total of miscues was six. ABCs errors consisted of substitution of words, omissions, and repetitions. As I took note of his miscues, I realized that the errors he was making made complete sense. For example, instead of reading the word suspension, he read suspicion. I reason that this miscue makes sense because these two words look very similarespecially when trying to read with fluidity. This error tells me that the word suspension is not likely a part of ABCs vocabulary, and so he read

Tyburczy the word as a word that was in his vocabulary. Both words begin with susp and end in ion. In another sentence he read, gleaming at a dazzle of display lights instead of gleaming under. I say that his miscues make sense because the error fits the syntax and structure of the sentence. ABC omitted the word under and inserted the word at. However, this only happened the second time he read over this sentence. The first time that he attempted to read this sentence, ABC paused at the word gleaming (unsure of what it meant). He then started to read the sentence from the beginning, this time making the error. The error syntactically makes sense for ABC because he is substituting a preposition for another prepositionand I believe it was in terms of making sense of the word gleaming. Another miscue that I found particularly interesting and that also made relative sense, was his mispronunciation of the word chrome. For this word he pronounced the ch sound in chalk instead of the hard c sound in cat. I was highly impressed with ABCs ability to recall events from the story and retell the important aspects. He answered all comprehension questions with thorough detail and high creativity. In terms of the literal questions, ABC answered them correctly. However, I found that although he was able to tell me the basic events of what happened, I do not think he necessarily fully understood the depth of what he was describing. I say this because he was telling events in which the vocabulary he was using was not familiar to him. Impressively, he excelled with the inferential questions. For these questions he was very elaborate in his responses. The one question I posed was, How do you think Ocean probably feels about her brother Joel? What makes you think that To which he responded, She probably

Tyburczy feels sorry for Joel because Blake is always making fun of him. She is going to try really hard to get him a bike or get money to get him the bike. He expanded his ideas even further by saying that Ocean might do a lot of chores to make money so that she can buy the bike for her brother. ABC also caught on to the implied sarcasm at the end of the story as well, which I was really proud of! I shared this with my cooperating teacher, who was just as happy because shed been teaching them about sarcasm a few days before. Because I gave ABC an assessment that was two levels above his just right reading level, I would not give not normally give ABC a story of this difficulty to read. His accuracy rate fell at a 94% with a total of six miscues. It is standard to try a lower text if the reader makes five or more miscues. On the Oral Reading Fluency Scale I categorized him as a level 2which is not fluent for this particular level and text. This is because as he was reading aloud, he read primarily in two-word phrases with some three or four-word groupings. He was also beginning a little expressive interpretation when reading dialogue. With these results, it is clear that I would have ABC read an easier text. That being said, I am already aware that he is a level L reader; however, because I was so impressed with his responses to the comprehension questions I feel strongly about administering another running record with him at either level M or level N. It is also critical to know that level O although was difficult, was still not a level of frustration for ABC. I found that his fluency was greatly affected by the vocabulary in the story. To promote his fluency I would have him do an I read, you read exercise with meI would first read a page and then ask ABC to read the same page in the same way that I just did. I would also

Tyburczy provide him with a T-chart of specific vocabulary on one side, and the meaning of those vocabulary words on the other. Before I do this though, I would need to use a text that I feel is fitting for himthus I would need to administer a running record.