I was happy to receive the brief training on how to create running records in our literacy class. Previously my main placement and dyad teachers both inquired if I wanted a shot at doing assessments for their students. Now I feel that I have at least an idea how to do it.
At my main placement I took part in a teacher training session geared to helping the whole school improve student reading comprehension. (That was the goal the teachers set at a previous session) When we broke into work groups my teacher gave me the assessments of her second grade students. My job was to transfer the results of the assessments to a table so the whole class could be assessed as a group in order to help her modify instruction to meet the needs of the whole class. Of course she uses the results to tailer instruction to each reader as well. My point is now I understand a bit more about the records I was viewing and what the numbers indicate.
I'd be interested to see what assessment she used, and how she organized the information into a table. Was it the same running record we are using?
ReplyDeleteI am not sure if the table was created by the teacher who organized the teacher training or if it was part of the district's literacy program. (I don't have the name of the literacy program.) The idea to focus on one area (comprehension) was part of a district-wide effort to use data to inform teaching decisions. Teachers did running records on all students and their data was fed into a computer program. The table includes data for fluency, accuracy and comprehension (maybe other areas I can't recall). The kids are ranked against the district standards for their grade. Those who fall below standard are highlighted in several colors, making it obvious which children need help and in which areas. To look closer at an individual student the teacher goes back to the running records that produced the data. The running records look very similar to what we did in class. The child reads the book. The teacher records the session on a copy of the text with columns at the right for number of errors, whether meaning was lost with the error. Teacher makes checks above each word, adds self-correct and repeat notation, writes in any substitutions made, like we did in class. There was no place, however, for marking any cues the student may have used or misused to figure out the word.
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