Running Record Data

For the past few weeks I have been completing running records with my target learners to see where the gaps are in their knowledge and understanding. From these running records I have found that my target group of students are able to answer literal questions really well. I have also noticed that some of this group of students tend to make up answers that they think are correct sometimes without even referring back to the text to make sure they understand the question or see if they can find the answer. I have found this very interesting during my guided reading sessions with these students and trying to have them refer back to the text even when it could be an inferential question. A key thing that I have learnt from this is that the students need to go back to the basics of referring back to the text when answering questions and have them point to where they go this information. 

Another thing that I have seen from these running records are three areas that need to be work on and they are 

• Inferring questions
• Applied knowledge from own experiences and understanding of situations. 
• Vocabulary

The last two years I have changed my reading and writing program in order to help students with their understanding of vocabulary which I will continue to work on with this group of students as well as the rest of the class. From reflecting on this I think that topic specific vocabulary needs to be in the forefront of all of my literacy lessons. With continuing to have an overall topic focus each week I think this will be something that can be managed in the setting up of the topic and understanding this in more detail. The data shown below show what I have noted from these running records and how this has linked to my inquiry question and focus. 

As you can see from this data my target students are able to decode the text really well and are reading with a 97% + accuracy level. However they are struggling when it comes to answering questions about what they have read. Most of these students are able to use the text to answer literal questions, but when it comes to inferential, applied knowledge and vocabulary questions that students are unable to answer these correctly. From observations during these running records I noticed that the students would often freeze up when being asked these questions and take a very long time to answer as they were trying to think up an answer as it was a test I could not guide them to look at the text again, however this is something that I will work on when we go back to reading groups. 

Completing running records on these students has been extremely insightful as it has shown me the areas in which the students need to work on and how I can best help these learners in being able to make progress in their reading. I will be testing these students again during term 2 for our school reports so will be interesting to compare data and to test and see if the changes that I am thinking of implementing will make a difference. This will be a very good time to test and see what is working and what I need to change and work on.