I conducted a running record on 2 second grade students: one who speaks Spanish and the other student speaks Albanian. The text I chose was a non-fiction text about earthquakes. This was not their first exposure to the text but it had been a few weeks since we read it last. The Spanish-speaking student had 85% accuracy. Many of his errors were meaning miscues. He also had many visual miscues. For example, he said "planet" for "plate" because the first time the word came up there was a picture of planet Earth on the same page. He also had some miscues that I couldn't figure out: "coved" for "covered"; "pressers" for "pressure". He struggled with decoding words and for having read the text twice already, you would've never guessed he had. He also made some words more conversational rather than adhering to the academic language of the text. For example, he said "can't" for "cannot". This student also keeps mixing up sight words. For example, he says "and" for "the" and "even" for "when". I would continue developing this student's sight word vocabulary and continue reinforcing his decoding skills. According to the reading program ECAR, he is still in decoding 1/2; he should be in the comprehension stage, especially going into 3rd grade next year. I would go back and review his phonemic awareness skills and administer the CORE phonics survey to see where his phonemic awareness skills are.
My other student had a 92% accuracy. Many of her errors were meaning miscues. For example, she said "shows" for "show" and "can't" for "cannot". I have a book called Learner English: A teacher's guide to interference and other problems and it's a resource for teachers to determine how their L1 affects the mistakes they make in L2. Next steps with her would be introduced root words and common prefixes because she had difficulty with words that could be broken down into syllables: designed, detect, and seismograph. I would conduct another running record with a more challenging text to find her independent reading level-I do wonder if this text was almost too easy. I would continue to build her fluency. One way I would do this is to read a more challenging text and read it with her, sitting behind her.
The two articles I found were Retrospective miscue analysis with proficient adult ESL readers and Miscues: Meaningful assessment aids instruction. The first article explored miscue analysis review with the reader. The study conducted recorded readers reading and they analyzed their own miscues with a researcher to guide their conversation. The readers were proficient adults ESL readers; however, all three noted how they made meaning from semantic and syntatic clues and following this study they were able to make deeper meaning of the text. I found it fascinating to have the reader analyze their own miscues because understanding their own errors only deepens their understanding of reading. I would love to try this out with my high school ESL students in my new school this fall! I'm not sure how it would work with younger students. The second article focused on running records and miscue analysis as meaningful assessment. The students were all deaf and the teachers had difficulty determining their skills based on state assessments. They turned to miscue analysis has a meaningful way to assess their students' skills. Sometimes as educators we wonder how we can use state assessments in our classroom; at the same time, it's nice to know there are meaningful assessments and I believe this is one of them. As this was my first time conducting running records, the information I learned about my students and their reading was tremendous. I can easily apply this to NEP students at my next job!
Bibliography:
Luft, P. (2009). Miscues: Meaningful assessment aids instruction. Odyssey, 7-11.
Swan, M. & Smith, B. (Eds). (2001). Learner english: A teacher's guide to interference and other problems. Cambridge, MA: University Press.
Wurr, A., Theurer, J., &Kim, Koomi. (2008). Retrospective miscue analysis with proficient adult ESL readers. Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy, 52, 324-333.
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