Blog 7

Last week, I conducted running records on two ELL students at a school that I am accomplishing field hours for. To the best of my knowledge, both students primary language is Spanish. Each of these ELL students were impressive in their English skills and read quite well given the fact that their home language is Spanish.

The first student I conducted a running record on was a girl. When I entered the classroom the students were getting ready for specials. The girl chosen for my running record seemed pleased to read but I could tell that she wanted to hurry through the reading so that she could be with her peers. I listened to her read a level 12 book called The Clever Penguins. She read well with an accuracy rate of 95% and a self correction ratio of 1:5. Her miscues were mainly in visual errors. She used words such as: with/ white, mis/ must, six/sit and were/where. Knowing how she miscues will assist the teacher in teaching strategies that will help her correct her visual mishaps. This student self corrected and was adequate when retelling the story’s main idea and story language. She had complete understanding of the story’s characters and setting. The teacher may want to re-teach main idea and story language for this student so that she can also have complete understanding in the future.

The next student I conducted a running record on was a boy. I interrupted him in class as well though he was excited to share his reading with a classroom guest. I asked him to choose any book out of his book bag. He chose a chapter book. He was so excited about this book that I let him read it to me instead of asking for a shorter book. The book he read was a level 24 called Arthur’s Loose Tooth. He had an accuracy rate of 90% and a self correction ratio of 1:17. This student was less likely to self correct and it should be a teaching point addressed in the future. His miscues were visual errors. He used words such as: healed/held, had/ head, knock/ knocked, ball/ bowl, sit/sat, finger/ fingers and cutton/ cotton. I was glad to see these miscues because they were discussed in Freeman & Freeman’s book Essential Linguistics, What You Need to Know to Teach Reading, ESL, Spelling, Phonics and Grammar. Freeman & Freeman (2004) explain that, “each language has a different inventory of sounds (phonemes) and these phonemes are perceptual units that differ from one another by the fact that they signal differences in meaning” (Freeman, 2004, p. 88). This Spanish speaking student had a minor struggle with English phonemes, though it didn’t affect his reading comprehension. Because of this, I scored him adequate on story language. He had complete understanding of characters and main idea. His teacher should work on recognizing vowels and their sounds, making sure to pronounce word endings and letter/ sound correspondences.

Accomplishing running records on ELL students is insightful and full of learning points for teachers as well as students. I am amazed at the knowledge and adaptability that these students have in learning a new language. I now have a better understanding of where to begin when teaching ELL students.

Work Cited:
Freeman, D.E. & Freeman, Y.S. (2004). Essential linguistics, What You Need to Know to Teach Reading, ESL, Spelling, Phonics and Grammar. Portsmouth: NH. Heinemann