Running Records and Lesson Notes

Instructional Decision-Making	Before Reading	During/After Reading	Letter/Word Work	Reading/Writing Connections

Facilitator Notes

Struggling readers need to learn at an accelerated rate to catch up with their classmates. Understanding the specific strengths and needs of each child is key to that acceleration. We can’t see inside children’s brains but running records and lesson notes allow us to amass vital clues about their thinking. By recording their actions at difficulty, we begin to recognize their patterns of responding. The strategies a child uses to problem solve, whether they result in accurate reading or not, show us what they know or almost know how to do. Their strengths, both in strategies and item knowledge (words, letters, patterns, etc.), are their most important bridge to new learning. By recognizing their weaknesses (e.g., high frequency words, serial order, reliance on only one source of information), we further decide how to focus our lessons.

How do running records we take during reading help us support struggling readers?

How do we take and use lesson notes while children are reading?

How do running records we take during reading help us support struggling readers?

Supporting Documents: Where Are You Going, Aja Rose? and Jack and Billy text transcripts; Running Records for Where Are You Going, Aja Rose? and Jack and Billy

In the first three video clips, Maryann McBride, Reading Recovery Teacher Leader at Clemson University, shares the progress of a first grader who began Reading Recovery second semester. She illustrates how the current running record helps us understand his strengths and needs and plan his program for ongoing growth as a reader. In the final segment, Reading Recovery/Intervention Teacher Emily Garrett shows how a running record may clarify or alter our theories about how a child is processing text, so we can better align our lessons to the child’s needs.