Analyzing Running Records

Qualitative analysis involves looking at the reading behavior. The teacher looks for behavior evidence of cue use and evidence of the use of strategies such as cross-checking information and searching for cues. She examines each incorrect attempt and self-correction and hypothesizes about the cues or information sources the child might have been using. In Clay's analysis, cues refer to the sources of information. There are three major categories:
Meaning- The teacher thinks about whether the child's attempt makes sense up to the point of error. She might think about the story background, information, from the picture, and meaning in the sentence in deciding whether the child was probably using meaning as a source.
Structure-Structure refers to the way language works. Some refer to this information source as syntax because unconscious knowledge of the rules of the grammar of the language the reader speaks allows him to eliminate alternatives. Using this implicates knowledge, the reader checks whether the sentence "sounds right."
Visual information- Visual information includes the way the letters and words look. Readers use their knowledge of visual features of words and letters and connect these features to their knowledge of the way words and letters sound when spoken. If the letters in the child's attempt are visually similar to the letters in the word in the text (for example, if it begins with the same letter or has a similar cluster of letters), it is likely that the reader has used visual information.
Readers use all these information sources in an integrated way while reading for meaning.
For each incorrect attempt and self-corrected error, the letters M S V are indicated in the Error column and the SC column, as appropriate. If the child probably used meaning, M is circled; if structure (syntax), S is circled; if visual information, V is circled. A complete running record includes these analyses of each error and self-correction.
The value of this activity is to look for patterns in the child's responses. You should not spend a great deal of time trying to figure out each miscue, searching for the "right" analysis. The idea is to reflect on the child's behavior, make your best hypothesis, and then look at data through the whole reading and over time.
What you are really looking for is an indication of the kinds of strategies the child is using. An important thing to remember about errors is that they are partially correct. They indicate strategic action and provide a window through which the teacher can observe whether the child is activity relating one source of information while reading. The teacher can observe whether the child is actively relating one source of information to another, a behavior that Clay (1991a) calls cross checking, because the child is checking one clue against another. At the top of the form, the teacher notes cues used, cues neglected, and evidence of cross-checking behavior. She summarizes how the child used cues and the pattern of behaviors that is evident.
Once cues are analyzed, the teacher might think about questions like these: • Does the reader use cues in relation to each other? • Does the reader check information sources against one another? • Does the reader use several sources of cues in an integrated way or rely on only one kind of information? • Does the reader repeat what has been read as if to confirm his reading thus far? • Does the reader reread to search for more information from the sentence or text? • Does the reader make meaningful attempts before appealing to the teacher for help? • Does the reader request help after making an attempt or several attempts? • Does the reader notice when cues do not match? • Does the reader stop at unknown words without actively searching? • Does the reader appeal to the teacher in a dependent way or appeal when appropriate (that is, when the reader has done what he can)? • Does the reader read with phrasing and fluency? • Does the reader make comments or responses in ways that indicate comprehension of the story?
These kinds of behavior (the list above is not exhaustive) provide a description of the child's reading processing system. They will reveal whether the child is using internal strategies, which include:
Self-monitoring. These strategies allow the reader to confirm whether he is reading the story accurately. Readers who are reading accurately are consistently using meaning, structure, and visual information for confirm their reading. This is not a conscious process, but the internal system tells them whether the reading makes sense, sounds right, and looks right.
Searching. Searching is an active process in which the reader looks for information that will assist problem solving in some way. Readers search for and use all kinds of information sources, including meaning, visual information, and their knowledge of syntax of language.
Self-correcting. This is the reader's ability to notice mismatches, search for further accomplishes a precise fit with the information already known.
Fountas and Pinnell, 1996

Quantitative analysis

By doing some simple calculations from your running record, you can not only get a better sense of how well the child is reading but select more appropriate texts for further running records.

Error ratio

The error ratio, the ratio of errors to running words (total words read), should fall between 1:10 and 1:20 in order for the teacher to have “good opportunities…to observe children’s processing of texts.”1 If the student makes too many errors, the reading is too difficult, but too few errors means too few opportunities for the teacher to analyze the student’s difficulties.

To find the error ratio, place the number of errors over the number of running words, then simplify the ratio so that the top number is 1 and the bottom number is the number of running words per error. If E is the number or errors and W the number of words read, this can be expressed as 1:(W/E).

For example, if a child read a passage with 119 words and made 6 errors, the fraction you would make would be 6/119. You would then divide both the top and bottom parts of this fraction by 6, the number of errors. My error ratio would be 1:19.8. In words, we can say that the student made 1 error for every 19.8 words read. Since this ratio falls between 1:10 and 1:20, it would offer good opportunities for me to observe this student working on text.

Accuracy rate

Accuracy rate is the percentage of words read correctly. In other words, if what the child read were to be graded out of 100 points and given a percentage grade, the accuracy rate would be that grade. The accuracy rate helps you determine if the text a student is reading is at an independent, instructional or frustration level (see text selection).

To calculate the accuracy rate, use the following formula, where E is the number of errors and W the number of running words:

100 - (100 × E/W)

Using the previous example of 119 words and 6 errors, I will use those numbers to find the Accuracy Rate for the same student:

100 – (6/119 x 100)
= 100 - 600/119
= 100 - 5.04
= 94.96

So the student’s accuracy rate can be rounded to 95%.

Self-correction ratio

The self-correction ratio is the ratio of self-corrections to the total of errors and self-corrections — that is, of self-corrections to the number of errors the student would have made had he not corrected himself.

This can be expressed as SC/(E+SC), where E is errors and SC is self-corrections. Like the error ratio, this is expressed with a 1 first. Suppose that in the above example, in addition to 6 errors, the student made 3 self-corrections. Then SC/(E+SC) is 4/(6+4) = 4/10. This is then expressed as a ratio of 1 to 1/(4/10) or 1:2.5. In plain English, the student corrected 1 error for every 2.5 made.

Cuing systems: Analyzing reading behaviors

Cuing systems are the self-extending systems students use to act upon text in order to make sense of it. These systems may be used independently or in conjunction with one another. When you administer running records, you can analyze cuing systems for both errors and self-corrections.

What can be confusing when thinking about cuing systems in terms of errors and error analysis is that a teacher must think about what methods the student is using that are positively helping him or her to navigate the text. A teacher should ask, “What is working for this child in this case?” By recognizing and supporting cuing systems that the child is already using successfully, you can help him or her read more effectively in the future.

Identifying cuing systems

If the student makes an error while reading, the teacher would begin by writing the letters M (for meaning), S (for syntax), and V (for visual) in the column for errors on the running records sheet.

The teacher must now analyze the error by identifying which type or types of cuing systems the student used.

• Meaning: Did the meaning of the text have an impact on the child’s reading? Pictures and information taken from them are considered meaning cues. • Syntax: Did the child read the sentence in a grammatical and linguistically reasonable manner? In other words, does it make sense as a sentence in English? If there was a substitution, for example, did he or she substitute a proper part of speech? • Visual: This is also called graphophonic information. What did the word look like? Did the student look at the word and make an attempt based on how it appears? Did he or she use a beginning or ending letter? A cluster of letters?

For example, suppose the printed text next to a picture of a horse reads “I like my horse” and the student reads “I like my pony.” The teacher can clearly see the picture of the horse on the page. She decides that this cue is probably being used, since they pitcure could actually be seen as a pony. This is a meaning cue, and so she circles the M.

Next, the teacher would observe that the sentence “I like my pony” makes sense in English. Pony and horse are both nouns and can be substituted without sounding out of place while reading. She therefore circles the S.

Finally, the teacher notes that the only letter that horse and pony have in common is o. The teacher does not feel in the child has attended to the visual information within the word and does not circle the V.

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In this case, the child was using two cuing systems together: meaning and syntax. Now suppose the child went back and corrected this error, reading, “I like my horse.” The teacher would now write the letters M, S, and V in the SC (self-correction) column next to the line of text on the running records sheet, right next to the MSV in the E column. The teacher would now circle the V, as this (visual) was the cuing system that helped the student realize that something was wrong with the reading and was the method used for self-correction. Using one cueing system to “check” the choice made by another cueing system is called cross-checking.

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