Assessment Section

Reading assessment is related to the observations, record keeping, and ongoing performance tests that a teacher uses to attain information about each student’s reading progress. I will assess reading concepts because they are useful tools in discovering what students are able to do. They also communicate student progress to the student, parents, and others. They are extremely useful in evaluating teaching strategies.

Highly effective reading teachers begin reading instruction by first assessing to find out what students already know and can do (Reutzel and Cooter, 2005). Developed by Marie Clay, running records are the most widely used methods for following students’ phonics and word attack skills development. Clay’s running records for analyzing oral reading errors proved to be functional for many classroom teachers. The running record is an informed assessment procedure with high reliability that informs teachers regarding students’ decoding development. Overall, the teacher notes everything the student says while reading a selected passage, including all words correctly as well as all miscues. Clay advises that three running records be taken for each child on different levels of difficulty for initial reading assessment. Her criteria for oral reading evaluation are based on words correctly read aloud. In order to conduct a running record, the teacher must first gather passages from a number of reading materials representing a variety of reading levels. Each reading level should be represented by three passages, which should be 100 to 200 words in length. Next, have the student read the passage one or two times orally before you begin the running record. Then, you sit alongside the student while he/she reads. This allows both of you to see the page of text. Record a check mark on a sheet of blank paper for each word said correctly. Miscues will be recorded using different notations (Reutzel and Cooter, 2005).
Running records are probably the most reliable method for understanding a student’s reading level, fluency, miscues, and patterns. They also help you get an understanding of the strategies that the child uses in order to make sense of text. In order to help the child grow and expand their abilities, you must first understand their thought-processes when reading. Running records help you to do this. They are also very easy to use and are not expensive to do. The only materials necessary are: reading materials, a pen or a pencil, and a blank sheet of paper for you to take the records. Running records will be taken for every child at the beginning of the year. They may also be taken several times a month, depending on the child’s needs. Each child’s rate of progress varies from the next. Therefore, reading records should be taken based on the needs of each individual child.