Blog # 7 Running Records and Miscue Analysis
Of the more than 300 ELL’s at my
school, only two speak a language other than Spanish as their primary language! I chose the older of these two students, a
first grader from Burma, to read with.
This is her first school year in the United States. In order to better compare the results of my
running records, I asked a Spanish speaking child from to same first grade
class to read the same passage.
The student from Burma relied
solely on the graphophonic cues from the text.
She read with only fifty percent accuracy. Every error had at least partial graphic
similarity to the actual word. Fewer
than five percent of her errors were syntactically acceptable. Fewer than five percent were semantically acceptable. Over ninety percent of her errors were
non-words in English. I do not believe they
were words in her native language either.
This student is constructing very little meaning from grade-level
texts. She needs texts that have
supportive pictures and lots more comprehensible experiences with English.
The second student I read with speaks
Spanish at home. Unlike the child from
Burma, she received schooling in English beginning in preschool. Consequently, she understood what she was
reading far better than her classmate.
She read the same passage with ninety-two percent accuracy. In order to collect further data on her
miscues, I had this student continue reading the passage. One third of her errors, although
syntactically incorrect, were semantically acceptable. Her errors reflected her developing English. For example, she read the phrase ‘many
children’ as ‘many childrens’. It seems to me that she was trying to
maintain the semantic and syntactic integrity of the sentence through the
overgeneralization of the plural ‘s’ rule, which is common to both English and
Spanish. This student also demonstrated her
use of phonics to compensate for unknown vocabulary. For example, she read the word travel with a
long a sound. She used the long u sound when
reading the word buses, also. The long u
sound may represent the influence from her first language, as this closely matches
the pronunciation of the word buses (autobuses) in Spanish. I recommend that this student be exposed to
many more opportunities to hear and read books in English.
Hi Cheryl,
ReplyDeleteI had the same struggle. We have over 300 ELL students as well; with only a handful who are not Spanish speakers! I would like to see the results of a running records on two Spanish speakers who were very similar in background and schooling in English. It would be interesting to see the effectiveness of the strategies being used! I agree with your recommendation of students being exposed to books and language in English. If students are speaking Spanish at home, this is sometimes the only opportunity they have to hear English, which is so important.
Thanks for sharing!
This course is perfect for you with your high ELL population.
ReplyDeleteThe running record activity seemed like a great opportunity to get some insights into another language as well as the primary language of Spanish.
The effect on comprehension of grade level text is very clear with your Burmese student. In addition to having supportive texts, it would probably be very helpful to have as much collaboration as possible between the ELL and classroom teachers.
-Deb
Thanks for your post. I saw the same thing with my students, they rely heavily on pictures to help develop meaning. I would imagine that comprehension for your first student is almost nonexistent. With your second student, I can understand why they would struggle with words that don't follow the rules. I work with 1st graders mostly, and even the English speaking students struggle with these words. It was good to see that student was trying to follow the rules of the language and identify the patterns, more exposure to written text will really help.
ReplyDeleteThanks
Jen
Cheryl -
ReplyDeleteYour point about the interference of the native language is so important when scoring these types of tests. I actually had a number of these types of miscues when evaluating the high school students that I measured. Due to the conversation that I had with our ELL teacher prior to giving the measurement, I was encouraged not to stress or spend too much time marking those types of miscues that are like your example (buses vs autobuses). She stressed that as long as the word provided the comprehension, it was not something that should be pressed as incorrect. With continued exposure to the word bus, the u sound will eventually be replaced with the correct sound. Thanks for reminding me that I had done this with my assessment. - Matt
Matt,
DeleteI appreciate the advice from your ELL teacher. I've been wrestling with the idea of calling substitutions that make sense "errors". It makes me wonder if the point is for the students to read-every-word-correctly-just-as-they-see-it-on-the-page, or to be an active reader, making meaning as they go. My hope is that we are enabling kids to be creative, active interpreters, rather than being so bound to precision of reading-every-word-correctly-just-as-they-see-it-on-the-page.
Kathy
Cheryl,
ReplyDeleteI love that you chose two students within the same grade level. This certainly gave your audience a perspective of the vast differences between students. Although both were ELL students, their life experiences placed them into opposite places on the reading spectrum. Your post made me think back to one of our previous activites, when I had to resort to picture books in order to understand the book I was reading. It's amazing to me, how natural it seemed for me to learn english (as an infant and child), and how difficult it still is to grasp spanish (my second language, by choice). Even though I have a good understanding of the language, I still struggle with syntax, meaning, and visual cues, myself, when reading spanish. I also completely agree with your statement that these students need additional exposure to tests in english,. and I am going to head your advice, and read more materials in spanish. :)
Thank you,
Helena