Running Record Analysis

I conducted a running record on two Ell students, one that was Spanish and one that was French.  Both students have been in the United States since kindergarten, so they are fairly proficient with the English language.  They are both 5th graders at my school.  Both students read from a book called Six Minute Solutions.  It has different level passages that I use in my classroom for fluency.  I have noticed that my struggling readers struggle with many of these passages, so I thought that I would use them on these two ELL students who are not in my class.  Most of the mistakes the students made were leaving off suffixes or plurals.  Both students skipped words and had several self corrections.  One student even seemed to have trouble tracking while completing the record.  I suggested the student use a ruler to track or maybe even their finger.  They both struggled slightly with meaning do to the fact that they had skipped words.  When asked to retell what they had read they were under 50% of the words retold.  They also made grammar errors, such as wrong verb tense.  I see this quite often with my struggling readers.   I really did not see any errors that related to their first language.  Both students read at what would be considered benchmark or 115 words per minute.

My teaching suggestions for these students would be that they continue reading high interest text.  Books that contain pictures, or photographs that would help support meaning.  These students would benefit from a content rich program where all of the curriculum builds upon their vocabulary and introduces them to new ideas.  In Freeman's book they discuss how students can repeat what an adult is saying if they are struggling with a certain concept.  This might really help these students become more aware of what they are missing.  A phonice exercise about s making the s or z sound may also be beneficial.  For these students it would not help them to continue on with their reading curriculum without having some direct instruction in what they are missing.  It would be interesting to see what their spelling is like.   I bet they have some of the same problems hearing those sounds and spelling them.