When I was an assistant principal, we had our teachers turn in a running record for every kid every week. Teachers complied. But I'm not sure how much it helped the teachers show the kids how to grow. The teachers dutifully marked MSV. And then what? Check! Moving on!
Not really what we were hoping for as an administrative team.
Recently, I met with a group of teachers to examine what we were supposed to learn about teaching readers from the running record. I'm a little hesitant to share this with some - I know that many of you are much more knowledgeable about guided reading and Reading Recovery. You'll probably be able to pick apart my analysis and conclusions.
Your scrutiny is worth the risk of delivering these messages:
1. Completing running records and marking MSV can be a colossal waste of time if it doesn't lead to instructional decisions that help students become better readers.
2. Analyzing miscues and selecting teaching points (and even praise points) is about noticing the trends in student behaviors that impact the performance the most. It's not about what the individual errors are; our work is about why students have done so and what they can do instead.
Here's a link to the presentation and a short reflection about one of the records we examined that day.
No comments:
Post a Comment