About Running Records

Assessments Used to Place Students in Appropriate Level Texts

What Are Running Records?

Running records allow you to assess students' reading skills as they read from developmentally appropriate texts, such as leveled Benchmark Books or Passages.

What's the Purpose of a Running Record?

Running records serve two purposes:

• They are used to place students into books that are written at their instructional reading level.
• They are used to determine whether or not students are ready to exit their current levels and move to the next ones.

Running records are used most often at the earlier stages of reading to monitor reading behavior and progress.

How Often Should I Use Running Records?

Teachers should use running records at the beginning of the school year to place students into level appropriate texts. They should then use them to determine whether students are ready to move to the next level. Students who are not progressing at the expected rate should be assessed even more frequently than the Assessment Schedule suggests.

Assessment Schedule

Developmental Level	Reading Level	Schedule
Early Emergent readers	Levels aa-C	every 2 to 4 weeks
Emergent readers	Levels D-J	every 4 to 6 weeks
Early fluent readers	Levels K-P	every 6 to 8 weeks
Fluent readers	Levels Q-Z	every 8 to 10 weeks

How Do I Begin Using Running Records?

Taking a running record takes practice. Before attempting a running record, read the procedural steps on taking, marking, and scoring a running record.

How Do I Choose a Text to Use with a Running Record?

Views differ as to whether students should be assessed using text they have never read or familiar text. We believe using a previously unread text will give a more accurate measure of a student's ability to read and comprehend text at the assessed level.

You can always opt to read a Benchmark Book or Passage before doing a running record if you prefer using previously read text for your running record.

Or you could also use the fiction-nonfiction passage pair on the same topic at each level. Use one passage from the pair to support a student's understanding of the topic before assessing with the other passage.

What Types of Running Record Resources Are There?

A running record form, with text from a Benchmark Book or Passage printed on the form, accompanies each of the Benchmark Books and Passages.

Running Record Types

For Benchmark Books	For Benchmark Passages
Only the first 100-150 words of each Benchmark Book are used in the Running Records. Lowest level readers will read the entire book. Highest level readers will read a couple of pages for the running record and read the rest silently. Running records accompany one fiction and one nonfiction book at each of the 27 reading levels.	The text of the entire passage is used in the running record. Most are one page long, but as the reading level increases several are two pages long. Running records accompany two fiction and two nonfiction passages at each of the 27 reading levels. Each level has at least one fiction-nonfiction passage pair on the same topic.

A blank running-record form is supplied for teachers who wish to perform running records on text other than that provided or for additional text from the upper-level Benchmark Books.

How Do I Know if Students Comprehend What They Read?

Assessing students' comprehension is an important part of any running record process. We provide two comprehension checks: a comprehension quiz for each Benchmark Book or Passage, and a retell for either fiction or nonfiction texts with rubrics for scoring.

Students are placed in their instructional levels when they score 90 percent-94 percent on the running record and 80 percent-94 percent on the comprehension quiz. Students progress out of their instructional levels when their scores on both a running record and comprehension quiz fall in the independent range: 95 percent-100 percent.

How Do I Reward Students' Reading Progress?