Effects of Running Records Assessment on Early Literacy Achievement

Ross, J. A. (2004). Effects of Running Records Assessment on Early Literacy Achievement. The Journal of Educational Research, 97(4), 186-195. doi:10.3200/JOER.97.4.186-195

Background

The author highlighted that among numerous classroom assessment approaches, running records have been of particular interest. A running record involves a child reading next to the teacher, with the teacher coding each word, reporting the percentage of words correctly read, the self-correction ratio and the categories of errors made.

Aims

The author investigated whether schools assigned to the running records treatment would have higher student achievement in reading and writing than schools assigned to a varied action research treatment.

Sample

The sample comprised 39 running records schools and 34 action research schools with 2,800 students participating in the study.

Method

The schools were randomly assigned to two school improvement strategies: running records and action research. The running records treatment comprised two key components: teacher in-service and principal support. Teacher in-service support consisted of six 60-min after-school workshops for teachers to learn how to administer running records and use the information to focus on individual student needs. Videotapes of students and teachers practising the procedure were shown. The author supported the principals by helping them create a collaborative culture of literacy assessment. To ensure the validity of the study, scores from the provincial assessment were compared with the students’ prior school achievement scores, collective teacher efficacy (i.e., teachers’ beliefs that the teachers in their school constituted an effective instructional team) was included as an additional covariate as a strong predictor of school achievement, and an alternative explanation for any possible differences in scores was examined. In the action research treatment, principals and teachers identified an issue related to early literacy, devised improvement activities, implemented action plans, and reflected on and reported the results. There were four in-service sessions for principals and the teachers had access to the same set of teacher in-service sessions as the teachers in the running records schools.

Findings

The results indicated that participation in the running records treatment had a greater positive effect on student achievement in reading and writing than participation in the action research condition. The results confirmed the findings from effective schools studies consistently reporting positive associations between high student literacy and engagement in systematic classroom assessment procedures, particularly running records.

Implications

The author highlighted that, as he did not measure variations in the principals’ actions, he could not determine how much of the impact of the running records treatment was dependent on the principals’ actions.

Original article retrieved from EBSCOHost.