Reviewing Running Record Results

When a student completes a running record assessment, the results appear in your inbox for you to score:

Running record assessments are clearly labeled as such in the Type column, and the title of the recorded passage appears as well. To score a running record, click Grade Running Record > in the rightmost column of a student’s row. The completed running record opens.

The upper portion of the scoring window shows the student’s recording in an audio player:

Use the play/pause button to listen to the recording as you mark errors. The recording may contain a few seconds of silence at the beginning or end. For scoring purposes, it is important to ignore these portions. Click and drag the handles on each end of the audio waveform to the beginning and end of the usable clip. If none of the recording is usable for any reason, click Mark this recording as unusable. If you change your mind at any time, click the button (now labeled Recording marked as unusable) again.

When a recording is marked as unusable, key data from the running record assessment will not appear in the student report.

Click the download button to save the audio clip as an MP3 file. This allows you to listen to the recording on another device, or to archive the recording.

The lower portion of the scoring window is where you mark errors to grade the assessment. It displays the running record passage on the left, and a scorecard for the assessment on the right:

As you mark errors and self-corrections in the assessment, the scorecard data changes to reflect the score.

Marking Errors and Saving Results

To mark errors as you listen to a student’s running record recording, just click the problem words as you go. Each time you do, a small grading window pops up showing the various error types (described below):

Click the corresponding error type to mark the word. The audio playback pauses automatically, then resumes once you select the error type. The word you marked now has the color of the error type you selected (mispronunciation in the example below):

If a student makes more than one error for a single word, click the word again to select the second error type. The word now has the color of both error types you selected (for example, mispronunciation and substitution):

If you mark a word and later need to remove the error type, click the word again and select the original error type a second time. If you click a word by accident or decide the student didn’t make an error on it after all, just click the X in the upper right corner of the grading pop-up window to close it.

Error Types

The following error types are included in running record assessments:

Omissions: When a student skips a word.
Insertions: When a student adds a word that doesn’t appear in the text.
Mispronunciations: When a student incorrectly pronounces a word (remember to take dialect into account when considering this error type).
Substitutions: When a student uses different word than a word in the text.
Repetition: When a student repeats a word in the text.

As described above, these error types can be combined for a word if, for example, a student both mispronounces and repeats it, or inserts a word and then substitutes an incorrect word. (If a student omits a word, no other error types can be applied to that word.)

In addition to simple errors, you can mark words a student initially reads incorrectly, but then reads correctly:

Self-correction: When a student becomes aware of a reading error and corrects it. To mark a self-corrected word more specifically, you can use one of the other self-correction options.
Self-correction — Structure: When a student self-corrects based on syntax. Knowledge of language structure helps students know when what they read “sounds” correct.
Self-correction — Meaning: When a student self-corrects by thinking about the context of the text passage, the information presented by any images in it, or the meaning of a passage as a whole.
Self-correction — Visual: When a student self-corrects based on how the letters in a word, and the word itself, look.

Self-corrections are exclusive, meaning you can’t mark a word as more than one type of self-correction or in addition to any other error type.

As you mark errors and self-corrections, the tally and data in the scorecard updates to reflect the grade:

In addition to errors and reading data, the scorecard displays the following information:

Word Count: The number of words in the text passage.
Accuracy Rate: The rate, shown as a percentage, at which the student read the passage correctly.
Words per Minute: The total number of words the student read in one minute.
Words Correct per Minute: The total number of words the student read in one minute, minus the number of errors he or she made.
Error Rate: The ratio of errors to words in the passage.

You can also include comments and reminders about the assessment in the Notes field. These are not visible anywhere in the LevelUp Reader student interface.

If for any reason you need to clear the current score and start the grading process over again, click RESET in upper-left corner of the scorecard. The error tally and scoring data return to their original state.

Saving a Running Record Score

Once you’ve finished listening to and grading a running record assessment, click Save Scoring and Continue at the bottom of the scorecard. A review page opens where you can verify that the score and data are accurate and any notes you made are clear. A list of problem words you may want to focus on with the student also appears.

If any of the scoring information is inaccurate or needs further clarification, click Edit in the upper-right of the page to return to the grading page. If the information is complete, click Done in the lower-right corner of the page to send the results to the student’s report and return to your inbox.