Giving Running Record to ELL students can difficult when considering what you call an error. I had a teacher come to me today asking me what to count as errors and what not to when working with ELL students.
       I told her you are always told to take into consideration how they naturally speak and to not count off for dialect errors. Some students have a hard time producing certain sounds, or adding suffixes to words and using the correct form of the word. She showed me a running record where the student had made many errors where they left off the s or es at the end of the word. She just learning how administer the Fountas & Pinnell Benchmark Assessment. It was an excellent concern. In some texts it could be 10-20 words.
      Should you count it as an error only once? Or should you mark them all as errors and note that their comprehension was good, so you continued on to the next level because you are taking into consideration that this is a common mistake among lots of ELL students and specifically this student. Also noting that when taking out all of the errors where the student left off an s or es, they would pass the level with accuracy and they passed with comprehension.  I have done the latter  many times and the student usually does not pass the next level.
     This teacher also commented that she had been told a few different ways on how to handle the situation. This really bothers me that even within or our we are not being consistent. Please share your own thoughts on this.

This is so true, you have to know your kids and makes decisions to help them grow. 

 Viewing children as individual learners and working with them in groups may seem at odds; however, no matter what size group we are working with, we always recognize that children are individuals and we do our best to tune into their individual strengths."

--Irene C. Fountas & Gay Su Pinnell, from the book Word Matters

 

By the end of 6^th grade, Student “A” will have read the equivalent of 60 whole school days.  Student “B” will have read only 12 school days.  Which student would you expect to have a better vocabulary?  Which student would you expect to be more successful in school?

(Nagy and Herman, 1987)

Remember if you can talk about it, and explain it clearly to others, then you understand it.