The last two years I have been tweaking the form I use to record anecdotal notes on my students and I think I am finally happy with it! (Well, I haven't changed it yet since the beginning of this year at least!) Here it is:
The top half includes two blank boxes to write notes and the bottom half includes an area to record a running record (RR). A colleague of mine had shared a print-out of a RR for 100 words using 100 boxes. To get the student’s accuracy you would just subtract the number of errors from 100% (ex. 7 errors would equal 93%). How easy is that? Since I try to complete a RR on each student at least once per week, I wanted to include it on the same form as my notes. I also document the student’s words per minute (WPM) and circle/comment about their phrasing and expression.
The bottom of the form has simple codes that I circle for each reading strategy the child uses. My district has adopted these strategies from Donna Scanlon’s Interactive Strategies Approach (ISA). You can read more about the ISA in a book they recently published called, Early Intervention for Reading Difficulties: The Interactive Strategies Approach (Solving Problems in the Teaching of Literacy)
Here is a list of what the codes mean:
CP=Check the Pictures
TS=Think about the Sounds in the word First, Last, Medial
MS=Think of words that might Make Sense
WP=Look for Word Families or Parts you may know.
RP=Read Past the word
SA=Go back to the beginning of the sentences and Start Again
DP=Try Different Pronunciations for some of the letters.
BW=Break the Word into smaller parts
IC=Uses multiple strategies in an Interactive and
Confirmatory Way
~ Mrs. Mc
