Page 1 of 9

Page 2 of 9

Analysis of running record, Ella:

Ella is a confident early reader (Department of Education WA, 2013). When asked to read
The Classroom Play she displayed willingness and a genuinely positive attitude whilst reading
and answering the comprehension questions. Her skill at this level of reader is bordering on
independent, with a very small amount of assistance. Ella clearly shows that she has prior
knowledge of the subject book based on her answers during the comprehension questions
(Tompkins, Campbell & Green, 2012). Ella took on the text participant role and used her prior
knowledge in order to comprehend the meaning behind the text (Campbell & Green, 2006). Ella
showed that she understood what a play was, that people play characters and that they perform;
this shows that she is employing her semantic knowledge. In order to read as smoothly as she
does Ella is usimg the meaning, structure and visual cueing systems; she recognises and uses a
bank of high frequency and personally significant words to read the text fluently and she uses
relevant strategies such as decoding in order to work out more difficult words (Department of
Education WA, 2013). Ella did not look to the teacher for prompting during her reading however,
she did pause at one word, Matthew, the teacher helped/told her how to decode the word in
question, after which, she said it and continued reading.
The majority of Ellas errors are visual, she is making word insertions and substitutions
that are not grammatically correct which shows that she is perhaps not listening to herself read as
well as she could. Many of Ellas errors could have been self-corrected had she been
concentrating on whether what she was reading made sense.
Although Ella did not correct all of her errors she did show her ability to self-correct
through repetition/re-reading, syntactic and graphophonic knowledge. Ella was able to ascertain
on four occasions that she had made or was making an error and she either returned to correct it
or corrected herself as she read.

Page 3 of 9

Ella had a high level of comprehension with regard to the text she was reading but can
benefit from further support in some areas in order to improve her errors. Some teaching learning
focuses that can be employed with Ella are: teaching her to carefully process the words and
sentences she is reading; re-enforcing the importance of looking across a whole word to decode
and not skip over the word if it is too difficult. Ella could benefit from a lesson on decoding the
ew letter pattern as she had significant trouble with it whilst reading. Ella, on occasion, reads
straight through full stops. A lesson supporting the full stop and its uses in sentences and reading
would be beneficial here.

Page 4 of 9

Lesson Plan
Key Learning Area: English

Grade: One

Aim: To engage students in recognising letter

Curriculum links:

combinations, to consolidate the decoding

Date:

Read supportive texts using

comprehension strategy and to continue to build

developing phrasing, fluency,

students sight vocabulary (Department of

contextual, semantic, grammatical

Education WA, 2013).

and phonic knowledge and emerging

Learning Objectives

text processing strategies, for

On completion of this lesson, students will be able

example prediction, monitoring

to:

meaning and rereading

Recognises, reads and pronounces the letter

pattern ew
Can read, understand and spell selected words

(ACELY1659)
Know that regular one-syllable
words are made up of letters and
common letter clusters that

with the letter pattern ew

correspond to the sounds heard, and

how to use visual memory to write
high-frequency words
(ACELA1778)
Resources Required:
-

Groups:

Interactive whiteboard (internet access)

Whiteboard
Pencils
Word building activity
Small containers for word building

This lesson can be altered to suit and

activity

group who require support for the ew

individual, small group of students or

could be a whole class activity. This
lesson plan will be described for a small
letter pattern.

Learning Activities/Procedure

Notes

Introductory activities: (10 minutes)

Tuning in and building knowledge teacher to explain that the group

Teacher led

is going to be working on reading and spelling words with the ew

discussion and

sound in it. Explain to the group what ew sounds like then ask the

brainstorming

Page 5 of 9

students to put their hands up to give any words that they think have

activity. Teacher has

an ew in it.
- If no answer then the teacher scaffolds by providing some words

an opportunity to

themselves (this should spur the students into brainstorming)

If a student provides a word which sounds the same but is

ascertain students
prior knowledge.

spelled differently put that word on the other side of the

whiteboard. Explain that, that particular word sounds the same
but is spelled differently (opportunity for further learning here).
Developmental activities (10 minutes)

The teacher plays the long vowel phonemes game with the students
(modelling how it is done first) from http://www.roythezebra.com
each students has a go at moving the ew to the word and sounding
out the word in question.

Teacher asks
questions of students
here such as
What does that word
mean? or can you
put that word into a
sentence for me? If
the student does not
know then the teacher

Figure 1: Example of the interactive game.

Concluding activities (25 minutes)

Teacher models through guided practice the word building activity

with their own sheet (see Appendix B). Students are then sent to their
desks to work independently, they must build words that have the
letter pattern ew with the laminated letters and the word building
sheet provided. They must then write the word in the shape and draw
a picture to show their understanding of the word. Some words that
can be built will not make sense, the teacher needs to make the
students aware of this.

Page 6 of 9

explains.

Extension: Children who find the lesson easy may write a sentence in
their writing books for each of the words they constructed during the
word building activity.
Catering for children with lower abilities: Teacher may need to
provide extra support with the word building activity, children at lower
levels may need to have the lesson or a similar lesson repeated to
cement understanding.
Further learning: Teacher might choose to read the class books with
ew words in them such as New Shoes for Sylvia by Johanna Hurwitz
and follow by asking students to identify words with the ew letter
pattern.
Assessment:

Teacher is assessing individual students ability to sound out/read

ew words, recognise ew words and understand the meaning of
ew words.
Formative assessment- Check for understanding throughout the

lesson via questioning (see notes) and observation. Observe

students abilities to read the words when playing the interactive
game and put the words into sentences.
Summative assessment - Collect the word building activity from

each of the students at the end of the lesson. These will give the
teacher an indication of which students need development and
which students understand the concept.
Evaluation:

Were the students engaged?

Were the learning objectives achieved and what evidence indicated this?
Was the planning effective or could it be improved?
Were there any areas of difficulty, do some students require further instruction?

Page 7 of 9

References

Campbell, R. & Green, D. (2006). Literacies and Learners: current perspectives.

(3rd ed.). Frenchs Forest, NSW: Pearson Education Australia.

Clay, M. (2013). Taking Records of reading continuous texts: Running records. In An

observation survey of early literacy achievement (3rd ed., pp. 51-83). Auckland, NZ:
Pearson New Zealand.

Department of Education WA. (2013). First Steps reading map of development: Addressing current
literacy challenges. East Perth, WA: Author.

Tompkins, G., Campbell, R., & Green, D. (2012). Literacy for the 21st century: A balanced
approach. Frenchs Forest, NSW: Pearson Australia.

Appendix B
Word Building Activity

BL

GR

CH

FL

THR

NO

Cut out and put in small container for children to use in conjunction with the word building sheet
below.

Page 8 of 9

Page 9 of 9