The Road to Running Records: A Narrative Review of Their History and a Systematic Narrative Review of the Evidence for Their Use

In this paper, we employ both narrative and systematic review methodologies to explore Running Records, a reading assessment tool designed for use with children in the early years of school. To contextualize Running Records, we describe their development over the past 50 years. We show that, as a tool designed to analyze reading errors, Running Records were used to develop and substantiate a cueing-based model of reading. Drawing on contemporary evidence-based cognitive models of reading, which controvert cueing-based models of reading, we demonstrate that the error analysis methodology rests on an incorrect assumption: that behaviors that are observed when a reader makes an error accurately represent the cognitive strategies a reader uses to read successfully. We describe robust evidence that the strategies used when a reader makes an error are compensatory behaviors peculiar to moments of reading failure. In light of this challenge to the rationale by which the use of Running Records is justified, the question is posed: What is the empirical and theoretical evidence for the valid use of Running Records to measure student progress and guide teaching? Through a systematic narrative review, we explore the peer-reviewed evidence concerning the use of Running Records to measure students’ reading progress and/or guide teaching. We conclude by proposing that alternative assessment methods are both available and necessary to more effectively support teachers of children first learning to read.