Online discussion with Yetta Goodman Transcript © 2007 by Richard C. Owen Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved. 

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                                                                                                Richard Owen

 Good morning Everyone,

I want to welcome current subscribers and recent subscribers to TLN for this discussion with Yetta Goodman.  We are looking forward to a lively exchange. 

I particularly want to welcome Yetta Goodman--scholar, student, writer, friend.  And I want to thank Yetta for agreeing to participate in this discussion.

Yetta brings a wealth of experience about reading process and about miscue analysis to the conversation.  We are fortunate to be publishers of Reading Miscue Inventory 2/e, and Reading Strategies 2/e, and we were honored to publish the first edition of Retrospective Miscue Analysis. 

Earlier this morning Darcy Bradley posted the following query, which looks like a very good place to start. 
I encourage your participation as well.  Ask questions, offer comments.  We are all here to learn. 

As before, if anyone has any difficulty with any aspect of the listserve, please contact me offline at richardowen@rcowen.com. 

Richard Owen

Darcy Bradley

Dear Yetta, 

Thank you for agreeing to be part of this professional conversation.

Please start us off by talking about miscues and why miscue analysis is so valuable to teachers. We'll eagerly look forward to your response as an entry point to our discussion and comments and questions from our listserve colleagues. 

Cordially,

Darcy Bradley

Yetta Goodman

I am happy to participate in this conversation and I hope many of you will join our conversation. Please respond with comments or questions. You need to know that I really believe that there is no such thing as a "stupid" question. Every question you ask is worthy of a serious response. So.....

Why is miscue analysis valuable for teachers...........??

Most of my work has been with kids in classrooms and clinical settings. I've also worked with preservice and inservice teachers. When I work with teachers and they do at least two or three miscue analyses on their own children at home and/or students in their classrooms at almost any age beyond kindergarten, the teachers tell me............... "I'll never be able to listen to a kid read in the same way any more. Miscue analysis opened my eyes to what kids know about reading not just what they don't know."

Miscue analysis shows us how smart the brain is as it reads a whole story or article or headline or whatever. But what is read must be in the context of something whole. Miscue analysis is always done on a whole story or article and is followed by a retelling. Teachers discover that readers know grammar as they substitute the same part of speech that is in the written story or article. They discover that kids are predicting what is going to happen next in the sentence based on what they already know as learners. Or the prediction fits with the sentence up to the miscue and the reader stops, hesitates and/or self corrects. Teachers find out that readers are monitoring what they are reading --- searching for meaning when they self-correct a prediction  that was understandable (acceptable) up to the point of the miscue. Most of these miscues are self-corrected. These show readers' strengths.

If we do not value readers' strengths as they read, then we often consider that each miscue is equal to the others -- usually treating them as something wrong that needs teacher correction. Unacceptable miscues also provide important information for teachers but I can talk about some of those based on your questions or comments. If you have some specific examples, I'd love to respond to those. I don't like to work on hypothetical miscues.

So the most important things for teachers about miscue analysis is they learn so much about their readers -- what they know about content in the written text and what they know about language. It also shows how much phonics (graphophonics) knowledge the kids have and teachers can use this to check off that knowledge on rubrics that they may have to use. I don't know of any instrument that provides as much information about reader's capabilities as miscue analysis.

The second thing teachers learn is to understand how the reading process works in general. We discover the strategies of sampling, predicting, confirming (self-correcting) and the degree to which readers are searching for meaning. We learn that many miscues should not be corrected by the reader because it makes so much sense in the passage. It shows the reader is comprehending the text very well. One high school reader told me "Boy that miscue is better in that sentence than what the author put there!!” And the more we examine miscues, the more we evaluate the reader's use of reading strategies whenever they read aloud in any situation.

Please let me know if I have used any ideas or concepts you are not sure about and I'll be happy to respond to those.

By the way, were you aware of any miscues you made while you were reading this? It also helps for teachers to become aware of their own reading miscues. The concept of miscue analysis is based on the idea that EVERYONE makes miscues. Most of us as effective readers are making smart miscues more than we know.

thanks .... yetta............

                                                                                                          Nancy

Well, I made a miscue on the last sentence: “The concept of miscue analysis is based on the idea that EVERYONE makes miscues.  Most of us as effective readers are making smart miscues more than we know.”

I read it as: “Most of us ARE effective readers.”  Then I got to ARE MAKING and I reread the first part of the sentence. 

Nancy Barth

Shelly

Ms. Goodman
Thank you so much for taking the time to share with us! As I read your writing below, I thought of my own daughter (entering first grade) and some reading we did this summer at “Mommy’s summer-school boot camp”  

When she was reading, I would encourage & support her by reminding her of the various decoding strategies and when she was ‘stuck’, I might say things such as, “Well, look at the first letters and think what would make sense in that place…?” etc. – However, there were times that she substituted a word that did make sense but was incorrect: I always hesitate to ‘correct’ such errors as it surely seems to ‘squelch’ confidence that is newly-blossoming. When these errors were made, although the meaning was not compromised, I noted that my daughter did not slow or correct herself.  Your statement, “We learn that many miscues should not be corrected by the reader because it makes so much sense in the passage. It shows the reader is comprehending the text very well.”  leads me to the age-old controversy- To correct? Or not to correct? What’s a mom (teacher) to do?? This is my question! J 

*In other words, when is ‘correction’ supportive and an act of assisting in the advancement of skill, and conversely, when is it discouraging and counter-productive? In my ‘infinite wisdom’ and desire to help, I do not want to discourage any readers! 

I appreciate your time in addressing this!

Sincerely,

Shelly Franco-Westacott
CPT,MAS,AESD

Yetta

The longer I work with readers, the less I find myself interrupting and telling the reader what to do. As a tutor, teacher or grandma I sit with the reader and just follow along quietly. I try not to respond when the reader looks up at me for HELP. I've discovered that we have made readers dependent on us when we so quickly and willingly respond to their questioning eyes and voice. Their voices also tell us that they are questioning us as they say "monster?" with a questioning tone and look up to see us nod our heads or smiling with joy and know they can continue to read. When readers do this they are telling us that they are reading to please us and not reading for themselves. Ultimately to be a good reader, we must be independent of those around us. When readers get too much help from others (kids or teachers or tutors) they begin to control the behavior of those around them and look up to get the other person to help rather than to work at making sense for self.

How to get readers to do their own work as they read --. In miscue analysis we tell the reader that we will not help them as they read. We want to know what they do when they read by themselves so we can support the strategies they use. Reading is to make sense to you!

Sometimes I work with a reader who stops and looks at me and I just remind them.... I want to see what you can do yourself.... If you come to something you don't know you can skip it or guess but read on. The amazing thing is that after looking up at me two or three times and realizing that I won't help, the reader begins to use strategies in new ways. We even have research to document readers shifting how they read as the teacher interferes less in the reading process. My friend Carolyn Burke says that the teacher/tutor/family member should think about being like a football coach. The field is the book. The player is on the field and the coach can't go there. The coach can support before or after the play but not during.

This is a hard shift to make for all of us. We want to be helpful and supportive but in this case being supportive means to help the reader "do it by myself".

Yetta  

                                                                                                                        Yetta

When I read with students one-on-one or with my grandkids, I let them know that I like to read along as they read but I won't help them with any specific part of the text. After they finish reading, I'll discuss any areas of the text they think they had difficulty with. So I observe them carefully and I do miscue analysis as I go along..
I explain to them that as they continue reading and think about what they are reading they will come across the same words or phrases and they will probably be able to work out their problems. Good authors use redundancy in a good way and repeat names and words to help readers build vocabulary, characterization, story line across the text. As they keep reading the "text will teach". I borrow that last phrase from Margaret Meek who writes a lot about reading and is well known for her work especially in England.

After the reading, I'll ask the reader, "As you were reading did something trouble you or bother you".  Often the student goes back to a spot where s/he made a miscue. I first say now read me the whole sentence. So often they read it and do not make a miscue anymore. I can then say... "So who taught you that .... how did you learn it?" And they say ... The book helped me or I did it myself.

By the way we should discuss miscues with parents so they support their own kids while they read together.

Yetta

Marlene

Dear Dr. Goodman,

Thank you for allowing us this opportunity to converse.

In your theoretical framework of reading, do you believe that comprehension precedes fluency, or that fluency precedes comprehension, or that comprehension and fluency work as scaffolds or supports to each other in the process of meaning making? Or none of the above.

I am very curious because within these dark times of DIBELS, fluency is sometimes conceived as fast word calling -- something completely unrelated to the process of reading and comprehending.

Please share your thoughts about fluency.

Marlene Montgomery
Graduate Research Assistant
Texas Woman's University

                                                                                                                        Yetta

In miscue analysis, we tend not to worry about fluency when readers are reading new material. To me "fluency" is a goal for dramatic reading that is a practiced art form.   So when I want to teach children/ adolescents about reading for an audience, I set up time for reader's theatre,  many opportunities to read to others, but there has to be time set aside for practice with the material being read.

I expect readers to make miscues especially when they are working in challenging material.  But readers enjoy challenging material (think of Harry Potter and the names of people and places) but I also expect readers to slow down to work at problem solving as they read....they say to themselves, “What's going on here?.."  “Why isn't this making sense?.." “Hmm, I know that's the name of a mountain but I wonder how to say it?…" "Where did this character come from?"  "That's a strange way to write things.”   In such settings reading slows down, readers eyes regress or jump ahead and they are working hard at trying to make sense.  That's exactly what I want readers to do. We need to find ways to support such hard work by readers.  And the best way to support them is to give them lots of opportunity to read a wide range of material -- easy and challenging.

What I just described is true for all readers. Proficient readers do it faster than readers who struggle but we all work hard at it if we want to make sense. And also remember that we are all struggling readers in a number of reading contexts -- for me is physics and lawyers contracts, and income tax information and knitting instructions. Some people think reading about miscue analysis is hard work.  I find it very easy.

By the way there are excellent adult readers who do not read orally. If most of a person's reading is silent in his/her adult life then oral reading can be a chore for such readers.  You can hear them sometimes when they read in church or at a Passover seder. Most teachers read with expression and intonation shifts because they are expert oral readers, especially if they read to their kids every day.  Alan Flurkey calls the way readers read, their flow of reading, which means they slow down when they need to or speed up when there is nothing blocking the stream of reading. We have lots of 4th - 6th grade readers who don't sound good at oral reading but their comprehension is great.  Their silent reading is fine and that's what reading should be all about.  If we want them to read well orally, we need to set up opportunities and purposes for good oral reading.

Jay Samuels is a researcher who has done a great deal of research on fluency. We do not agree on many aspects of reading process and how to teach reading, but we both agree that DIBELS does not test reading. He is unhappy with DIBELS tests because the test is written so that people come to believe that you can have fluency in reading without comprehension. 

There are already kids who have learned that when they are tested on measures like DIBELS they just do it fast.  But when they read for themselves they are wonderfully flexible readers who respond to authentic literature and read  it well for themselves. We need to worry about the kids though who become dependent on instruction and think all reading is supposed to be fast, be nonsense and not have any sense to it.

I do not believe that just responding to print orally is reading.  If comprehension is not involved at some level, if readers do not know what they are reading is supposed to make sense, they are NOT reading.

Yetta

Yetta

I'm trying to make sure I've responded to your satisfaction.  I have discussed fluency in a number of posts.  Let me know if you have other concerns.

DIBELS  folks use the term fluency in each of their tests but never describe what it could mean.    Ken Goodman has published a book this year with Heinemann called The Truth about DIBELS. 

Yetta

                                                                                                                                    Renee

I am interested in the answer to Marlene's question about comprehension and fluency.

Thanks for posting that.

Also, do you have any thoughts about comprehension strategy instruction that could be helpful?

Thanks!

Renee

                                                                                                                                    Yetta

All strategy instruction should be focused on comprehension.  Literature Circles is a great program to set up in your class to highlight comprehension.  Readers learn to listen to the interpretation of others; to find the clues in the text that support their ideas; to realize that reading is something people can do together and not just for answering questions. 

There are so many strategy lessons in both the RMI and the Reading Strategies book. I always develop reading strategy instruction keeping all the language in a whole context.  Selected slotting strategy lessons (cloze procedures) where readers fill in omitted words and phrases is another more focused strategy lesson.  However, I never use it with correct answers.  I like to  have small groups read the page of a short short story together and argue about what they think belongs in the slot or why. Then the small groups share their responses with each other.  This is a good strategy lesson that focuses kids on the grammar of language, too.  

I'm sure other folks on this listserve will have other good ideas.  I probably should have asked first what age kids you are working with.  That would make a difference too. 

Yetta

                                                                                                                                    Bonnie

I am curious about miscues from English language learners (ELL's)...  I know that the teacher would mark them since they are an important part of analyzing what the student is doing/thinking while reading, but should you count them in an accuracy rate?  Particularly if the student is consistent with the same miscue throughout?  I think I've read your take on this somewhere, but I don't remember exactly what you thought. 

Thank you for clarifying for me.  I am excited to learn from you "first hand"! 

Bonnie Jones

Texas--Instructional Facilitator

                                                                                                                                     Yetta

We have learned a great deal about ELL readers as a result of miscue analysis research. Examining ELL's miscues allows teachers to discover the degree of English learning that is taking place. Just a simple miscue such as "a" for "the" shows that the ELL learner knows that the two words are determiners and go into the same slot in an English sentence. If ELL learners are not yet controlling the English determiner system, such miscues are not made. 

I often ask ELL readers (after they've read the whole piece) "Look back over the story/article and tell me where you know you had trouble". They often can tell me where they omitted a word or produced a sounded-out non word. Then I'll say "Read it again and tell me what you think is happening here. What do you think that word means?" Not only can they explain what is happening they say, "I know that word in Arabic" or whatever language is their L1. I then encourage them that when they are reading on their own that's exactly what they need to do and keep reading. They can make a list of the concepts they are not sure of and write the word/phrase in their own language next to it and then ask an English speaker about it. But I encourage them to keep reading (silently) to build a sense/knowledge of what they are reading.

In regard to the "a" / "the" miscue above, ELL readers have told me "But this is a specific noun and not general." So I know that they know the rule but the miscue tells me more -- it tells me that they can use it to make sense of English while they read

We don't do accuracy rates in miscue analysis since number of miscues is not as important as quality of miscues. So we look at the degree to which miscues are acceptable in sentences. Unacceptable miscues that are not corrected help us know the syntactic and semantic places where readers may be having difficulty. However, if I have worked with students to come up with a good substitution for the word they do not know, I have a sense of their knowledge base. ELL learners often know the concepts of what they are reading in their L1. If we use strategy lessons to help ELL readers know that the importance of reading is to make sense then they are more comfortable in substituting or saying "something" for a word or phrase they do not know in English. We do keep track of miscues per hundred words in the statistical part of miscue analysis to see how many miscues readers can make and still understand what they are reading. -- That helps us to not be overly concerned about numbers of miscues. And through helping readers to always focus on making sense (comprehending) as they read, their miscues per hundred words usually diminish.

If I had to do accuracy rates because I was mandated to do so, I would count the miscues that result in unacceptable sentences and not count the miscues that are acceptable or if unacceptable are corrected.

An important thing we've learned about ELLs is that they can read in English silently and then discuss or retell what they have read in their L1 with another student who speaks the same language or with the teacher if she does. This helps them focus on comprehension and not an over focus on accuracy and the sounding out of words.

Yetta

                                                                                                                                    Jeri

Yetta - Thank you for such a detailed answer to Bonnie.  I teach in a

school which 95% of the students L1 is Spanish.  What you have to say

hits the spot!  Thank you so much.  

Jeri Trujillo

"Desire is all it takes"

Fantastic Fifth!

                                                                                                                                    Lucy

Yetta,

Could you recommend us some references that document miscue analysis conducted
with ELLs?

Thanks!

Lucinda Soltero, Ph.D.
Department of Language, Reading & Culture
The University of Arizona

                                                                                                                                    Yetta

Finally I've collected some references for Lucy and others. I include bilingual as well as ELL references.  I believe they support each other.

Freeman and Freeman have new books out (one in English and a companion in Spanish) Heinemann.  Teaching Reading and Writing in Spanish and English in Bilingual and Dual Language Classrooms.  They have a nice section on miscue analysis in their book. David has taught miscue analysis for many years.  ELL teachers should know their work in any case.  They have a very complete bibliography of literature books for students as well as professional books for teachers.

In addition look for Hudelson's works especially her 1981 book on reading and miscues in languages other than English.   

Caryl Crowell has a good article in Primary Voices (NCTE) 1995 on her miscue work with bilingual Spanish/ English readers.  There is an article I did with Kathy Wallace in 1989 for Language Arts.  Miramontes did a miscue study she reported in 1987. Look for the work of Carmen Roldan who does Literacy Studies but uses miscue analysis.

Since it is easier these days to find specific references on line I haven't done a specific reference list.  If anyone needs more specific references please let me know. I probably won't repond to any emails about references until I return from Germany on August 15.  I'm off to the European Reading Association Conference next week.

We know from both miscue analysis and eye movement research that the reading process looks very much the same across alphabetic and non alphabetic languages. One set of miscues that Caryl Crowell explains are the reader's miscues of toro (bull), vaca (cow), marrano (pig)  one after the other for cerdo (pig) in the sentence
-Cui, cui- le canta el cerdo a la luna..  And the reader used picture clues to help with her miscues.

Yetta

Jan

Dear Yetta,

Thanks so much for taking the time to be so thorough and expansive for this
discussion. I surely enjoyed 'listening in'. Currently the miscue analysis
is VERY devalued by 'our professional development gurus' in my area, but I
personally continue to learn a lot more about my young readers through its
use. I appreciate the work you and Ken have dedicated to our field.

Enjoy the European conference!

Janice E. Spohn
Reading Specialist, Peebles Elementary
North Allegheny School District
V.President Elementary - P.C.T.E.L.A.
W.P.C.T.E. - Executive Board Secretary

                                                                                                                                     Katie

Dear Yetta:

Interestingly, when I go to visit my daughter and son-in-law in Spain, this is exactly what I do....what you have described above.   I go around Spain reading Spanish and then discuss/retell what I have read in English with my daughter.  It drives her nuts.  She wants me to speak in Spanish to her, but I feel comfortable right now just reading in Spanish then speaking in English.  I have to force myself to speak in Spanish to overcome my own inhibitions.  I must say it takes a great deal of courage to speak in another language you don't feel secure in...at least for me it does.

Thank you for this thought-provoking discussion!

Katie

                                                                                                                        Yetta

Katie --
Your experience is indeed just what I'm talking about.  All of our language(s) and dialect(s) are resources for us to use to understand our world.  They inform each other If we hide one or keep it away from our learning opportunities we are missing those resources.  That makes learning much harder than it needs to be. 

Yetta

                                                                                                                        L. Cioffi

As far as I am concerned...ESL students are learning a new language - thus when they read learn -ed for learned, I don't consider that an error for the root/base word was pronounced correctly. If the entire word is mispronounced - then that is an error. In working with bi-lingual students, I have found that their decoding skills are great and they can sound out many words correctly...however, they lack an understanding of the meanings of these words. Therefore, their comprehension is far lower than their reading ability.

L. Cioffi

                                                                                                                                    Shelly

L.,

You indicate, “ESL students are learning a new language - thus when they read learn -ed for learned, I don't consider that an error for the root/base word was pronounced correctly. “ 

Do you adhere to this same approach with all readers or just your ELL kiddos?

Shelly

                                                                                                                                    Paula

Hi Shelly,

Excuse my "interruption"... I hope you don't mind my jumping in!  :)  I just wanted to point out that where I teach, even the so-called English-only speakers also have limited language structures.  In my opinion, I do treat many kids as ELL in that respect... but in terms of a non-ELL student the question to ask is did the child make the error (miscue) and not notice because inflectional endings are not in his oral vocabulary, or was he not adequately comprehending and self-monitoring so that he didn't notice the structural error?  As a Reading Recovery teacher I am trying to see what the child is attending to and what he is neglecting.  Pay attention to the child's oral language and this may provide some insight.  Make sense?  Of course, I know this is easier to do in a one to one tutoring session than in a classroom setting. :)

Paula 

                                                                                                                                    Shelly

Thanx for the ‘interruption’!

 It is so difficult to nail jello to a tree isn’t it? It seems that it is hard to have steadfast ‘rules’ when it comes to kiddos who are all so different…I find myself in a position of advising MANY teachers re: reading instruction and the learner-scenarios are many…I really appreciate hearing from the ‘pool’ of soldiers in the trenches with me: Thank you.

p.s. In my school/district, we’re ‘all about’ focusing on authentic/effective/intentional vocabulary instruction to additionally address some of what you reference below …it’s all interrelated!

Shel

Priscilla

When an ELL student mispronounces the word and says learn-ed, they are doing so because of their knowledge thus far about how English tenses work and are trying to apply this knowledge. In language acquisition, it is referred to as over-regulation. They over-generalize about pronunciation or grammar based on their understandings and lack of knowledge about exceptions (and English is full of 'em!). I love using this example to illustrate the concept: Years ago when teaching in a bilingual classroom, we were returning to the classroom from lunch recess. One of the students in line had a tickle in his throat and kept coughing and coughing. The young man in front of him who had a large English vocabulary, turned to me and said, "Hey teacher, he's tozing."

In Spanish, a person is said to "have a cough," so the phrase is "El tiene toz." The young man used the /ing/ form of the verb "cough" because he knew it was the correct context to use /ing/, but because he couldn't remember the word in English, he borrowed the Spanish word and did a pretty sophisticated grammatical code-switch, over-generalizing how to use the /ing/ form of a verb.

Also keep in mind how the pronunciation of a word in large part depends upon the syntactic and semantic cueing systems. Years ago, Yetta handed out a story developed by Gary Kilaar that beautifully illustrates this. I still use it in my university classes. The pronunciation as well as meaning of many words in English depend upon how they are used. For example, the word minute either has a long /i/ or a short /i/. The syllabic stress changes depending upon whether we mean small or time. And if I start a sentence with the word /does/ we tend to assume it's a question word and pronounce it /duz/. However, if I write the sentence, "Does were standing in the field," we get thrown into temporary cognitive dissonance until we figure out it means female deer.

We do use the pronunciation, learn-ed, when referring to an extremely well-read, educated person. If the ELL student mispronounces the word, I would not necessarily consider it a true miscue - merely a mispronunciation. It depends on whether or not they understand what the word means within the context of what they are reading...

Priscilla Shannon Gutierrez
Outreach Specialist
Center for Information, Training and Professional Development
New Mexico School for the Deaf

                                                                                                                                     Yetta

As L. Cioffi makes clear it is important to know your learners well to decide on the quality of the miscue.  With young children and ELL's who miscue learn-ed for learned, I have two responses:  As Priscilla said the reader is overgeneralizing the past tense rule.  But it may also be that a teacher is over focusing the reader on looking carefully at the endings of words to make sure they have enunciated the final suffix.  (I'd use a different teaching strategy if this was an older reader who didn't say learn-ed in the sentence.....   “He was considered a highly learned scholar.”

I have worked with African American readers who over emphasize past tense and plural forms. It does not help them because they can't use their own language knowledge to help them understand what they are reading.  They keep trying to remember the rules the teacher taught them. 

I remember Tony who I did research on for eight years.  He was reading “There's going to be a big contest in Mr. Vine's candy shop.”  He repeated both “There's going” and “Mr. Vine's” three or four times each...he read: 1) “There gonna be a ....... Mr. Vine candy shop....”  2) Very slowly and deliberately   “There's go-ing to be a....  Mr. Vine'es candy shop”.  And 3) he repeated the sentence a few more times some times enunciating and other times just saying it as he would as if he were speaking.  I'm dong a miscue analysis on Tony and do not say a word. He finally looks up at me and says....  “I hate 'postrophe s”.....  He sighs heavily and continues reading. Tony was great at knowing what the teacher wanted and always tried to read her way but he really knew what the sentence meant....  It slowed him down and he was not always engaged in reading as he worried about the teacher's way of saying English rather than using the resources of his own English.

When kids are taught to focus on sounding out, checking each word carefully, over pronouncing, they attend more to the graphophonic cueing system (the relationships between the system of sounds (of their language)  and the system of graphemes (letters of their language) than to the syntax (grammar) and semantics (meaning). If your attention is only on one system of language then you begin not to worry about making sense. Then you become a good oral recoder (like a t.v. announcer) and you don't pay attention to making sense for yourself. This does happen among Spanish ELLs a lot.     

Yetta

Yetta

I love the "tozing" example.  Some folks are concerned about such explorations that speakers make as they learn and expand on their language use.   I believe such examples show how children invent language when they need it.  It is part of what the people who build on Piaget and Vygotsky call constructivism.  The child is constructing language and as a result is learning how it works.

Yetta

                                                                                                                                    Yetta

Thanks to Paula and Shelly for reminding us of the importance of listening carefully to kids to find out how they use oral language.  Teachers who are in the classroom and stay with their kids in the playground are in a good position to notice those more quiet/ silent kids in the school yard playing with their friends, at the lunch table or working in small groups in the classroom.  Our language changes from setting to setting and children also do this and learn to use language differently in different environments.  Some of them are very quiet with adults and in teaching settings but very talkative with their friends.  It's important to know about and observe all these settings.  Linguists call the changes we make in language use from setting to setting -- registers -- it is a natural part of language learning and children seem to learn this very early. 

Yetta  

                                                                                                                                    Yetta

All students benefit from have lots of opportunities to express themselves in different ways. We've known for decades that the more opportunities children have to talk, the more complex their language becomes. Also changing the context of the situation allows the talk to expand and develop too. Paying attention to children's oral language is very important. Collecting such language on tape and listening to it later helps as well. Our research in Detroit showed us that in some contexts children reduce the consonant cluster on certain nouns and verbs but not in all contexts. For example most of us say "wesside" for "west side" but most us say “west end.” In the first instance we do not pronounce the "t " but in the “west end” we do pronounce the "t".  The phonemes that surround other phonemes influence how they are pronounced.

Yetta

                                                                                                                                    Yetta

A miscue is an unexpected response (not an error).  Ken Goodman coined the word miscue to suggest that the reader missed the cues expected by the teacher/tutor/researcher and came up with something based on other cues.  All miscues are based on the knowledge of the reader.

Priscilla discussed the concept of over generalization well.  We all do it as we learn new language.  All of us are language learners and over generalize/ invent our own language forms/ adapt old language to new experiences/ develop new concepts and labels/ etc. etc.  So all of us who use English are English Language Learners.  I am collecting how many terms there are for flash drives or jump sticks or ????  New objects and concepts need new terms. 

Miscues, learning new language forms and terms, are part of using language.  Language is always changing and we are all part of that change.  No matter how much we love to read and write and say “amongst”, for example, it is being used less and less in American English. 

So miscues tell us what people KNOW about their language not what they do not know.  So whether they are right or wrong is not the point.  What did I expect to hear when someone read that and what did the reader do that was different?  The more we examine this the more we learn about language. 

By the way some people say "he larnd it" and in their dialect it is acceptable.  I have learned a lot about dialect variations as I have listened to children and adult readers of English throughout the U.S. England, Australia, NZ, South Africa, etc. etc.  When I was using Althea in New Zealand they all told me that she made a miscue when she read  "wanned" for wanted.  "How should she say it?" I asked.  "Want – ted," they all said.  I learned that in some dialects of British English they say it that way too. In neither case are these errors but they are miscues because of listeners’ expectations.  But as a teacher/ researcher, it helps me learn about the variation in language and languages.

Now that I know readers do that, I decide as a teacher what to do about it.  Do I correct children every time I hear the language different than I expect to? Or, do I accept the notion that different speakers of a language use language in different ways, and how do I help my students understand this?

Yetta

Barbara

Dr. Goodman,

Thanks so much for being willing to join our conversation and offer your
insights. As someone who works with preservice teachers, I am interested
in hearing how long you think it takes for teachers to become
comfortable with doing miscue analysis. Often, teachers want to use
assessment tools that are quick and easy for them to learn how to use. I
know that miscue analysis offers valuable information to teachers that
merits the time spent in doing it, but I also want to reassure my
beginning teachers about the time. I'm looking forward to your comments.

Barbara Ward
Washington State University Tri-Cities

                                                                                                                        Nancy 

I agree with you Barbara.  As someone who also works with new teachers, I find the analysis of miscues to be difficult for them to understand.  Any suggestions for an easy way to teach this?

Nancy

                                                                                                                        Yetta

I teach about miscue analysis differently for preservice and inservice teachers. I use miscue analysis in all classes that relate to language, early literacy, reading diagnosis, language arts, etc. etc. In graduate classes on reading and miscue analysis I involve students in in-depth work on miscue analysis and we use the Reading Miscue Inventory book quite a bit and I encourage the students to use the Research Form of Miscue Analysis.  
With undergraduates I make miscue analysis available but I use the information differently. The question is "What are my purposes in using miscue analysis with each type of student -- graduate or undergraduate; preserivce, inservice."?

With undergraduates and some general graduate language arts courses, I want them to understand the reading process as it has been supported by miscue analysis since the 1960's. I want them to know how to support student's development of reading through reading strategy lessons. I want them to understand the nature of "error" or miscue in language use in general. (To Err is Human is my motto and Ken Goodman and I have written an article about this somewhere). At this point, I believe that all language processes (listening, speaking, reading and writing) involve miscues at every turn. Miscues are part of language development and reading development, too. So it is a general concept I need to help students understand. The underlying issue is "How do humans use and develop language"? I also want to help them know how to use strategy lessons in supportive ways to help their students revalue themselves as readers. 

I like to focus my university/college students on themselves as language learners and users to help them investigate (inquire into) language use. They write a literacy autobiography -- what they remember about learning to read and write. They interview their parents or caregivers to find out what family members remember. We talk about how children construct language and move toward conventions. We talk about multilingualism, dialects and the range of language variation as they use language with friends, bosses, in academic settings, etc. etc. 

Then I lead them into a discussion about who they are as literate humans today.... what do they read, write, speak listen on a two day period (a weekday and a weekend day -- we turn this into an ethnographic study as they collect data overtime and report back to small groups and then the whole class). We discuss what makes them readers and writers -- what they read and write in their world - including but beyond books (e.g. medication, instructions for washing clothes).  Eventually we relate all this to their students -- if they are working in a classroom, they interview kids to get answers to similar questions about what makes kids literate. 

I also let them know that teachers need to know as much about language use, variation, differences, development as a doctor needs to know about the human body. And that is hard work to know and learn. But language is to a language arts/ reading/ content area teachers as the human body is a doctor. But I organize the class and experiences to make it all interesting and motivating especially as they are involved with me in exploring these issues in their daily lives. I don't want to apologize for miscue taking time or being hard. That's what professional teachers do. 

Then I use a reader such as Betsy in the RMI book (RCOwen). We do not go quickly to the analysis on the worksheets but we examine her miscues and talk about whether they are good or problematic by examining the typescript. Which miscues help Betsy in her reading and which disrupt her reading? 

I often give an assignment that they have to come to class and report on their own miscues. Two or three people start the session with their miscues each time we meet (for 10 minutes) and we explore what cueing systems they used to make the miscues, how their background knowledge evoked the miscues and what caused them. They become aware of prediction, confirming, self correction, selecting language cues etc. through talking about their own miscues at the same time we talk together in class about Betsy's miscues. So we come to see the reading process and miscuing as a human process. Many people can relate this to writing (invented spelling, invented punctuation, font use, the composing process, learning a second and third language, content of writing, etc. etc.).  I ask them to work in pairs or threes and do one miscue on one student they find available. They tape the reader and do the miscue and we work on it in class. I don't expect them to become proficient users of miscue analysis with all the coding forms. I expect them to understand what miscues tell them about their students. I expect them to want to understand more about how language works because that's what they will be engaged in with their own students all day long, every day. I want them to respect and value the language and languages of their students including their literacies and to realize that miscue analysis shows that readers are using their knowledge of language to problem solve as they are reading. 

I hope this isn't too long an answer. I will stop here and wait for additional questions. With this approach where the students themselves become involved in studying themselves and one student as I use Betsy and usually another reader later in the semester, they become interested in the major concepts that underlie miscue analysis and the transactional nature of the reading process. 

Yetta 

                                                                                                                                    Yetta

Another email asked me to say something about miscue analysis and running record and I will respond to that one later today.  However at the moment, I want to use the "pointing to words" idea as one example where I think miscue analysis and reading recovery has some difference.

Miscue analysis builds its theory on the idea that reading and writing are language processes. So our focus is on the whole -- using a whole story, having a retelling so we know what the reader understands and has interpreted, examining miscues in the whole story and the whole sentence.  We use the context of the literacy experience whenever we think of miscues.  I should have said that we don't make decisions on one miscue analysis but keep in mind that a second miscue analysis on another story or article will yield different data.

Running record keeps the teacher's attention on the word and a lot of the teacher's responses tend to focus on words.  Checking off each word as a child reads is also word focused. 

I think this is an important theoretical difference.  I think reading instruction over the years has focused a lot on words: spelling, accuracy counts, vocabulary out of context, etc. etc.  I think such a focus limits both teaching and learning of reading and writing.

I'd love to hear any responses to this. 

Yetta

                                                                                                                                    Lori

I have found running records to be an effective tool, but I made so many notes about what I saw children doing that I am not sure how ‘pure’ I ever was in their use.  I did talk kids through my running records, so they were totally in on the game, and never did one without a comprehension follow up—generally just a conversation about the book.  In all honesty, the freedom of not having the typed text was just a godsend in day to day classroom work.  I just told kids the checkmarks were for me to figure how where it was in the text they did smart things, so we could talk about them.  They did help me go back to those points in the text I wanted to celebrate as well as helped me shape a teaching point.  Honestly, for me, my greatest take away from Marie Clay was that mantra about praise points and teaching points.  It helped me as a teacher concentrate on teaching READERS and let go of teaching THIS BOOK. I think that shaped me as a reading teacher, but miscue is soooo much more.  I have always sort of thought of running records as seeing a G.P.--pretty helpful with most readers. Where I found miscue the most informative was with children who didn’t ‘measure up’ to the magic numbers of 90% and 95%, the ones who still managed to make meaning despite what would be considered a flawed reading with rr.  It also has helped me think more deeply about what readers are doing when they make downright brilliant miscues...

Lori

                                                                                                            Yetta

I probably should just let Lori's comments stand. I find them so well thought out.   But I thought I would highlight and emphasize their importance.   Lori is a teacher who lets her kids lead her evaluation of what they do. She is a thoughtful kid watcher.   No one else's system should become formulaic for a teacher who understands what she is doing.

You were engaging your students in retrospective miscue analysis and demystifying the reading process for them. You took them into your confidence and talked straight to them and they realized you were supporting their knowledge and understandings.

Although many miscues can tell me that kids are comprehending what they are reading, I never leave a reading without some kind of retelling (rewriting, drawing, and talk about it). I want to hear what the kid got out of the reading.

Teaching points -- I think I call them critical moment teaching -- show that the teacher is learning from her students and listening to them carefully.

Yes -- teaching readers not teaching a book or an author.

Yes -- I get so excited about downright brilliant miscues, too..... And sometimes when I talk about the less brilliant ones in a group, we find out that those miscues are pretty interesting, too. 

Yetta

                                                                                                                                    Ruby

“No one else's system should become formulaic for a teacher who understands what she is doing.” 

Hi Yetta,
That sentence above is going to be plastered in huge letters somewhere in my classroom and school.  It is such an important understanding -- script and policy makers must take note.

Ruby

                                                                                                                                    Yetta

I think it is what democracy and professional teaching is all about. 

Yetta

Nancy

Hi Yetta,
I can hear your wonderful voice in every email and it is great to hear you. I've invited (bribed) some of my undergrad preservice teachers from Wayne State to post a question and I hope they get enough courage to chime in.

I think my response and my question in regard to what you have been posting, is about word accuracy. How important is it? I remember going to a Literacy Learning in the Classroom summer seminar in Dearborn with Margaret Mooney and discussing this issue. I asked, If the reader maintained meaning is it important they get the words right? She said, " Of course you want them to get the words right." What do you think?

Hugs,
Nancy Creech

Carol

Dr. Goodman, can you discuss the differences in terms of advantages and disadvantages between running records and miscue analysis and times when one might be a better choice than the other? In the local schools where I work, teachers are familiar with and use running records, but I am not aware of any classroom teachers who use miscue analysis. Why do you suppose that is the case?

Carol Matern

                                                                                                                                    Yetta

In order to save some time, I am combining Nancy Creech's and Carol Matern's comments, questions together.
I have great respect for the work of New Zealand educators.  They have had progressive education in place for over a century and I love visiting their energetic and exciting classrooms.  Marie Clay has important work that will be read and discussed for many years to come.  We lost an important scholar in reading and language learning this year. I use and reference Margaret Mooney's work especially Reading To,With and By Children and her other suggestions for teaching reading in classrooms a lot.

But.... I do have differences with Reading Recovery and running record......  I think I have been avoiding responding to this because I don't find it easy to do without having opportunities for response from others.  My concerns:

1.  Reading Recovery was developed in NZ for children who were not succeeding in reading according to running record assessment.  The children came out of rich literacy classrooms for a specified period of time and returned to such classrooms.  In the U.S. children sometimes get Reading Recovery and go back to highly skills classroom without a focus on rich curriculum and the reading of children's or adolescent literature.  So kids in Reading Recovery in the U. S. do not have the same kinds of experiences as kids in RR in NZ and Australia do.

2.  I mentioned in an earlier post about my concern on the focus of RR being on word accuracy and not language and meaning as a whole.  This relates to Nancy Creech's concern.  If reading is the reader's interpretation of the text being read then accuracy of words is a minor issue.  The bigger question is,  In what ways can the reader justify his/her interpretation on the text?  What are the overall messages, meanings, ideas, emotions, agreements/disagreements the reader is constructing and where does this come from?  Ken Goodman and Louise Rosenblatt and Frank Smith and Margaret Meek and others speak to this issue.  In Ken's model, he talks about readers developing a parallel text.  In fact we probably develop a different parallel text each time we read something. Even when we read our own writing a second and third time we read it differently each time.  We change the writing and the wording and the language.  Reading is active, constructive...  We compose as a parallel story/ article/ etc. when we read.  It is the reader's story/article not the author's.  But readers want to know what the author is saying so they use what they know about the author (that's why Nancy hears my voice), they try to keep a contract with the author but the reader can not know what the author knows or what the author means.

3.  I have not learned to do running records but I have watched many reading recovery lessons in the U.S., Australia and NZ.  I have watched my daughter Wendy who
has been involved in using RR.  Wendy uses running record when she wants to document a reader very quickly but she has a miscue head so she doesn't worry to count every word or even to check each word off.  She keeps semantic and syntactic acceptability in her head as she works on RR.  But when she is working with a reader who she is not too sure about, that she needs more information about, she uses miscue analysis.

There are a number of folks on this listserve who know running records and are expert in Reading Recovery.  I hope you will feel very free to respond with your own beliefs and experience.  Perhaps then those who don't know running record or Reading Recovery can have a richer picture of the issues.

Reading Recovery teachers are special to me.  I wish that in response to NCLB RR had been permitted as a measure.  It was approved in one of the Carolinas and the state is still using wonderful New Zealand education experiences. 

Yetta   

                                                                                                                                    Ruby  

“Wendy uses running record when she wants to document a reader very quickly but she has a miscue head so she doesn't worry to count every word or even to check each word off. “ 

Okay!  Now this is what I wanted to hear.  "A miscue head." I do this with my kindergartners -- quick running records with my thinking toward figuring out what this reader is doing to make sense of text.  Because the books they read are mostly short, it's more important to me to "research, decide, teach" given the evidence I gain from the running records, and not as important to know % of words correct.   I'll keep that in mind.  Mainly I think: What one thing can I teach this child right now that will make him/her a better reader today than s/he was yesterday?  I've often felt bad about not taking the time to figure out percentages on every running record.
Thanks,

Ruby

Yetta

A number of years back -- a few of you will get this reference-- we called ourselves The Miscuteers

Once you know miscue in your soul -- like you know anything that you have worked hard and care about -- you use your miscue head whenever you hear kids read. Alan Flurkey says that when he walks around the room while the kids are working in small groups he does miscue over the shoulder. He stops, listens in to the reading, writing, or conversation and his miscue head is working at that time. Those each lead to the teaching points that the Reading Recovery folks talked about or what I call critical moment teaching (which result in critical moment learning). Ruth Davenport has written a book called Miscues, Not Mistakes in which she describes "over the shoulder miscues."   

Those may be the most important moments in a learner’s day and the most professional work a knowledgeable and experienced teacher does. I encourage teachers to collect their teaching moments and put them into their teacher's portfolios. They could make great cases for student teachers to examine and consider. It would be great to capture them on videotape too and teachers could go over them and say: What else could I have done? What are my next steps?. That's what you are describing Ruby. That's what the Reading Recovery teachers who have been describing their relationships with their students are describing as well.

Yetta

Priscilla

You bring up an important difference between miscue and running records that has a huge impact on the accurate assessment of deaf readers. We know that the most proficient deaf readers are those who scan phrases and then think conceptually what they mean. They process these phrases as units of meaning. That is because ASL (American Sign Language), the native language of the deaf, does not have a one-to-one lexical correspondence to English. In fact, it often takes up to 5 English words to represent what a single sign does in ASL. In order to make sense of English text, deaf readers have to look at chunks or phrases of print and then conceptualize the meaning. If they attempt to identify to sign every English word it often leads to confusion. For example, if a deaf reader sees the phrase, "the boy had a runny nose," and signs /boy/ /had/ /run/ /nose/ as in the sign for a person running, they visualize the nose running off the boy's face, which of course makes absolutely no sense. Instead they need to use a single 4-finger sign that indicates fluid running to accurately portray the intent of the 6-word phrase. So, reading inventories or running records that place heavy emphasis on accurate word identification often penalize the fluent, proficient deaf reader who is focusing on meaning.

Priscilla Shannon Gutierrez
Outreach Specialist
Center for Information, Training and Professional Development
New Mexico School for the Deaf

Yetta

Priscilla has such good insights about language use from her work with deaf students. I have learned a lot about reading and writing from our deaf graduate students. We have had both miscue analysis and retrospective miscue analysis done with deaf students. The study of deaf students signing as they read showed us what Priscilla described. I think even English readers reading silently probably chunk more than we seem to do in oral language. Eye movements suggest we may even been chunking as we fixate on a phrase and predict the whole orally. Reading is probably a highly multitasking experience. In oral reading we are 1) reading orally for others so it makes sense to them; 2) thinking what we are reading to understand for ourselves; 3) attending to the important aspects of the printed text very selectively; 4) bringing our knowledge of the world, of the author, and of the grammar of our language to our reading so we can do 1-3. And we do it so fast and quickly and most of it is below the level of consciousness. Our brains are amazing really. We need to value the work the brain does in ourselves and in our students.

Yetta

                                                                                                                          Paula

Hi Dr. Goodman and group! 

I have been reading the posts with great interest.  I must admit my ignorance on using miscue analysis but I am a Reading Recovery teacher. 

Dr. Goodman, I agree with you completely about the different kinds of classrooms in the US and NZ, though regionally I think you will find similarities.  A few years back my district did some very extensive training with some trainers from New Zealand and we really embraced language rich classrooms.  Fortunately for me I have had administrators (so far) who have allowed me and others the freedom to continue these practices though the influence of our test-crazy culture and "standards-based education" are certainly leaving their mark!  While Clay did say that RR should work in "any"* classroom model, we often wondered at our continuing contact classes if Clay had ever visited some of the structured and sterile classes that have been emerging lately and if she did, would she still have thought that!  I was fortunate to have met Clay and hear her speak a few times before her passing earlier this year.  

I remember first hearing and learning about Miscue Analysis way back in the late 80's in Canada when I was completing my teacher training.  I do recall that we were trained way back then but I don't know if the assessment has changed over the years.  I do recall when I first was trained in running records that the first thing I thought was that this was like miscue analysis!   

Is there anyone who can comment on what the main differences between the two assessments? 

I do want to clarify two points.  Firstly that children who are picked up for RR are identified by much more than a running record.  Running records are "snapshots" of what a child is attending to in print that day.  Students are placed in the program based on a combination of classroom teacher recommendation (CTs are asked to rank their students and the bottom group is then tested) and by the results of the "Observation Survey" which records a snapshot of a student's letter knowledge, words in isolation, concepts about print, writing vocabulary, hearing sounds in words (dictated story) and a running record.  Once a student is selected (we take the lowest scoring kids) Clay cautions that we still need a couple of weeks to observe the child for us to really be able to teach to that child's strengths.  I know that this probably doesn't necessarily have anything to do with this discussion, but I do feel like we all have the same goal in mind, to see what a child's strengths are, what he/she is attending to in text, and how best to proceed with instruction.   

The other point that I want to clarify is the notion that a running record is about text accuracy.  The point of a running record is to try to get  a picture of what a child is attending to in text... what his thought processes are and what is helping him/and or interfering in his reading.  We do "tick the text" and an accuracy score is recorded, that is true, but so is a self-correction rate and most importantly errors (or miscues) are analyzed.  I have had running records that were below the desired accuracy rate that I deemed successful because of the self-correction and reading work that went on.  I have also had high scores where I didn't feel that the child did that well because the few errors that were made indicated that comprehension was not well established.  Meaning is the focus from the earliest lessons.  But keep in mind that the program was designed for struggling first graders.  Many of the early books contain small amounts of text and while fluency is always an issue, an early reader is not going to have the same rate and prosody as a more mature reader.  I want to be able to rapidly take the child to my teaching point.  The "ticks" are not necessarily there for me to count accuracy, but they help me to find the spot I am looking for.  I can say, "Oh yes, the 4th word on the 5th line of page 10 is where Johnny showed some great processing!  That's where I need to take him right now to get the most power out of this lesson!"  Make sense?  As the kids get older... and the passages longer, I often stop "ticking" and simply write down the miscues that the child makes.  For older and/or more advanced readers I need a more general picture that I can get my analyzing several miscues and setting a focus for the next instruction.  For my first graders I need to get in there at that moment (after the child has had a chance to finish the text, of course - we don't interrupt unless necessary).  Interestingly, a few years ago I heard Richard Allington speak at our regional RR conference and Clay was there.  He said (and my apologies to Allington if I am paraphrasing him incorrectly - I'm sure you get that all the time Dr. Goodman!) to Clay that about the only thing that he disagreed with in Clay's work that she allows ~too many~ errors for a book to be considered instructional.  I forget the exact number... but I think he disagreed with the 90-95 percent concept and felt that a child should not be given  a book to read that he cannot read with  at least 95 percent accuracy.  But I do know that one of Allington's problems with struggling readers (and I agree completely) is that struggling readers too often are given books that are too hard and therefore they do not progress. 

If anyone is interested, the National Conference held in Columbus, Ohio is a wonderful literacy conference.  There are as many, if not more, sessions for classroom teachers, administrators, literacy coaches, etc.  as there are for Reading Recovery teachers.  If you go to the website www.readingrecovery.org and click on conferences, you can download many of the handouts from the conference.   

Now I can climb off my RR advocacy box (LOL) and ask this question.  I feel a bit ignorant.. as I said I had some training in miscue analysis about 20 years ago and am sure that even if I did remember it all things have shifted as our understandings of kids have shifted.  Add that to the fact that I have been teaching RR for about 10 or 11 years has narrowed my repertoire, so to speak, in other areas.  I realize that Dr. Goodman has books written on the subject so a quick version won't do the process justice, but I would love to hear a quick summary of what a miscue analysis looks like and see if my memory is even close!  :) 

Thanks for your time! 

Paula Kondratko
Reading Recovery Teacher
Hesperia, CA

                                                                                                                                    Yetta

I read Paula’s post with great interest.  There are so many important statements about Clay and RR as it works best in New Zealand.  If you can hold on to the focus you have I think maybe, perhaps the "test-crazy culture" may begin to fade away (to some extent).

Those of you who want to know more about RR should read Paula's post with interest.  Thanks for making the points that you did.

A few differences between miscue analysis and rr as I see them.  As I mentioned in a previous post, RR looks at each word separately  within a sentence.  In miscue analysis we look at how the miscues support meaning making and we let kids know that is a smart thing to do and they don't need to be corrected.  We encourage kids to make miscues -- to skip, to substitute high quality miscues, to keep reading and only self correct if the result does not make sense.

We never give kids help during their reading.  After they finish their reading (which we always tape record for diagnostic and research purposes)  we ask them first to tell us what they remember they read.  Retellings are part of every miscue analysis.  After they have retold, we then talk about their miscues which they often select and discuss the whys and wherefores.

Thanks so much for the clarifications you have made to the process and for reminding folks about the conference in Ohio.  I've been to that conference a few times and there are indeed many good presentations there.

One of the things that I researched in many libraries (including the William S. Gray library at the university of Chicago) in the late 1960's when I was doing my dissertation on miscue analysis of children in Highland Park, Michigan was to discover the research that supported that  95% accuracy rate was considered instructional.  I found no research at that time that proved that conclusion, and as far as I know there still is no research to relate number of errors to a particular book of difficulty for a particular reader.  I did hear stories that Thorndike or some other psychologist at the time heard from a second grade teacher that when a kid makes about five errors on a page it probably means the book is too difficult.  I know Allington also is enamored with error rate.

But we have so many studies of miscues of students who make many miscues in a story and they understand the story completely.  So how is that too difficult?  I don't want kids to struggle in books that are too hard but I don't want kids to be kept bound into books that are too easy, too short, and too uninteresting.  I have had middle school kids tell me that they have never read a book because they made too many mistakes when
they read a passage.

Betsy in the RMI book makes 11 miscues per hundred words (just under 90%) and she retells the story completely. But when Alan Flurkey examined the whole story he found she made most miscues at the beginning of the story and fewer miscues in the middle and almost none in some sections.  She was transacting with the book, learning from it, and making sense as she read. 

Yetta

                                                                                                                        Paula

Dr. Goodman, 

Thank you for your reply.  I was sitting at the computer as it was delivered!  :) 

1.  This is very interesting.  Let me see if I understand this correctly.  It sounds like your miscue analysis goes beyond an assessment tool and involves an instructional program as well.  I find it very interesting from a RR perspective.  But please clarify this for me (it doesn't have to be Dr. Goodman... anyone familiar with MA) this is something that is meant not just for struggling readers, but for all readers?  I think that this is where some of the differences may lie. 

2.  If I understand correctly, miscues that make sense are not corrected (we really don't correct in RR either) because it indicates that the reader is making sense of the text.  As you have pointed out, we all make miscues when we read (as my kinders like to point out if I read a story that they are familiar with...LOL) and as long as the reader is actively constructing meaning then this is fine.  Am I right?   And you said that you encourage the kids to make miscues and to skip and/or make substitutions?  I guess my concern with this (and remember that I am speaking of emergent literate kids and struggling readers in later years) is that many of our poor readers often do not have the ability to skip a word, for example and still hold onto the meaning of the story.  I am thinking in particular about my RR kiddos.  Especially if they are ELL and/or have limited structures in English.  I do, however, allow my ELL kids to substitute a word in their own language as needed in order for them to continue the story and retain meaning.  I guess this is the same thing in a way?  

3.  Would MA typically be used for older kids - by older I mean beyond 1st grade?  Should there be a minimal level of literacy before you use this strategy? 

4.  I love your comment about Allington being "enamored by error rate"!  I absolutely agree with you that there are kids who will make more than the "magic percentage" of errors/miscues and comprehend well (and as I mentioned I have had kids who on paper look great but they are really not comprehending what they have read).  But I think that one of the problems is that in this country we have too many kids who are fed a diet of books that are consistently too difficult and then teachers wonder why they aren't progressing.  This is especially evident in schools that must follow a "script" and a complaint I hear from many teachers who are forced to have all of the kids reading the same book on the same day regardless of ability.  It is so sad that this is a reality in many American classrooms.  I know I am getting political here, but it is so frustrating when teachers' hands are tied, they are forced to use a certain material and then blamed when said program didn't work!  So I am encouraged that it seems like the many teachers on this listserv are able to use a student centered assessment and instructional strategy like miscue analysis!  This  past year one of our school board members who is a retired teacher (finally!) refused to sign the dotted line on purchasing content area texts as it was clear that the readability of these state-adopted texts were not even at the readability of a grade-level reader never mind a struggling one!  He wanted to ensure that there was supplemental materials for every teacher that our struggling readers could access! What a concept!  Give kids materials that they can actually learn from!  LOL 

But I know that I have gotten off topic!  (I do that a lot!)  

5.  Is miscue analysis something that you typically do in small groups?  One on one?  I know that Dr. Goodman's time is almost up so I hope that someone else can describe it to me in a bit more detail. 

6.  Just one last thing, and I hope I don't sound like a "picky RR teacher!"  LOL  I do have to respectfully disagree that in running records we look at the words as separate units.  As a matter of fact, in the analysis of the errors, we are trained to consider the text "up to and including the error."  So we are looking at the text as a whole.  We often  focus our teaching point on something that the student has done well... where did he show fluency, prosody, where did he notice that something didn't make sense and go back and fix it, where did he show strategic processing.  The focus is always on the meaning of the whole text and like in MA, we never interrupt the reading and often do a retelling after. 

Thank you so much for participating in this discussion, Dr. Goodman.  I have learned so much and hope to learn more about your work from this listserv and from your books! 

Paula Kondratko

                                                                                                                                    Yetta

I am numbering the paragraphs below and will respond to the ones that prompt a response from me.

1.  Miscue analysis has three major functions
a.  Analysis of a reader in order to develop an instructional program for the reader and the rest of the class too.
b.  Provide opportunity to learn more about the reading process.  I learn more about reading with each miscue that I do.  Each kid provides some unique challenge that asks me to consider -- I wonder why that happened? 
c.  It also gives me a lot of insight into the text.  How Texts Teach What Readers Learn by Margaret Meek also has informed my understanding of how texts work for kids. If many kids reading the same text make the same miscue at the same place there is something about the text that is involved. The Reading Strategies book provides greater insight into curriculum and instruction but the RMI also has a section where we develop curriculum and strategy lessons for Betsy and other readers.

2,  Correction -- And we want to let the kids know it is inefficient to correct what does not need to be corrected -- high quality and smart miscues.If the reader is actively constructing meaning everything is not just fine -- it is wonderful....  We have a reader! In order to help kids realize that they can skip or substitute words and still hold on to the meaning of a story, teachers use post its on selected words in Big Books. Start with adjectives and later in the story the name of a main character. And start with a story that has strong prediction opportunities such as The Three Little Pigs. This shows readers that not only can they skip a word but they can guess what is under the post it as well. This is like a selected slotting strategy lesson. Struggling first graders can get into such lessons with Big Books rather easily in my experience. Yes... to what you do with ELL kids -- letting them use a word in their own language is very similar to encouraging them to produce a synonym.

3.  MA is much more easily used with older kids, adults, seniors because we don't tick words.  As you use reading recovery with older readers, they often just read too fast to even keep up with a word by word ticking.  I wonder if anyone on the listserve does this with older readers.  I think I mentioned this in another post.  I would use miscue as soon as the reader engages with some of the print in the text but I expect the emergent reader will still make up ends of the sentences to make the story fit.

4. All of education is political.  We see it more clearly now with NCLB and Reading First but it has always been political so don't apologize for that. Scripted programs allow teachers to give up on their professionalism. “I follow the program”!! They are not democratic. 

We are so fortunate in this country to have thousands and thousands of children and adolescent books to choose from....   Why narrow kids sights to one series or one book? It's like making all kids eat cheerios all the time and never providing opportunities for them to enjoy the range of vegetables and fruits that are available.

Hurrah for your school board member.  Invite her/him to your class and show her what you do with supplemental materials and ask her to bring some of the other board members with her.  We need to show board members how kids respond to the use of real literature with a knowledgeable teacher organizing the curriculum.

5.  I've done lots of miscue one on one.  I can also do miscues with small groups or with a whole class.  It all depends on the purpose of the miscue analysis

6.  Thanks for sharing me your version of RR.  I have seen so many reading recovery teachers take a child back to a miscue and say....  You really said something good there.....   the kid said television for t.v.    -- but let's look again.  What does it say in the book?  That's only one example I can share.  I have been told that it is necessary to ultimately be accurate and I think I read that in Marie Clay's work.  But I think it is important to know that you have responded/ interpreted RR to help the reader focus on meaning and making sense.  That what I believe too.

Thanks for what you do for kids and thanks for the lively discussion............... 

Yetta

Darcy

Yetta. I just read something in a fairly recent book that said eye movement research showed that readers look at most letters in words as they read. Can you talk about this as well as provide some of the newest information you and those you work with are learning about eye movement and reading? What about eye movement and miscues?

I know these are big questions....I don't really know a lot about eye movement research and am interested. Any recommendations for good recent articles or something not yet out to the public world?

Thanks for your meaty responses.

Best, Darcy

                                                                                                                                    Yetta 

Any researcher or author who says that readers look at most letters in words as they read are not referencing or quoting the word of any eye movement scholars or researchers. Since before the turn of the twentieth century in the late, late 1800's eye movement research (Catell) already showed that readers did not look at every word when they read. It is common knowledge among eye movement researchers that readers fixate on about 65% of the words on a page of reading and they do not do so in the order in which the words are written.  But the 65% is an average.   The eyes fixate on about 55-60% of function words (the, or, that, at, in, of, a, the, an, -- articles, conjunctions, prepositions, etc.) and on about 70% of content words (nouns, adjectives, adverbs and verbs).  Anyone who says readers look at every letter or every word is misrepresenting the eye movement research.

We have a reference to eye movement research in the RMI book.  I recommend you look at Paulson and Freeman, Insight from the Eyes (2003) or look for articles on line by Eric Paulson.  A number of miscue researchers have begun to combine miscue analysis with eye movements and we are learning a lot.  One thing important to teachers sitting and working with kids is that the eye tends to be ahead of the mouth.  So when a kid is reading orally, s/he is not looking at what s/he is saying.  His eyes are at the end of the line and often on the next line.  So when teachers say, "Look at the beginning of that word," or "Start again.", they may not have any idea what you are talking about. This is especially true for older readers.  But even young readers know to not look at every function word (Peter Duckett). Another interesting conclusion to our research is that kids often make miscues on words they focus on directly and they also do not make miscues on words they do not focus on -- they are good predictors in the latter case.  I'm glad to say more about eye movements but I only want to address your specific questions.  The eye movement research if fascinating especially since our testing is
so focused on accuracy and saying every word right.  Such tests are leading us all down a dangerous path. 

Yetta

John

“One thing important to teachers sitting and working with kids is that the eye tends to be ahead of the mouth. So when a kid is reading orally, s/he is not looking at what s/he is saying. His eyes are at the end of the line and often on the next line. So when teachers say, "look at the beginning of that word" or "start again", they may not have any idea what you are talking about.”

Dear Yetta,

I think this is really important so I want to be sure I understand what you are saying.

A child is reading along and makes a miscue, or perhaps is making multiple attempts at a word. The child might even have Appealed to the adult in some manner. If the teacher uses one of the cues above for the attempted word, the child's eyes might not really be fixated on that word, but gone on ahead. So it would be best for a teacher to point back to the word to bring the eyes back-if and when using such a prompt.

In RR training we were taught to put our finger in when using the prompt "Try That Again." However, that prompt was rarely used in RR, and only when a child's reading has broken down over a few lines, and/or possibly she begins relying on meaning and not visual information.

Based on your insight, including eye movement research, it would be best for the adult to always put a finger in when making any of these prompts.

Thank you!

John Delich

                                                                                                                        Donna

My name is Donna Martin and I am a Wayne State (Michigan) student and I will be doing my student teaching this fall.

I was intrigued with the statement that when students read they make inferences, often times compose their own text as they read, which allows for different interpretations of the reading material.  If a student has read something and has done these things but the end meaning/understanding is the same, I wonder how important word recognition is if the end result is the same?

Thank You for your time. 

Donna

                                                                                                                                    Yetta

Donna -- I used to teach undergraduates language arts and reading at Wayne State and supervised student teachers in school just north of Warren.  I learned much about what I know about language diversity, reading and curriculum development during my years in the doctoral program there.

Eye movements show us that all readers fixate on words as they read but they do not orally produce the word that is written on the page.  Sometimes they fixate on a word and omit it and other times they say words they never fixate on.  Readers do use the print/ written language/ graphic display but they also are using grammar and meaning at the same time.  With this knowledge they often predict what they think is there.  Paul Kolers, a perceptual psychologist said over 50 years ago that reading is only incidentally visual.  There is so much behind the eye that we use when we read.  Eye movement research helps us understand what Ken Goodman means when he says the brain tells the eye where to look and is really doing the reading. Start collecting your own miscues on headlines and signs in malls and you'll begin to see this yourself. 

Yetta

                                                                                                                         Richard

Yetta,
I find this statement fascinating.  Are there implications for teachers?

“Another interesting conclusion to our research is that Kids often make miscues on words they focus on directly and they also do not make miscues on words they do not focus on -- they are good predictors in the latter case”

Richard

                                                                                                                                    Yetta

Welcome Richard to the conversation --
Implications for teachers.....

1.  Be careful as you respond to kids with phrases such as -- go back to the beginning of the sentence or word; you skipped that word -- I think I mentioned that before

2.  Readers tend not to fixate on the first word of a line or sentence -- they seem to have enough information about language and the ongoing story/ article to predict the beginnings and the eye might fixate down the line but they say the beginnings as written.  Teachers might try to find opportunities to watch eye movements but better yet to do it themselves.  I'm not sure how easy that is though. 

3.. Reading does not need to be accurate or fluent for readers to comprehend well. All readers make miscues.

The tests we are using for such measures may involve us in teaching students to focus so much on letters and words that we may be focusing some kids on using too much of the graphic information in the text.

I'm trying to write less  so I'll make only one more point.  Most kids are flexible enough to respond to any kind of instruction and still become good readers.  However, some readers are very dependent on adult instruction.  A special education colleague in Canada, Peter Board, used to call these students Instruction Dependent

Personalities.  These are the kids I worry most about.  They try to do what they are taught to do and they sound out, read slowly, ask for help for every word they think they do not know.  And this kind of reading keeps proving to themselves that they are not capable.

Yetta

                                                                                                                                    Yetta

I'm going to stop for a bit.  I may get back to this later but it will depend on thunderstorms in Tucson (that's where I live).  I used to live in Detroit and graduated from Wayne State University.  I'm proud of that too. When it starts to thunder and lightening like it has the last three nights I have to get off the computer and depending on the severity, I may not be able to get on again.

I just wanted to check and let everyone know that I think I responded to all the questions in some way from the last two days.  Sometimes I did combine a few questions in my responses and comments in order to save writing another email.  I have not responded to all the emails sent today.  I will either get back to them later tonight or tomorrow.

But if you asked me a question yesterday or the day before and you didn't get a response or a satisfactory one please feel free to ask it one more time.  I'd appreciate that.  It has been difficult for me to keep track of all the questions and my answers. I'm not sure I  found a good system so just repeat the questions.

Again I want to say how impressed I am with these questions.  I do think we need to find a number of venues where teachers, reading specialists, teacher educators and administrators can get together and have a similar and continuous professional development situation as we have been having here.

I've learned a lot. A number of issues have been highlighted by your questions and responses. I have clarified and rethought a number of issues as well............

Thanks to Darcy and Richard for setting this up and thanks to all of your for your interest and interactions.

Yetta

                                                                                                                                    Renee

THANK YOU!  Yetta!  Wonderful responses and I so appreciate your expertise! I am also proud to hear you say "you learned a lot".  That is the great thing about teachers who are dedicated... we learn something from every interaction with colleagues and students each and every day!
Renee

                                                                                                                                    Sydney

Dear Yetta,

I'm taking the liberty of isolating the paragraph below from your last posting.  It seems exactly what we need to contradict the deceptions that are planted in the NCLB kinds of instruction. “Exposing "these "instruction dependent" children to a method that doesn't work for them is psychologically destructive, and proves that one size cannot fit all. 

Thanks, Sydney

Yetta wrote:
"Most kids are flexible enough to respond to any kind of instruction and still become good readers.  However, some readers are very dependent on adult instruction.  A special education colleague in Canada, Peter Board, used to call these students Instruction Dependent Personalities.  These are the kids I worry most about.  They try to do what they are taught to do and they sound out, read slowly, ask for help for every word they think they do not know.  And this kind of reading keeps proving to themselves that they are not capable."

(Ms.) Sydney Gurewitz Clemens, M.A.
Early Childhood Educator, Author and Consultant
73 Arbor Street
San Francisco, CA 94131
415 586 7338 -- 415 794-1997
sydney@eceteacher.org
www.eceteacher.org

Yetta

It is especially difficult to meet these students in middle school/ secondary school or community colleges......

I have a number of graduate students who have begun to study the emotions of students who believe they have no capability to read (or write).  They are their own worst enemy.  They know what they do wrong.  They skip words, they mess up, they make miscue on little words all the time and the biggest is that they can't remember everything that they read!!!

I love that one because I know how much I read that I can't remember either.

These kids learn to hate reading and writing in school even as they tag their notebooks and bulletin boards and walls; even as they do text messaging to all their friends; even as they write rap and perform; even as they read love romances, sports magazines, etc etc.  You get the point.

There is a lot of work to do to help these students revalue themselves as readers and learners.  And the courageous teachers who work with these kids also need to revalue themselves.  They need to be patient with themselves and the kids.  But the work we've done in Retrospective Miscue Analysis has shown how these kids can revalue themselves enough to believe they aren't complete losers.  But what I'm not sure of is will they become avid readers????

I hope so...............

Yetta

Marlene

Dear Dr. Goodman,

Thank you so much for your thoughts on fluency.

I especially appreciate your points on eye movements. The eye movements are certainly examples of engagement by the reader to make sense, to respond to the awareness of cognitive dissonance, to search text already read or looking ahead for more information, or to note a need to self-correct. To effectively read, the eye movements will not always remain smooth, and that is a good thing.

As a former Reading Recovery teacher I have had experience with children who did not meet the "rate of reading" as prescribed by the district's adherence to Hasbrouck's words per minute charts. However, these same children were strategic readers who were well-prepared to problem-solve challenging parts in text reading.

Would you say that fluency and comprehension develop and work together to support/influence/dovetail each other's development?

Thank you again.

Marlene

                                                                                                                        Yetta

Fluency as I understand it is an oral reading measure.  Or an oral behavior.

Silent reading is always faster than oral reading -- does that make it more fluent?  I believe that we have more freedom when we read silently.  We do miscue and running record and IRIs and QRIs orally because we can't be in the head. Oral reading always involves overt performance... Silent reading is for the self.  I don't read or hear much about fluency in silent reading.

Comprehension is what the reader understands as a result of reading (oral or silently) but nothing can measure all our understanding.  All of us understand much more than we can say or write about something that we have read.  In the Rosenblatt sense if our reading is for our own pleasure and enjoyment we sometimes take part in the reading experience as a poem and often times we are unable to express our understandings at the end of a reading that has had an emotional and profound impact.

Comprehension measures including retellings only give use partial information about what the reader fully understands.

If the above is not too articulate it may be because I am thinking about this a lot more lately.

Yetta

Renee

I SO AGREE!
This I why I have always had a problem with simple BRI//IRI assessments that only allow oral one time reading for an assessment of student reading levels. I am so thankful to be a more knowledgeable teacher (going into year 20) that I DO not take these district required assessments as the only measure of my kids level of understanding of the reading process or their comprehension. I agree SO strongly with what you have posted over the past 2 days about fluency (practice with Readers Theatre/etc)... and that comprehension needs to be part of our discussion/enjoyment of books! Think about what you do as an adult... when you read a great book the first thing you want to do is tell your friends or family of readers about it...of course. And that I can turn back and re-read a page or line if I did not get something....
Wow... I have been reminded of some great things in my teachings and I am very thankful to have been a part of this and hear and read all the discussion. This is the first time I ever did a conversation like this and I liked it!

Thanks to Yetta and all of YOU colleages, too!

Renee Keeler

Debbie

Renee, I have a quick question...what is the BRI that you are referring to? I'm drawing a blank for some reason.
Thanks,

Debbie

Renee

BRI-- an old reading inventory we used to use... Basic Reading Inventory
Thanks again for all the great comments!

Renee

Debbie

Ok. Thanks...all I could think of was the Burke Reading Interview and it is a qualitative interview rather than an inventory.

Again, thanks!

Deb

Marlene

Dear Dr. Goodman,

Darcy had mentioned that you would possibly be sharing some of the new research on eye movements. You have touched upon it in this extensive reply about fluency.

Could you please tell us more? How was the research conducted, and how were eye movements observed? Were eye movements observed as indicators of self-regulation in reading as well as other indications of reading behaviors?

This is fascinating!

Marlene Montgomery

                                                                                                                        Yetta

The history of eye movement research goes back to the 1890's.  Most eye movement research has been done on the reading of words, sentences and short passages. The research that a number of colleagues, graduate students, and that Ken an I have been involved in use whole and complete texts, which has not be done very much in eye movement research.  Eric Paulson, who I mentioned before and who is at the University of Cincinnati, moved us to combine eye movement with miscue analysis. We are learning so much.  The eye movement research we are doing supports Ken Goodman's psychosociolinguistic transactional model of the reading process.   It provides insights into the reading strategies of sampling, predicting, confirming or disconfirming (self correction), etc.  As we match these eye movements to miscues we understand how people make inferences about their reading and how they often compose their own text as they read.  It explains why each readers' interpretations are different.

Eye movements are observed through a camera that focuses a beam on the eye and the movements -- regressions, saccades and fixations -- are plotted in the computer.   The movements tend to go in the left to right direction in English/ Spanish and top to bottom in Chinese when the characters are displayed in that way.  I think eye movements can only be self regulated.  The eye can not be fixed in any way.

Yetta

Ruby

Hi Yetta,

As a kindergarten teacher, I am wondering: Why not do miscue analyzes on kindergartners? Toward the end of the year, many are reading.

Ruby

Adrienne
Vicki
Lauren
Amanda

Hello.
I have really enjoyed participating in this discussion. My classmates and I at the University of South Carolina have been discussing these conversations and wanted to ask a question that pertains to the grade level that we want to teach...

When teaching emergent readers is miscue analysis a valid form of assessment?

Thanks for your time and thoughts.

--Adrienne, Vicki, Lauren, and Amanda

Marlene

Dear Adrienne, Vicki, Lauren, and Amanda, 

I want to frame my answer from a standpoint of my experiences as a special education teacher of 21 years, as a Reading Recovery teacher for 10 years, and as a doctoral candidate -- miscue analysis is the most powerful form of assessment.  

It clearly shows what a young reader can do when reading continuous text to help herself/himself in making meaning.  The reading behaviors that are observed, the ways that s/he uses language to read, the information sources used or neglected are available data only when continuous text is read. The analysis of these data is a powerful roadmap to guide instruction and best practices in teaching students based upon their needs and their masteries. 

Miscue analysis is the most valid form of assessing reading, especially emergent readers.  

Marlene Montgomery
Graduate Research Assistant
Texas Woman's University

Yetta

I do miscue analysis with young readers as soon as I see that they are using print and the graphophonic system as they read. But many proficient beginning readers are still making use of their own stories as they respond to books. They still may think that they are reading their own stories and not one written by another story teller. I must keep this in mind as I am observing them.

I think we sometimes forget that we encourage children to tell stories about books before we think they are reading and compliment them on the good story they read. Or we give children picture books without words and ask them to tell the story. We may use pictures and ask kids to dictate stories we use in language experience lessons. Then when they continue to tell stories as they begin to use the print, we get nervous thinking they are having problems learning to read. We need to give kids time for development. It doesn't every happen over night.

Alan Flurkey, Debi Goodman, and I have an article that deals with this in a new book published a few months ago. The book is called Critical Issues in Early Literacy Development and is edited by Prisca Martens and me and an Erlbaum publication.

We actually provide miscues of these young beginning readers and discuss the phenomena I've described above. We call such readers Proficient Beginning Readers, I think.

Who else has observed this in their early readers? We have discovered this with miscue analysis. But we do not tell the kids to look at the print. Rather we observe carefully what they do as they read. We are kidwatchers. It is amazing to understand when they decide to come back to the print, where they do so and try to interpret why they do so. After they have finished reading, we sometimes have conversations with kids about it and it is quite amazing what some of them understand about what they are doing.

Yetta

Lori

I had always thought that miscue required the use of longer pieces or passages, and so wondered about those very young readers. I would love to hear more about how miscue works with our youngest readers, as I have always used running records with those children. I do know that studying miscue has changed the way I think about running records.

Lori

Yetta

Whole articles or stories are more important than length although we usually recommend at least a piece of about 500 words. A well written children's book like Carrot Seed or The Man Who Kept House would be long enough. We just want it long enough so you get about 25 miscues. We don't look at individual miscues but patterns of miscues and therefore need a good number of them to see the pattern.

The patterns we look for are based on the following questions.
Do most miscues result in a semantically acceptable (meaningful) sentence?
Do most miscues result in a sentence that is syntactically acceptable (sounds like language in the reader's dialect)?
What percentage of substitution miscues look like what's in the text when I write it above the word?
What percentage of substitution miscues sound like what I expect it to sound like when I write it above the word?

Yetta

Lori

This makes sense to me! Really, those kiddos who aren’t ‘reading’ books like those you reference here would be in leveled texts (we are required to use them) that focus their small group lessons on concepts of print and I always struggled with bothering so much about accuracy when we are looking at conceptual understanding!

Lori

                                                                                    Mary

As new teachers, how would you suggest implementing miscue when demands else where are high?

Mary Catherine Carter
Small group representative
Master's program - University of South Carolina

                                                                                                                                    Debbie

I'm sure Yetta will come up with many more suggestions than what I will suggest.  I also hate to just jump in but I had this type of question myself for a while. 

I tell my preservice (soon to be new) and novice and inservice teachers that in this age of teaching (and testing?) the test, our focus tends to be only on the final oral performance of reading.  This means that we need to pay considerable attention to miscue analysis, the only (to my knowledge) assessment of learners as readers during the reading/learning process.   If we focus all our time on the final product, which shows us what the readers don't know, then we miss so much information on what they do know.  It is a choice that a teacher makes and a stand that he/she makes to advocate for the learners for whom she is responsible.  It takes time but the more you do it the better you get and the faster you get.  Carolyn Burke has told me this repeatedly that learning anything involves a complex process that can be simplified. This just means that a complex process cannot ever be made simple.  The ramifications for readers is amazing because they are supported based on their knowledge of language and language processes not what they don't know.  Since learning (understanding/comprehension) is adding to existing knowledge new information and then the 'old knowledge' is reconfigured to include and often expand on the new knowledge.

Debbie  East

Indiana University

                                                                                                                                    Yetta

I couldn't agree more with your focus, Debbie.  There are so many pressures today to have us reduce readers to a test score, a rate score, a fluency score, a stage,a label, numbers of words/ vocabulary/ etc.

If we involve readers in their own self-evaluation, in understanding that everyone makes miscues, that the purpose of reading is to make sense (always),and that readers choose what they want to read and care about, they become part of the curriculum process and a partner in their own development.

Yetta

Julianne

I’m a secondary teacher. I was speaking with fellow colleagues about miscue analysis and we have a question for Dr. Goodman. How do you manage performing miscue analysis on secondary students considering the large amount of students (about 90-120) in a short amount of time (45-50 minutes a day for the school year or 90 minutes for half the school year)? Thank you!

Julianne L. Oliver
English Instructor
Lexington High School
803-359-5565 ext. 11403

Yetta

Another area I've been working on for more than ten years is a overall instructional strategy called Retrospective Miscue Analysis. It is the love of my professional career because it puts the power of the reading process in the hands of the students themselves. I'm not sure if you are teaching a reading class, a language arts class or an English class and the time you spend on miscue analysis depends on which kind of class you are working with. I've written a number of articles about this, There is a short section in the RMI book on this and there is a book out of print called Retrospective Miscue Analysis that may be available on line or in libraries.

A number of secondary teachers actually engage their students in miscue analysis itself. This also works with middle school and elementary students. The idea is to let kids in on the reading process by involving them in miscuing one student in the class (who is willing to participate). I'd select neither the best nor weakest reader in the class. I would use a long article from the newspaper that involves the students’ interest or a short short story. Tape record the reader and provide all the students with a typescript of the article or story. Then we work as a class on listening and marking miscues.

After the kids become interested in the miscue process, they can tape record each other and report back to the class what they discover about the reading process. It is possible to do a unit and "How do I read" or this can be done once a week or every other week for 30 minutes. It is something like peer editing. I can say more if you are interested. Gillis and Moore have just published a new book on RMA for 4th to 12 graders. It's a fascinating process, gives kids powers and demystifies the reading process.

Yetta

Sydney

Dear Yetta,

I'm fascinated with the clarity of your responses and wouldn't have missed this for the world, but since I'm not doing direct work with children, but rather with teachers and childcare workers, I have another sort of question for you:

You and Ken are very politically active on behalf of children and other people. How do you decide on a balance of politics and intellectual work? What are the factors that come up for you. I know that at some times in my life I'm more activist, and others, less, and I'm not sure what that's about, except that one must rest in order to re-energize.

Any musings on this? I'd be grateful, and perhaps some of the younger folk would be, also.

Cordially,
Sydney
(Ms.) Sydney Gurewitz Clemens, M.A.
Early Childhood Educator, Author and Consultant
73 Arbor Street
San Francisco, CA 94131
415 586 7338 -- 415 794-1997
sydney@eceteacher.org
www.eceteacher.org

                                                                                                                                    Yetta

First I see my responsibility to teachers and students.  I want to advocate for them regardless of their beliefs about the world, about reading and teaching and learning.

Since I believe in dialogue and conversation, I am not shy in providing my opinions, but I listen carefully to others and try to hear what they say.  Reading and Listening are very similar --- we read what we think we see and we hear what we think we hear.  I keep that in mind too.

I trust teachers and students to learn...........

I write books and articles related to political issues.  There is so much misinformation about the reading process, about how children learn, especially children who are poor, or speak languages and dialects that are different than their teachers. So I speak and write about this.  Ken does more in this area than I do.

I am a news hound and I know what's happening in education a lot.

I worry about other political issues but this isn't the forum for that.

To me the bottom line in education is to    DO NO HARM TO CHILDREN.....
There are lots of us who believe that too.

Yetta

Cheryl

Hello Dr. Goodman,
What are your thoughts on spelling instruction? What does current research on spelling instruction tell us about the connection of spelling with reading or is there a strong connection? My district has a spelling program that begins holding students accountable for knowing the meaning of prefixes and suffixes. We go fairly deep with word origins also. I am learning a great deal from these discussions!
Thank you,

Cheryl Shafer

Cheryl

Dr. Goodman,
Another quick question regarding spelling, who would you consider a top researcher on spelling research? Who would you suggest I “read” to learn more about spelling research and the connection to reading instruction? (I hope this is “up your alley”)
Thank you,

Cheryl Shafer

                                                                                                                                    Yetta

It seems that all the language resources we have influence us. There are however very good readers who aren't perfect spellers.  It is surprising to know that no matter how poor a speller folks think they are, they usually have about 95% accuracy in their first drafts. That means that in 100 words they misspell about 5 words.  When a teacher says to me  "I work with kids who can't spell at all....  they even misspell "the".  I ask them to do a small teacher research project.  Take two or three of the kids you think are your worst spellers and count the words that they write (in an ongoing piece of writing) and how many they misspell and do the percentages yourself.  Surprisingly, people who think they can't write because they can't spell rarely have less than 90% of all the words they spell in their writing (not on a out-of-context spelling test) spelled conventionally.  But to the eye of a teacher and especially a teacher who is a good editor, the misspelling of 20 words in a hundred  looks like it is 100% misspelled. But 90% would be considered a great batting average.  By the way I keep misspelling misspell -- but my spell checker helps me out a lot.

I think all spelling instruction should be part of the final editing process in writing and not all things we write should be revised. Teachers I know have a publishing center in their room and two or three kids have turns being editors.  You learn a lot about spelling when you edit the work of others.  But the author has to do self-editing first especially on writing that has a purpose and an audience.

Frank Smith and others say that reading influences spelling more than spelling instruction (memorizing spelling words and taking spelling tests).  I do think that kids should learn about the spelling of their language(s) but as much as possible it should be as inquiry.  Why do you think the British, the Canadians and the Australians spell differently than we do?  That's a question kids sometime ask and we can go into a study of language -- (See my book Valuing Language Study in Elementary and Middle School for more inquiry on spelling).  Don Howard sent his kids out on spelling safaris whenever a kid asked him a question such as "Why doesn't the /oo/ in book and the /oo/ in flood sound the same? So they go on an /oo/ safari.  They collect words with /oo/ in them over time and keep records of them and examine their phonological and graphic contexts and categorize them and come up with rules if they can.  Some words don't fit any rules for a wide range of reasons and the kids can discover them too.

We should study language like linguists do -- based on personal wonder and questions.  When a second grader says "Teacher, big is a little word and little is a big word.” -- wow do I have a critical teaching moment.  Listen carefully for those moments and follow up on the kids’ questions.

“How come you can say -- that's an unusual hat but you can't say that's a usual hat,”  a 5th grader asked me.  A fourth grader Tohono O'odam (Indian tribe near Tucson) said to me while he was writing about a football game: "Do you know that I can write going home from the football game or coming home from the football game and it means the same?  How come that book (the language arts text)  says it's opposites?” And the same kid said to me "Is football one word or two?" as he was writing that same sentence.  I said to him "What do you think?"  He said "Well it goes together a little bit so I'll just leave a little space between them."  He was inventing compound words in English. 

Charles Read helped us understand that in order for children to do invented spellings they have to have phonological awareness.  All you have to do is analyze kids’ inventions from that point of view. His major study was in the 1970's and he received an award from NCTE for that work.

I like Sandra Wilde's work on spelling a lot.  But there are other interesting discussions about spelling and instruction.  Keep an open mind.    

Yetta

                                                                                                                        Marilyn

I've found the work of Shane Templeton, Donald Bear (University of Nevada, Reno), Marcia Invernizzi (University of Virginia) and Francine Johnston (University of North Carolina at Greensboro) a respectful and student-centered approach.  I've noticed some of the same things with their work that I notice with the Goodman's work: an absolute belief in the intelligence of children and their thought processes, the belief in fluid word study groups which acknowledge different rates of learning for different students, and  a willingness to watch students and see where the errors are coming from before stepping in with a teaching point. Also (as is evidenced below) a willingness to focus on the things kids are doing right, helping them to notice that out of the 7 or so letters in the word, perhaps only two of them are out of place or incorrect. Their approach to spelling instruction encourages questions from students and the students' participation in the construction of "rules" and the meaning of those rules - similar to the /oo/ safari. 

Thanks so much for the open forum.  I've really enjoyed reading the questions and responses from everyone and I've learned (or remembered) a great deal. 

Marilyn Bennett
Social Studies/Reading
Yvonne Shaw Middle School
Sparks, Nevada

                                                                                                                                    Yetta

Thanks for adding to the references.......... And all of these folks have done a lot of research on spelling as well. 

Yetta

                                                                                                                                    Jeri

After using for 3 years, the Words Their Way (Shane Templeton et al) approach to spelling, the words Dr. Goodman states and Marilyn Bennett, I fully agree.   The program was a tremendous shock to me as I was one of the teachers who said, "My kids don't know how to spell".  The test that breaks down the words into spelling miscues was so right on.  They missed far fewer than I would have believed.  It sure was a data piece that led instruction.  It allows students the respect and ability to see a small section where they need to work and learn.  They are more able to monitor their own learning, which is where we want them to be.  I find that this approach keeps the student centered approach and gives them a good foundation. 

Jeri

Yetta

No response necessary from me. Except your insights into learning from your students suggests that you are involved in your own teacher research. So you can use the things that work well for you and adjust those you need to change and set aside those aspects that are not appropriate for your situation. I believe that is what makes professional teachers -- the ability to make use of ideas, materials etc. selectively that fit the classroom and kids you are working with.

Yetta

AVDL@aol.com

Our school began using Words Their Way several years ago, also. However, we are multiage and teachers found that they were running out of words, activities, etc. One of our upper elementary teachers began looking into Word Journeys by Kathy Ganske. What an eye opener! Students are pre-assessed and then are put into spelling groups according to their understanding of how words are put together. They may change groups (test out) and move to the next group anytime they are able. The book is well written and naturally differentiates the learning for individuals.
I can find this person’s name

                                                                                                                                    Yetta

How do you run out of words?  Is it possible for the teachers and students to use the lessons as models and develop their own lessons with the kids taking the lead.  I don't know the program, though!

Yetta

Teresa

Yetta,

Could you address your vision in the use of ongoing, formative assessments (word, comprehension, and fluency levels) in the K-6 classrooms? How might it look throughout the grades/literacy stages?

Teresa Terry, NBCT
4th-6th Literacy Coach
Sunnymede Elementary
4201 North O Street, 72901 Fort Smith, AR 72904

                                                                                                                                    Yetta

This is not an easy question for me to answer.  Perhaps others may be more helpful here.  I don't have a view of literacy instruction in the classroom that is separate from curriculum.  I think of students’ ongoing and completed work (portfolios, projects ala Howard Gardner, thematic cycles and units, compositions of all kinds and reading
of all kinds, and literacy that is embedded in working in science, social studies, art, music, and mathematics) as where I do assessments. I only know how students' vocabulary develops when I have data from oral presentations, responses to their readings, discussions with their peers and me in conferences etc. etc. I know how their spelling develops as I examine their spelling in their writing work and during their editing processes and it is in their spelling that I most easily can identify their knowledge of phonics.

I address some of this with Gretchen Owocki n a book called Kidwatching: Documenting Children's Literacy Development.  I think these are all formative assessments -- how students develop their capabilities in the use of language during actual learning experiences.

Yetta

                                                                                                                                    Elisa

Hi Yetta, 

I too have been enjoying this conversation though I haven't had much time to participate.  What you say here about assessment speaks to my heart of hearts.  Everything that we do in the classroom are "assessments". (Somehow this last sentence doesn't sound right but I'll let it stand...)  My grade level partners are often scrambling around trying to find "something" (usually a pencil and paper type of activity) to "document" what kids have learned.  I've often felt isolated in my ideas regarding assessment so reading this is a great affirmation.  For anyone wanting to read more about this way of thinking I recommend Anne Davies' work.  She is a BC, Canada educator whose work on assessment is highly regarded in the Calgary Board of Education.  She talks about "collecting evidence" of what kids know and can do based on what they do, say, and can be observed.    The book you mention below is in our school professional library and I borrowed

it to read over the summer.  

Take care,

Elisa Waingort
Calgary, Canada

Miriam

Hello Dr. Goodman,

My name is Miriam Shalan and I am a Wayne State University student. I will be graduating May 2008. My question is: Is it better or easier to work with a student whose miscue is where he/she recognizes when he/she reads the wrong word and stops and tries to figure it out or a student who does not recognize he/she has read the wrong word and keeps going?

Thank you for your help,
Miriam Shalan

                                                                                                                                    Yetta

Once you begin to work with kids in reading you will find it challenging and rewarding to work with kids who have a range of strategies they use as they read.

First I need to say that it is never one miscue that is at issue but the pattern of miscues across a reading.

1.  Reader recognizes s/he has miscued and it is not acceptable and s/he stops to figure out what was happening?  Did the reader correct it or just leave it and go on. And if the reader went on did the reader come up with the printed word on the page later in the text? If it was corrected and the reader tends to correct unacceptable miscues you have a reader who is easy to work with. 

2.  The reader does not recognize that s/he has made a miscue?  The big question here is not whether the word was wrong but whether it was acceptable in the sentence. If it is acceptable and the reader goes on the reader is making sense of the text.  When readers have this kind of pattern of miscues, they probably are easier to work with because they are already using their reading strategies in appropriate ways.

Betsy who is the reader we use in the Reading Miscue Inventory has two wonderful miscues she makes in two adjoining sentences.

The text: “So the next morning the wife went off to the forest. The husband stayed home and began to do his wife's work.”

Betsy: “So the next day the wife went off to the forest. The husband stayed home and began to be his wife's job.”

These are both smart and high quality miscues.  Betsy has to be comprehending (understanding as she reads). “Next day” and “Next morning” are synonyms in this context.  She had read the previous sentence.  “Well you do it tomorrow”  for the text sentence “We'll do it tomorrow....”  But again “tomorrow” gave her the cue at the end of a page to know that the next page/ sentence would start out....  “Next morning”.  She knew they were talking about work a lot.  She had already read "work" five times on the first page.  But in American English people have jobs (noun) and work is usually a verb especially in this context. 

So as a number of folks have said already...................  We look for her strengths.  See everything she knows. She did make miscues that she had to work hard to make sense in her reading and in some places she didn't get them quite right.  But by the end of the story she knew a lot and was able to tell so much of the story.

Betsy was a nine year old....  According to test scores she was supposed to be reading at a 2.2 grade level.  We found this good folk tale in a third grade book.  She worked hard at the story, understood it and was pleased with her performance.

This doesn't answer your question directly but learning about the reading process as we use it and as children  use it is complicated and takes patience and practice, too.
Good luck. 

Yetta

                                                                                                                        Marlene

Hello Dr. Goodman. I just wanted to start off by thanking you for the wonderful opportunity to speak to you. Your ideas are certainly empowering and informative to say the least. 

My question to you is: When readers approach a word that is unfamiliar to them (in spelling and/or meaning), what does that particular reader do? I was curious as to whether or not the reader substitutes a different word for that unknown word, or if the reader is effortless in comprehension of that given text.

Thank you for your time. 

-Marlene Azzo

                                                                                                                                    Yetta

 Readers do both depending on the context.  We sometimes talk about deliberate and non deliberate miscues...... When we come to words that we don't know how to pronounce and we are reading aloud we may do things differently than we do when we are reading silently. We sometimes are conscious about making miscues and we are sometimes totally unaware that we are making them.

Marlene, what do you do?  Most kids will tell you "I sound it out" in answer to the question on the Burke interview "What do you do when you are reading and come to something you  do not know?" We say "something" purposely in the interview because some readers respond that the "something" or a large unit in the text or an idea but too many readers think that "sound it out" is the right answer.  The Burke Reading Inventory is in the Reading Miscue Inventory authored by Carolyn Burke, Dorothy Watson and me.  And Richard Owen is our supportive publisher.

Deliberate miscues occur when we are conscious of what we are doing.  In silent reading I skip a lot of those and know that if the word is important and the author wants me to understand, the author will cycle back around in a number of ways providing synonyms and extensions on the idea.  If it occurs only once, it couldn't have been very important anyway.  Or I just say what could this be and I come up with a substitution or a vague idea of what it could mean.  I make a guess based on my knowledge and experience.  Educated guesses are hypotheses and that's what kids are doing all the time when they read and that is good.

Non deliberate miscues are usually good or smart miscues as someone called them on this listserve. They are substitutions of one name for another because we are not familiar with the name or don't know how to pronounce it and we just say to ourselves -- Russian name -- because I'm reading Tolstoy and it's a man and I think he is nice or mean depending on how the character is being developed.  In silent reading we rarely worry about pronunciation anyway -- why waste my time .

If I'm reading orally, I still don't notice non deliberate miscues because they are happening intuitively in my brain. Television announcers often make such miscues and they are called bloopers in t.v. dialect.

But when I need to make a deliberate miscue when I'm reading aloud I make conscious decisions -- I'll skip it because it is an adjective and no one will know. Or I'll say a similar name Tohono O'odam and other folks won't know either and they will think I'm right because they know I am a professor.

But when I'm reading to kids now and the story isn't too gripping or important, I'll stop and discuss with the kids that I am thinking about what to do because I don't know how to pronounce something or I'm not sure I understand the word.  I ask the kids to brainstorm with me what they think and what they do. We talk about the important notion in reading that what is important is keep making sense and how do we do that when we aren't sure and there is no one around to ask. Or if the kids catch me in a miscue I always let them help me decide why I made the miscue and why it is a smart miscue.  Teachers miscues are always smart, right?
And then we can talk about their smart miscues too. 

Yetta

Michele

Hello,

My name is Michele, I am a student of Nancy Creech at Wayne State University, and hopefully I will be graduating this December. I have been absolutely fascinated by the wealth of information you have supplied us with and I thank you.

As I read the various conversations, I began to wonder if there has been any research into the correlation of miscues and writing. For children who are capable of writing do they make the same mistakes when they write about what they have read? Do their miscues from reading aloud carry over into their writing about what they have read? I know that many times I do not read what I have written correctly, and as you mentioned in one of your responses, we are constantly changing the meaning of what we write. Also, as a second language learner, I know that many times I misread words aloud and silently, but for the most part my comprehension seems not to be affected by my misreading.

Thank you.
Michele S. Herdoiza

                                                                                                                        Yetta

Hi Michele and welcome to a great profession.

Since you are asking about writing, I thought I'd mention a book written by friends from Australia who have been involved in issues the teaching and learning of writing for years.  Jan Turbill and Wendy Bean have a book published with Richard Owen called Writing Instruction K-6 Understanding Process, Purpose and Audience.

I've never seen kids making reading and writing miscues that look the same. Reading and writing are related in terms of what the reader and writer know about language.  But each takes place in a different context, has different functions and purposes and makes different kinds of demands on the reader and the author.

Of course, kidwatchers use notions of miscues as they evaluate writing.  They observe carefully and try to understand what the writer knows to have made the compositions that they have.  Writers engage in a lot of inventions -- spelling, punctuation, font explorations, decisions about how to embed dialogue. etc.  Perhaps others will want to expand on the discussion of writing evaluation.  Before we get involved in evaluation, we need to make sure there are many opportunities for kids to write, choose what they want to write about and focus on meaning making and not accuracy.  Same as in reading.

Another issue you raise is making miscues when we read our own writing.  And that happens all the time. All of us know we've spent hours editing a paper and when it is returned there are typos that we never saw.  Again it proves everyone makes miscues and we read what we think we see not necessarily what is printed.

Yetta

Sharon

For the past six years, I have been a Reading Recovery and Title One instructor. Only twice have I worked with writing groups, which I found to be very exciting. I have taken New Jersey Writing, but am searching for rebuilding and new resources to help me be a stronger teacher. Are you familiar with New Jersey Writing, and if so, how does it compare to Writing Instruction K-6 Understanding Process, Purpose, and Audience? By the way, this year I am teaching third grade. Thank you and I learn so much through the internet conversations.

Sharon Halm

Wendy

Hi Sharon,

I am one of the authors of. I am sorry I am not familiar with New Jersey Writing so can’t help you with your question.

Here is an overview of our book though:

Writing Instruction K-6 is written to help teachers deepen their understandings and increase their practical knowledge for implementing a sound and effective writing program. The book focuses on the important role that audience and purpose play in the development of young writers. Chapters 1-3 offer theoretical frameworks on which the remaining chapters are built. Chapter 4-9 offer examples of effective practice and several specified professional development exercises. Special features of the book are “cameos” and examples of children’s work that take the reader into successful writing classrooms.

That was the intro to the study guide we wrote to accompany the book-it is available through Darcy.

Wendy

Debbie

Wendy,

Your book is FABULOUS! I've used it with my students who take Advanced Methods of Teaching Writing - and it even works in the online venue! My students walk away with a different understanding of what writing is and how kids learn.

Great job on the book.

Debbie East

                                                                                                                                    Wendy

Thanks Debbie-that is great feedback. I will let Jan know. I had great fun collecting all the wonderful student writing.

Wendy

Bahiyh Shariff

Hi, my name is Bahiyh Shariff.  I am a student from Wayne State University.  I am currently taking a class with Mrs.Creech.  I am so glad I am getting the opportunity to speak to you and view what you have to say to others.  I really thank you for emailing and answering back everyone's questions, that has got to be a lot of work.

My question is what do you suggest to new teachers to look out for when assessing (DIBELS)/reading miscues?  

Also, how should a teacher judge the miscue readings of an ELL student?  Should he/she think the student is below reading level or give the student time to adjust and that the way the child is really reading is the way they see the words.  Because, in some foreign languages words are pronounced the way the are spelled and spelled the way they sound, that is certainly not true in English. 

Bahiyh

                                                                                                                                    Yetta

There are languages that have closer correspondence between the sounds of the language and the graphics of the language than English does.   But English is not as irregular as people often suggest. 85% of English is fairly regular. The problem is that many of the irregular spellings we have and part of the most frequent use of words are in the 15% that are not regular. I'm remembering my percentages and they may not be too accurate but they are not far off.

In any case even in more regularly spelled languages (such as Finnish) there are dialect differences in the society. As soon as you have dialect differences, there have  to be spelling issues.  Ken Goodman suggests that each person has their own phonics system (Phonics Phacts).  How I pronounce merry, Mary, and marry is different than people who pronounce it in New York and I have to know which is which when I write and not write it using my teacher's pronunciation. Every language is easy or hard to read depending on the person learning. No language is harder to read that any other. And Chinese, Japanese, Arabic and Hebrew have other orthographic issues as well.   In fact in miscue analysis we accept the pronunciation of the reader's dialect. If a reader says "Deee troit" for D'troit, we would not mark them miscues unless we were studying dialect variation. I need to know the language of the child and the community in which s/he grows up.

There are two issues I have difficulty responding to so perhaps others will pick up on those. I never did understand what a reading level is/was or will be. I have problems with grade level too. What level do I read on now -- A post doctorate level or a 76 year old level or???? And I also am always skeptical when someone levels a book for me. I wonder what level Harry Potter is? I'll leave those controversies and if someone picks up on those perhaps I'll respond more. 

Yetta

Lori

My best advice is to avoid the use of DIBELS and miscue in a single sentence.;-) Miscue is about really knowing readers, looking deeply at their miscues and drawing some conclusions about the systems the reader uses as well as the quality (in terms of meaning) of the miscue. DIBELS is GARBAGE, IMO.

Lori

Yetta

If you get Ken Goodman's book on DIBELS you will also have a CD of children responding to DIBELS tests.  Miscues on tests is different than miscues in reading real literacy (fiction or non fiction).  Ken carefully analyzes what each DIBELS test is supposed to do and then critiques it.  I just heard a research study done at U. of Alabama where they examined the Nonsense Fluency test for DIBELS.  They discovered many Spanish words in the English nonsense words.  Could that be deliberate? Or doesn't the test maker know simple Spanish words like -- es, el, un, dos, etc? Or don't they care? 

Yetta

Steve

Hello Dr. Goodman,

I am a student of Nancy Creech at Wayne State University. Thank you for the opportunity to ask you a question.

My major is special education, specifically cognitive impairments. What reading strategies would you suggest for students with cognitive impairments?

Thank you in advance,
Steve

                                                                                                                                    Yetta

Hi Steve --
The most important things for all kids is to know them very well and it is even more important for special education folks.

Unfortunately too many special education programs focus the students on abstract units of language -- letters, sounds, breaking words up into parts, etc. etc.   Abstract units are the hardest aspects of language to learn.    Kids know how to use prepositions in the flow of speech but when they are listed out of context then they get hard and complicated.  And of course there are many words listed as prepositions that aren't prepositions in other language contexts.

I'm moving to say that I would use lots of authentic reading (and writing) with special education kids before I set up any strategy lessons.  I want them to love to listen to me reading and to read in small groups with each other.  I'd involve them in reading along as they listened to taped books. And at the same time I'd have them write or I would take dictation of their stories and turn them into reading materials.  We need to support developing readers in having real reasons to want to read for themselves.   One of the simple sayings in English literacy is  “You can lead a horse to water but you can't make him drink!!”  I think about that all the time when I think of teaching kids to read.  We can't force learning and only the learner is in control of the learning.  So as a teacher I first want the kids to have a great thirst to read -- Harry Potter or Charlotte's Web (and then I have to remember there are kids who hate Harry Potter and Charlotte's web so I have to know a lot myself about the thousands and thousands of great books and magazines that are out there.

Yetta

                                                                                                                        Richard

My friends,

It is time to bring this author discussion to a close.  It has been a very stimulating four days with Yetta Goodman.  Lots of great conversation, lots of good thinking, lots of ideas to consider. 

I want to thank all of you for being here.  I want to thank Darcy for organizing this conversation.  And I especially want to thank Yetta for being receptive and responsive.  Yetta's hope is to reply to all messages that have been sent.  So as of now we have to ask for no more questions to be submitted. 

If you haven't yet read Yetta's Reading Miscue Inventory or Reading Strategies I encourage you to visit our website and get copies for yourself.  As has been said here more than once this week, You will never look at children or at reading the same way.  http://www.rcowen.com/ Click on Professional Books in the center column. 

Within another week we will post a transcript of the conversation at the website where we offer Yetta's books.  So if you missed part of the discussion, you can get a copy for yourself.  No charge.  Be looking for it. 

We hope you will stay with us and continue the conversation.  But if you have to leave, please send an email message to tln-unsubscribe@listserve.com (or write to me offline at richardowen@rcowen.com).  Be looking for the next great conversation  We have another good one coming up very soon.

Thank you Yetta!  Thank you All!

Richard

                                                                                                                                    Yetta

I think I have read all the messages and have responded to most or at least combined a few and responded.  I had a heady experience exploring the work I love with teachers (a profession I love). You have my email in your messages and if anyone has a burning question or a comment please feel free to ask. I'll respond when I can.

Thank you, thank you all for caring about your profession and about your students.  Good Night and Good Luck! 

Yetta

                                                                                                                                    Wendy

Dear Yetta,
I have been ‘lurking’ on this list serve and enjoying the conversation from ‘down under’ (in Australia). I have enjoyed it very much and wanted to thank you for your detailed responses to the questions. It has been very helpful  and has given me much to think about. It has been wonderful to have the opportunity to listen in to you-for me the opportunities do not come often enough. I have learned such a lot from ‘the Goodmans’ throughout my teaching career and that learning has continued through this experience. Thank you Darcy and Richard for providing the opportunity and thank you Yetta for your time and for sharing your expertise.

Wendy

Wendy Bean
Po Box 88
Lane Cove
NSW  1595
Australia

Cheryl

I want to thank you for your willingness to continue to answer questions once our conversation is over on this forum. I am anxiously awaiting my copy of your book and know that many questions will arise once I begin reading it and utilizing miscue analysis more than ever in my classroom.

I have not been an active partcipant in this conversation but have enjoyed the time that I have been able to spend reading questions/answers.

I reverberate the thanks to Darcy and Richard for providing us such wonderful professional experiences.

Cheryl in Colorado

Lori

Richard & Darcy,

Thanks to you for playing host and Darcy for planning the party! I enjoyed this very much.

Lori

Sharon

Yetta,
Thank you for all of your insight. It was my first time being a participant in this type of discussion. It was inspiring and enlightening.

Thank you.

Sharon

Barbara

Wow! I am saving all of Yetta’s wonderful responses to mull over in the coming weeks as I prepare to teach. There’s so much to think about in her comments to all of us. Thank you so much, Yetta, for sharing your knowledge, wisdom, and experience with all of us in cyberspace.

Barbara Ward

Jeri

To Richard, Darcy and all that have made this possible THANK YOU so very much.  Yetta, thank you for sharing with us your inspiring ideas. 

Jeri - Colorado

          Marlene

What a wonderful opportunity that has been given to us all! 

Thank you, Dr. Goodman! 

And thank you to Darcy and Richard for making the arrangements so this learning opportunity was created for us all.