RTL: Miscues

pg. 4 Goodman (1969) used the term miscue to replace error when describing someone's oral reading. This ushers in a change in perspective - no longer are readers making errors, rather they are negotiating and constructing meaning as they work through the text.

Looking at miscues (such as omitting words, substituting words, or self-correcting) then provided a positive way to analyze the meaning-making process of readers.

Example - miscues during a reading of a poem on T-shirts - indicated that the reader had a very good handle on the meaning of the poem - so the miscues were inconsequential - Fluent readers often make changes to text.

On the other hand, HS students who were poor readers, often read slowly, with great accuracy, yet had little understanding of the meaning. In fact, the more they paid attention to getting things right at the word level, the less likely they were to comprehend the passage - an inverse relationship occurred!!!