Click here for PDF version
Opening a
Conversation About the Use of Miscue Analysis and Student as learner
Steve Trowbridge,
Tina Herrington, John Stansell, and Debbie Smith
As reading
specialists in teacher education programs from several universities, we have
had an ongoing discussion about miscue analysis and the impact it has on
pre-service teachers. While searching
Ask ERIC on-line for information on the use of miscue analysis in undergraduate
teacher education programs, we discovered a sharp decline in the number of
articles dealing with this subject. In
the decade from 1980-1990, there were 219 citations that had miscue as a key word in the title.
From 1990-2000, there were only 74 such citations and, of those, only 15
were in journals.
This
discovery led us to a discussion on why this might be so. One suggestion was that those who had
initially been deeply involved in miscue research had either found what they
were looking for or had given up the search.
Another thought was that the newness of this avenue of investigation had
worn off and researchers had just moved on to new areas of interest. A third suggestion, and this is the one that
has moved us to the present conversation, was that those who had been deeply
impacted by their encounters with miscue research now believed that it was so
entrenched in teacher education courses that there was no need to continue the
conversation at the national level.
As professors, in both graduate and undergraduate teacher education programs, we all had epiphanies while working with miscue analysis in our own education programs. We also were not convinced that miscue analysis was being taught in all undergraduate teacher education programs, or even most. We conducted an unscientific survey of colleagues at other universities and a search of the Internet reading course descriptions, and found that miscue analysis did not seem to be a prominent part of many undergraduate programs. In our own graduate courses we had also encountered teachers
returning for master degrees who
had never heard of miscue analysis, or if they had it was mentioned as some
sort of complicated version of running records.
Spurred
on by the dearth of public conversation in journals and the anecdotal data
suggesting that miscue analysis has lost prominence in undergraduate programs,
we would like to reopen the conversation on using miscue analysis in
undergraduate teacher education programs as one way of helping students
understand the process of reading.
History
Miscue
analysis research begins with the work of Kenneth Goodman in the mid-1960s
(Goodman, 1964, 1965). Across almost
four decades, studies by Goodman, his colleagues, and others yielded an
extensive research base (Allen & Watson, 1976; Brown, Goodman, & Marek,
1994). The use of miscue analysis in
teacher education programs also has a lengthy history, dating from the late
1960s as miscue researchers began working to help teachers understand miscue
analysis and use the insights it offered.
Miscue research had involved use of the Goodman Taxonomy of Reading
Miscues (1973, 1976), and the need for a form of miscue analysis that would be
more usable by teachers became quickly apparent. Recognition of this need led to the
development of the Reading Miscue
Inventory (RMI)(Goodman & Burke, 1972). The RMI was designed for teachers' use in
classroom assessment, and was used extensively for various purposes in
undergraduate teacher education classes.
As more and more undergraduate and graduate students were introduced to
the RMI, some found that although its use yielded important information and
insights, it was also time consuming.
Various short forms of the RMI were developed in the following years to
provide miscue analysis frameworks that were faster and easier to use (Bean,
1979; Cunningham, 1984; Hood, 1978; Siegel, 1979; Tortelli & 1976).
Goodman, Watson, and Burke's Reading
Miscue Inventory: Alternative Procedures was also published in 1987 to
provide three alternative forms of miscue analysis in a single volume that
could be chosen depending on the needs and experience of the user. Though miscue analysis has had its critics,
who have challenged both its theoretical base (Gough, 1993; Perfetti, 1985;
Rieben & Perfetti, 1991; Nicholson, 1991; Stanovich, 1986; Turner &
Hoover, 1993) and its psychometric adequacy (Allington, 1984; Leu, 1982)), it
became well established as a research instrument and an assessment tool. As the work of miscue researchers began to
influence the theoretical understandings of reading professors in the ‘60s,
‘70s, and ‘80s, many of those who taught undergraduates used miscue analysis as
a means to introduce their students to reading and reading assessment.
Instructors
using miscue analysis in undergraduate reading classes have chosen from the
available forms the ones they felt best suited to the knowledge and experience
of their students. They have typically
required students to tape record the uninterrupted reading and immediate
retelling of a complete, authentic selection, and then helped students to learn
to use RMI procedures for marking, coding, and analyzing the reader's miscues
(substitutions, omissions, insertions, etc). While prerecorded tapes have been
used in some cases, the value of students' first hand observation of readers
while taping has made this practice less common.
Miscue
analysis has been used in a variety of undergraduate reading courses to serve a
number of purposes. In reading
assessment courses it has been presented as an assessment instrument that
offers insights not available from standardized tests or traditional informal
reading inventories. In reading methods
and language arts courses, students have used the results of miscue analysis to
develop strategy lessons (Goodman, Watson, & Burke, 1996) for readers, and
to consider curricular and instructional emphases that might best help readers
develop effective strategies. In content
reading courses, miscue analysis has been used to help students assess the
demands of content area textbooks and other instructional materials. But, as indicated by the examples which
follow, the primary purpose has been to help students better understand the
reading process. Our experiences as
instructors who use miscue analysis with our undergraduate students has led us
to believe that it continues to serve this purpose very well.
Miscue
Analysis at Northeastern
In
the teacher education program at
As a
result, students are now asked to go beyond using the RMI as a way to assess
students’ reading in practicums and internships, but students are administering it to themselves as a way to
gain a better understanding of the reading process (Goodman, Watson, &
Burke 1987). During this assignment students write reflections and work in
small groups. The group discussions are taped and then transcribed.
As
the students worked on their RMI, their knowledge about the reading process
began to grow. One area of change is in the terminology they use in discussing
the reading process. In the following discussion the students switch from the
word “mistake” to “miscue”.
S1: Um, one
of the other mistakes that I had made was leaving the word out.
S2: One of
mine I noticed that I would just repeat more than anything else. . . That’s
mostly where my mistakes came from, besides pausing a lot.
S1: Why
don’t you read us one of your mistakes - not mistakes, one of your miscues?
The word mistake has a negative connotation, but
miscues are not negative phenomena since they can indicate either strength or
weakness on the reader's part.
Acknowledging that what readers make are miscues rather than mistakes is
an important step toward being able to understand and talk about what readers
are doing in relation to the reading process when an error occurs.
One
of the biggest shocks that students experience while conducting an RMI on
themselves is the fact that they made miscues and that, even with their
miscues, they still constructed meaning. The following dialogue is an example
of students recognizing that they do make miscues and discovering that meaning
can still exist.
S1: But
that’s what we talked about, you don’t realize that you’re making miscues when
you read.
S4: I
didn’t really realize how I mess up when I read.
S1: And
even though, you make a lot of miscues, did that change what you got from the
story? Did you still get the meaning of it?
S4: Yes, I
guess that’s what was so interesting.
S2: Most of
those miscues I never realized I made and I never looked at them.
The same
acknowledgment of miscues in students’ reading was evident in their final
reflections. One student wrote, “When I was reading Maniac McGee, I
didn’t think I made that many mistakes.
But when I listened to my tape I found that I did make miscues and I was
surprised.” Another student wrote,
“After finishing the miscue on myself and working in my group, I realized that
nobody reads perfectly. Miscues are what all readers do when they
read". In one reflection, a student
discovered that she was, in fact, a good reader. “After spending time studying the reading
process and conducting a miscue on myself, I have found something that I never
really saw before. I am a good reader. By this I don’t mean I never made miscues,
but that I gain meaning from text in an efficient way.” For many students, the discovery that miscues
are a natural part of the reading process made it easier for them to see
themselves as capable readers.
As
students begin to acknowledge that they made miscues, they begin to discuss
what they are doing when they read. In the following discussion students
continue the conversation about miscues, but this time they learn about the
type of miscues and self- corrections they make from their own recorded
readings.
S1: But if
I read something and then added a word in, it would still made sense, even
though it changed a little bit of the meaning of the context. If it still made sense I didn’t go back and
self-correct or anything on those. But my main ones [miscues] I think were
caused because I wanted to get to the end of the story quicker. I want to get
to the end and find out what happens. But on the sample and selective reading
process that is a little hazy to me, you know what I mean? Um, so I guess I
used pragmatic and syntactic cueing systems mostly because it makes sense to me
so therefore I leave it and go on.
S3: Well, I
made my miscues on substitute words like tone for voice, most of the time they
would mean the same thing.
S1: Do you
think that’s something you just predicted that’s what it was going to say,
that’s what your mind was telling you it was going to say?
In the
proceeding discussion the students were no longer concerned about the fact that
they had a miscue, but about why they made the miscue. Even though students may
be a little “hazy” about the parts of the reading process, it is clear from
their discussion that they are gaining an understanding of it.
While
discussing their own reading process one group quietly slipped into a
discussion about what young readers do when they read.
S3: The
main thing a lot of little kids especially use is the shape of words to predict
what the word is. You know what I mean?
The little girl that I used for my reading miscue inventory said “black”
instead of “block.” She said block before, but when she came to it again she
said black. But I think it was the shape of it.
S1: I think
they [little kids] definitely use cues. I have a boy that I’m tutoring and
he’ll look at the picture and try to figure out what should go next.
A
teacher who can talk about a student’s reading process and recognize the
strategies the reader may be using, will be able to help her/his students
become lifelong readers. Our students are learning to become that teacher in
these reflections.
In
a final reflection a student wrote, “Doing this (Reading Miscue Inventory)
really showed me how I read and how I can began to understand how others
read”. Helping students reach this kind
of understanding is the goal of this assignment.
Miscue
Analysis at the University of Houston - Victoria (UH-V)
First Encounter - Theory and
Assessment Course
When
students enroll in their first reading course at UH-V, they have not really
thought about reading as a process at all.
Most of these undergraduates come to their initial reading course
believing that reading is a product, not a process.
Their most
common definitions are, “Reading is
getting meaning from what is on the page.” or
“Reading is what happens after a series of skills or strategies are
employed to ‘break the code’”. Since
students have a narrow definition of reading, the programmatic question is,
“How do we help our pre-service teachers come to understand that reading is
everything that takes place leading up to, and including, comprehension?” At UH-V, miscue analysis seems to help.
In the
Theory and Assessment class, students are required to prepare a case study on
one student. This is done with a partner
to allow for discussion. The case study
involves using an the Ekwall/Shanker Reading Inventory (Shanker & Ekwall,
2000) to find approximate reading levels, and a Reading Miscue Inventory,
alternative III (Goodman, Watson & Burke, 1987). They must discuss their student’s
strategies, making specific references to results from both instruments to
support their thinking.
This
exercise seems to be a significant one for most students. They come away with changed expectations for
their students and with an enhanced appreciation for reading as a process. The best way to illustrate this may be
talking through one pair’s case study.
Brian
Two
undergraduates in this course chose a student we will call Brian. The third grader chose this name for
himself. Brian was selected for the case
study because there seemed to be some confusion about him and his abilities at
school. He was in the lowest reading
group (1st and 2nd grade materials) based on his performance on an informal
reading inventory given by his school for placement. He also poked, pinched, and pulled other
children’s hair. He was a problem in
class.
One
of the pair of undergraduate students had been observing in Brian’s class for
some time, and was often asked to take Brian for one-on-one instruction. She thought that Brian seemed to function at
a higher level than was suggested by his behavior in class. For this reason, she selected Brian for the
case study.
On
the Graded Word List (GWL), Brian missed no words until the eighth word of the
fourth grade. After that, he made little
in the way of attempts to read any words at all. This placed him at the frustration level of
fourth grade on the GWL.
On
the reading passages, Brian reached the frustration level on the third grade
oral passage read, but did not reach the silent reading frustration level until
the fifth grade passage. He reached the
frustration level in listening at sixth grade.
The pre-service teachers selected a third grade story for Brian to read
as part of the Reading Miscue Inventory.
Of
the approximately 650 words in the story, Brian had 173 miscues, the majority
of which were insertions, substitutions and repetitions. At the sentence level, Brian had story
changing miscues (either partially changing the story or significantly changing
the story) in 45% of the sentences. His
fluency was poor and he had significant pauses in several places. Yet when Brian retold the story he scored 86
out of 100 points on the rubric prepared prior to the assessment. He was able to articulate the plot and theme
statements as well as recall most details and characters. Also, when Brian made miscues, they were
grapho-phonically similar 94% of the time (76% high similarity; 18% some
similarity). 30 of his miscues were
self-corrected.
The
important part of the RMI, for the students, was their analysis of the
findings. Statements such as “His
reading was hindered by the overuse of grapho/phonic cues. This strategy is not helping him because he
does not appear to confirm his predictions.” shows a firm understanding of
reading as a process. Another statement
illustrating the pre-service teachers’ deepening understanding is, “Brian gets
the ‘big Picture’ even though his oral reproduction does not show evidence of
the fact.”
It
is these deeper understandings of the reading process that makes miscue
analysis so necessary for pre-service teacher programs. The change from “reading is breaking the
code” to understandings of the multi-strategic nature of reading, and the
realization of a need to look at more than one aspect of a student's reading
before making decisions are vital for beginning teachers.
End of Program - Language Arts
Pre-service
students enrolled in their final reading course at UH-V find themselves working
with students fifty percent of the semester as part of a professional
development school. This field-based
opportunity allows the pre-service teachers to be actively engaged in a variety
of activities. The pre-service students
are observed working with individuals, small groups, and whole classes of
students. The pre-service teachers are
required to use the various modes of language arts instruction to construct
All
school districts in the state of
The
TPRI measures accuracy and fluency by counting errors on the oral reading of a
passage and the number of words read per minute. The total number of errors is equated
directly to the students reading level as independent, instructional, or
frustrational. Pre-service teachers at
UH-V who have been trained in RMI have made many meaningful observations when
administering the TPRI about the types of errors made by the student. The following statement taken from a
student’s journal is reflective of how our pre-service teachers see the TPRI in
light of their miscue training.
The TPRI seems to be a fairly fast reading
assessment. However, it focuses only on
the number of errors that are made.
There is no evaluation of what type or errors were made. In miscue analysis each error or miscue is
evaluated. Each miscue does not carry
the same weight, as it does in the TPRI.
I think miscue analysis, while more time consuming, is a better overall
assessment tool.
Students
who have completed the undergraduate program at the
Conclusion
In
our experience, miscue analysis has been a very valuable means of helping
students build their understanding of the reading process, of curriculum and
instruction that reflects this process, and of themselves as readers. It has also been an important tool for
prospective teachers for assessment, and for thinking critically about other
assessment instruments and procedures that are available and whether they offer
the kind of information that reflects the complexity of the reading
process. Since our informal
investigation has suggested that it is not as prominent as it may once have
been in undergraduate reading courses, we have attempted to reopen the
conversation about miscue analysis and its role in literacy teacher
education. Now, we invite readers to
join us and share their experiences and insights. We believe this renewed conversation will
offer much to our profession and to those it serves.
References
Allen, P.
D. & Watson, D. (Eds.) (1976). Findings
of research in miscue analysis:
Classroom Implications.
Allington,
R. L. (1984). Content coverage and
contextual reading in reading groups. Journal of Reading Behavior 16, 85-95
Bean, T.W.
(1979). The miscue mini-form: Refining the informal reading inventory. Reading
World, 18,4
Brown, J.;
Goodman, K. S.; & Marek, A. (1994). Annotated Chronological Miscue
Analysis Bibliography.
Occasional Paper #16.
Cunningham,
J. W. (1984). A simplified miscue
analysis for classroom and clinic. Reading Horizons, 24,2.
Goodman, K.
S. (1964). The linguistics of reading. Elementary School Journal 64(7), 355-361.
Goodman, K. S. (1965). A linguistic study of cues and miscues in
reading.
Elementary English 42, 853-860.
Goodman, K. S. & Burke, C. L. (1973).
Theoretically based studies of patterns of miscues in oral reading
performance (United States Office of Education Project No. 90375).
Goodman, Y.
& Burke, C. (1972). Miscue
Analysis: Procedures for Diagnosis and
Evaluation.
Goodman,
Y.; Watson, D.; & Burke, C. (1987). Miscue Analysis: Alternative Procedures.
Goodman, Y;
Watson, D.; & Burke, C. (1996). Reading Strategies: Focus on Comprehension, 2nd Ed.
Gough, P.
B. (1993). The beginning of
decoding.
Hood, J. (1978).
Is miscue analysis practical for teachers? Reading
Teacher, 32,3.
Leu, D. J. (1982). Oral reading analysis: A critical review of research and
application.
Reading Research Quarterly 17,
420-437.
Nicholson, T. (1991). Do children read words better in context or in lists? A classic
study
revisited. Journal of Educational Psychology 82, 444-450.
Perfetti, C. A. (1985). Reading
Ability.
Rieben, L. & Perfetti, C. A.
(Eds.) (1991). Learning to read: Basic research
and its
implications.
Siegel, F. (1979).
Adapted miscue analysis. Reading World, 19,1
Shaner, J.
& Ekwall, E. (2000). Ekwall/Shanker
Reading Inventory: Fourth Edition.
Stanovich,
K. E. (1986). Matthew effects in
reading: Some consequences of individual
differences in the acquisition of literacy.
Reading Research Quarterly 21,
360-406.
Tortelli, J. (1976).
Simplified psycholinguistic diagnosis.
Reading Teacher, 29, 7.