Help with Reading

[a2z]

Originally Posted by EdEd

Tyler, that's definitely a good point in terms of interpreting data, but for comparison purposes you want standardized procedures which generally involve counting all errors - even semantic ones - as errors.

I agree that it likely has to do with attentional issues, but perhaps different kinds of issues. So, it may be that they aren't monitoring for meaning, but it also might be that the passage is relatively difficult so they are diverting more of their working memory to decoding words, thereby increasing error rate. Also could be that they know they are being timed and error rate goes up when speed counts.

Do you notice similar errors whenever reading connected text, or just during assessment situations?

I want to offer the other side of the reading equation because the way reading is taught early on in my district relies so much on meaning and very little on decoding. Children are constantly told that if it makes sense but it isn't the same word it is ok. Children are expected to use their verbal skills to support reading what is on the page instead of their decoding and accuracy skills to give them the appropriate information to comprehend. With easy reading this seems to work, especially early on when there are pictures. So, I can see the flip side happening.

The students now know they are being assessed and are more nervous. They then rely on their natural verbal skills more than their decoding and accuracy skills in order to make meaning from what is in front of them. As they run across words or phrases that they have used or heard, they let their natural language facilities take over instead of reading what is printed on the page. It could even be as simple as having read a book before that had similar phrasing so their language recall pulls up that old information.

It isn't until people's decoding and accuracy gets so automatic that they don't have to think about it and can just comprehend what is on the page. Since we push kids to decide what it might be before they have all the decoding tools, we have actually set them up to misread words more easily.

[EdEd]

a2z, that certainly makes sense, and sounds like a very sound hypothesis anywhere, not just in your district. I should have not made such a firm statement about the issue being related to attention, when factors such as the ones you have described are possible as well.

[TeacherGroupie]

I certainly wouldn't hesitate to count a meaning-preserving substitution as an error, but I would equally insist on it being counted as a different kind of error. Kids who can decode but who can't make sense of text are in no better shape than the kids who overrely on syntax or semantics.

It's more than slightly surprising to hear of a district that doesn't emphasize decoding and phonics, at least in the early grades; the bandwagon at least since Reading First has careered very much in the other direction.

1stGradeRocks, you might try modeling making some errors and correcting them, as YOU read aloud: among other things, as Cris Tovani has pointed out in a number of places, this shows less proficient readers that what makes a good reader is not only accuracy but also the ability to notice when a reading is inaccurate and correct it.