All Info About Reading

 Correction and Oral Reading

Parents, reading volunteers, and teachers sometimes wonder when, if, or how to correct students when they are reading orally.  This can be a tough decision: correction can disrupt the flow of words and fracture the student’s concentration.  On the other hand, misread words interfere with comprehension, and laborious decoding can cause frustration!  It can be quite a dilemma.

Like most decisions, the answer is highly dependent on the circumstances.  Usually the primary goal of reading is comprehension.  The reader needs to understand and remember the author’s message.  For this reason, I generally tell students the difficult words nearly immediately.  I have found that prolonged decoding usually interferes with comprehension, and is counterproductive to the goal of understanding the text.

Generally, I make a judgment about whether the troublesome word is within the student’s reading ability.  If my student has the skills to decode the word, I will allow one or two tries.  If the word is beyond the scope of the student’s knowledge, or if it is not being decoded efficiently, I will supply it.

Refrain from correcting miscues that do not affect the meaning.  If a student says “a” instead of “the,” for example, it has little impact on the meaning.  Don’t frustrate your students with needless corrections.

Keep records of the student’s miscues, and you will have an ample supply of material to inform and guide subsequent word attack and phonics lessons.  Does your student have consistent trouble with words having suffixes?  How about vowel-R combinations?  Whatever patterns or weaknesses you find, you can design lessons and activities to build skills in those areas.  After instruction, try the passage again and record the errors.  Hopefully, you will see a reflection of your instructional efforts.

Another technique that can be helpful for struggling readers is to preview any words that may be troublesome.  Go through the text ahead of time and make note of any words that are likely to cause problems.  Watch for phonic patterns that your student has yet to master, irregular words, or unfamiliar sight words.  Before tackling the passage together, go over these words.  Teach them to whatever degree your student needs.  Some students do well with a cursory preview, while others benefit from several lessons focused on the words they will need to know.

Whatever combination of techniques you choose to use, remember that the goal of reading is comprehension.  Find ways to help your student read smoothly and without disruption.  Save the teaching of decoding and word attack strategies for a different lesson.

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© 2006 Sandra Fleming