These are good questions, Colleen, and since I haven't used a miscue analysis since student teaching, I didn't remember the answers myself. I a little internet research, and I realized that you're right... a miscue analysis would probably benefit a struggling reader a bit more than an on-level reader. The purpose of a miscue analysis is to provide some insight into the mind of the reader and determine whether or not the miscues take away from the meaning. The ideal student would be an independent reader in third grade or above. Once the types of miscues are classified, the student would receive some sort of intervention and be re-tested in 6-8 weeks to determine if progress is made. A teacher would choose a text that is one level above independent reading level and should contain at least 500 words.
This makes me curious to see how I can drive my instruction as well. As a specialist, I do not know much about my students' reading levels, and I am curious if my own colleagues, the classroom teachers, know this information. There is not a lot of formal assessment in a Montessori setting, so I am eager to have a discussion with the faculty and find out how much diagnostic work they actually do with their students. Does it go against the philosophy to test a student's reading level? Montessori schools do not believe in testing students, but they do believe in meeting each child at his/her level. In order to do that, shouldn't there be some sort of formal assessment? This is a general theme that I find myself struggling with on a daily basis in my work. I design the curriculum for my Spanish program, and I am always conflicted about how to stay true to the philosophy so parents and my boss are happy, but how to also use practices I learned in my teaching program at URI so I do what is best for the children and set them up for their futures in non-Montessori settings.
What new questions do you have after reading this article? After reading this article I had many questions. Having never used miscue analysis before, this entire practice was foreign to me. I was wondering how you would incorporate this into a literacy based science lesson. Is this something being practiced by other Science teachers? Do I choose a sample for the student to read from their science textbook or other source prior to reading that section together as a class? I also wonder if students reading science textbooks that include many unfamiliar terms will have more miscues, and how this will effect their ability to comprehend and retell to me what they have just read. My only real concern with miscue analysis involves time. Each class of students is different, with some classes having more struggling readers than others. Having each science class for only 45 minutes daily will not give me a lot of time for additional assessments. I am wondering how I could incorporate this into my lesson planning, and reach all of the students that could benefit from this?
I had some of the same questions as Michelle. When I taught first grade, keeping on top of the reading levels was an important task. Once I began as a middle school teacher, I realized that I did not have as good a grasp on the reading levels-especially since I teach mostly math and some science. Of course we discuss students in team meetings but it is not the same as doing it yourself. At the same time, reading and writing in English classes uses different skills than writing in math and science. I find myself questioning and revising my expectations for writing. After reading this article, I have been more frequently picking up on the miscues of students when they read questions. However, this article states that in order to make conclusions, the teacher needs to have students read a longer text. Is it important to have a student read in different content areas to truly determine reading skills? I feel inadequate at this point when I compare myself to those of you trained to be specialists in the field of language arts. This only means that I have much to learn and should continue to converse with those of you who have these skills!
Like Michelle and Linda, I too have a few questions about miscues and their analysis. I am wondering how to successfully incorporate miscues into Spanish or even math lessons. Timing seems to be an integral part of every class, and I wonder if it is possible to present a text that will inadvertently have every single participant looking for miscues. What if some students understand everything in the text and have three or fewer miscues? The reading suggests that even good readers have miscues, and that there is nothing wrong with that. I am also wondering about the correction key. It seems a bit confusing for me since this is the first time I have read about miscue analysis. Is t possible. Is it possible to simplify the correcting key, or is the key in the reading universal?
Michelle's comments on miscue analysis were interesting to me. I have some experience with miscue analysis from participating in my clinical work while earning my M. Ed. in Literacy, but I never thought about the idea of a content-area book versus a novel and the types of miscues that would occur as a result. I am also struggling with learning the coding system for the miscue analysis. I feel that I will need to record my students' reading because I do not know if I will be able to keep up with coding them while they read. Also, Michelle's response brought up more questions for me. If a content-area teacher conducts a miscue analysis, What is the expected protocol for the results after? Does he/she give the product to the reading teacher? Does he/she then embark on trying to tackle the reading issues in the science class? What is the appropriate way to handle the issues brought forth from the miscue analysis? Is there a certain way to help correct each miscue? Overall, I feel that this process can be very helpful for teachers. I am just eager to discuss some of the finer points about it in class.
I found it interesting to read the above comments and, like many of my classmates, also had many questions flood my mind after reading this article. While I think the concept of miscue analysis is an interesting one, my first thought was, “How would I find the time to do this? Would this analysis be done with students during my English class? Would this practice be performed by the Reading Specialist in a school instead? Would all students be analyzed or just struggling readers?” I’m eager to discuss during our next class the benefits of performing a miscue analysis and how to use the findings to improve our lessons and help our students, which I know is one of the goals and assignments of our course.
I appreciated learning about how meaning is constructed when reading. Goodman explained how three systems - graphophonic, syntactic and semantic - are utilized by the reader in order to understand what is being read. I don’t have a strong background in how to teach reading as middle level and secondary level teachers are not often explicitly taught this via professional development held within their schools. I was excited to learn about this “recipe” for reading and would like to delve further into this area as I think it is important to know as much as I can about learning to read so that I can utilize the strategies with my students, especially struggling readers.
Finally, I found one quote from the article really rang true to me: "Through these understandings as revealed by miscue analysis, it becomes clear that readers learn to read by reading. This does not eliminate the role for a teacher. It simply indicates the importance of readers being in control of and taking responsibility for their reading process." I think it is so important for individuals to take responsibility for their part in learning, or in this case, in reading in order to learn. All too often, people meet a challenge with a kind of apathy and expect someone else to explain things to them. I have found that despite being a teacher, even I can be guilty of this practice from time to time! An active participant will make the best of the challenge and turn it into an opportunity to formulate questions, try to make connections and break down the “walls” in order to make the most sense out of a new reading. Working together with our students we can serve as a guide to help facilitate their own learning and also learn from them as well.
This comment and many others have started a nagging thought in my mind of – what do you do once the miscue analysis is complete?Like Amanda asked, “What is the expected protocol for the results after?” I feel that we are constantly testing our students, and we are always told that assessments are designed to change how and what we teach, yet I rarely see that in actual practice. Through tests like STAR or ANET my school has identified a few dozen students who need intervention and are significantly below grade level. Often, these are the students who have IEP’s Despite the best intentions, these scholars still stay in their regular classes and have materials that are not always modified for them as they should be. An old practice that we used to utilize involved Fountas and Pinnell testing, where the scholars read a passage and we recorded miscues in a similar style as the article. From there, a reading level was designated, and the scholar was encouraged to read books at that level. My questions from this – does this miscue analysis also lend itself to a suggested reading level? It is still appropriate to constrict students to the level they are at, or like the quote “ readers learn to read by reading” should they be challenged to learn new words and see them in new contexts in books that push their intellectual level? Does having a 30 minute reading requirement each night help a reader who doesn’t want to read? If reading becomes more fluent from reading, and more meaning is created through these passages, how will struggling readers learn, with the teachers, through these miscue analyses?
Colleen -- I think you're living inside my head because I have the same questions. I subbed for six years and spent a few months in a long term assignment as a reading specialist - twice! I have seen many different types of reading testing, including DRAs, Wilson programs, more iPad oriented plans, RtI focuses with cloze reading passages, etc. Right now, our school has put aside DRAs because they have invested a huge amount of time, money, and effort into the online STAR reading program. I am not a fan. The kids are so stressed out with having to test and retest. The person-to-person approach of a miscue analysis seems to me to be better suited to pick up on subtle nuances of reading comprehension challenges that a computer might never discern. I am finding that most of my students are going DOWN each time they take the computer testing. I think I will probably target the lowest of my students - the one (or ones) that have continually declined in their scores -- and do miscue analyses for them. Maybe even a secret DRA or two...oh my!!
I discussed this article with a friend of mine who teaches ELL math (emergency certification) at Shea high school. She had never had any experience with any sort of reading fluency assessment, or disseminating any information from such a reading analysis. After clarifying some of the concepts (unsuccessful correction was a big one), we moved on to discussing the impact that this analysis could have in our classrooms. Knowing that my school has a serious intervention program identified (something usually stronger in middle school than high school) we looked more at her school. We questioned the role that miscue analysis plays in English language learning students, or at what level it applies. This also branched out to seriously struggling readers, and the question of how effective the analysis is if a large percentage of the reading is just wrong. We hypothesized that you would continue to go down in reading level, but weren't fully aware of the appropriateness of sight words in many lower level texts versus words that require sounding out. As well, I know that there is a huge difference for ELL's in their social vocabulary and their academic vocabulary, so I was wondering if those two things would be assessed differently with the use of a variety of texts, or if that depth of information is really achieved through miscue analysis or in some other form of assessment. And of course, we wondered at what the follow-up is for her as a math teacher knowing that there are these seriously struggling English readers (or in some case, students who speak no english) and wondering how to reach them.
Lisa, I am just wondering what your school does with the results of STAR. Our school also uses STAR, and, although I am only privy to the nuts and bolts of the math scores, the scores don't seem to be really detailed as far as what the students can ACTUALLY do, rather giving information on what a student who scores in that range usually needs help on. I personalized miscue analysis seems that it would be helpful after a student has been identified as a struggling student, although I am sure that a student good have strong comprehension skills and still stumble over reading certain words.
Just a side note about STAR as well, we have our scholars track their scores and calculate the growth that they make (or don't make). Once they have their growth number, they reflect on why they think that is their growth number, and make a promise to either change their reading behavior or to continue what they have been doing because it has been helping them. My kids used to put up with STAR, now they can't wait to see how much they have grown (and then beg me to retake it if they haven't).
I found a website for graded passages from different content areas. In case you are still looking:http://www.readworks.org/books/passages They are the correct length as well. Hope this helps!
Alyssa - STAR is being used for the first time this year, and I think many of us are just getting used to it. I have heard that the motivation level of the students increases greatly if you show them their numbers. Charting the results seems to have helped another teacher instill a little competitiveness in the students - they don't want to see their chart looking terrible! I'm thinking of trying that.
These are good questions, Colleen, and since I haven't used a miscue analysis since student teaching, I didn't remember the answers myself. I a little internet research, and I realized that you're right... a miscue analysis would probably benefit a struggling reader a bit more than an on-level reader. The purpose of a miscue analysis is to provide some insight into the mind of the reader and determine whether or not the miscues take away from the meaning. The ideal student would be an independent reader in third grade or above. Once the types of miscues are classified, the student would receive some sort of intervention and be re-tested in 6-8 weeks to determine if progress is made. A teacher would choose a text that is one level above independent reading level and should contain at least 500 words.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.learnnc.org/lp/editions/readassess/1100
This makes me curious to see how I can drive my instruction as well. As a specialist, I do not know much about my students' reading levels, and I am curious if my own colleagues, the classroom teachers, know this information. There is not a lot of formal assessment in a Montessori setting, so I am eager to have a discussion with the faculty and find out how much diagnostic work they actually do with their students. Does it go against the philosophy to test a student's reading level? Montessori schools do not believe in testing students, but they do believe in meeting each child at his/her level. In order to do that, shouldn't there be some sort of formal assessment? This is a general theme that I find myself struggling with on a daily basis in my work. I design the curriculum for my Spanish program, and I am always conflicted about how to stay true to the philosophy so parents and my boss are happy, but how to also use practices I learned in my teaching program at URI so I do what is best for the children and set them up for their futures in non-Montessori settings.
What new questions do you have after reading this article?
ReplyDeleteAfter reading this article I had many questions. Having never used miscue analysis before, this entire practice was foreign to me. I was wondering how you would incorporate this into a literacy based science lesson. Is this something being practiced by other Science teachers? Do I choose a sample for the student to read from their science textbook or other source prior to reading that section together as a class? I also wonder if students reading science textbooks that include many unfamiliar terms will have more miscues, and how this will effect their ability to comprehend and retell to me what they have just read. My only real concern with miscue analysis involves time. Each class of students is different, with some classes having more struggling readers than others. Having each science class for only 45 minutes daily will not give me a lot of time for additional assessments. I am wondering how I could incorporate this into my lesson planning, and reach all of the students that could benefit from this?
I had some of the same questions as Michelle. When I taught first grade, keeping on top of the reading levels was an important task. Once I began as a middle school teacher, I realized that I did not have as good a grasp on the reading levels-especially since I teach mostly math and some science. Of course we discuss students in team meetings but it is not the same as doing it yourself. At the same time, reading and writing in English classes uses different skills than writing in math and science. I find myself questioning and revising my expectations for writing.
DeleteAfter reading this article, I have been more frequently picking up on the miscues of students when they read questions. However, this article states that in order to make conclusions, the teacher needs to have students read a longer text. Is it important to have a student read in different content areas to truly determine reading skills?
I feel inadequate at this point when I compare myself to those of you trained to be specialists in the field of language arts. This only means that I have much to learn and should continue to converse with those of you who have these skills!
Like Michelle and Linda, I too have a few questions about miscues and their analysis. I am wondering how to successfully incorporate miscues into Spanish or even math lessons. Timing seems to be an integral part of every class, and I wonder if it is possible to present a text that will inadvertently have every single participant looking for miscues. What if some students understand everything in the text and have three or fewer miscues? The reading suggests that even good readers have miscues, and that there is nothing wrong with that.
DeleteI am also wondering about the correction key. It seems a bit confusing for me since this is the first time I have read about miscue analysis. Is t possible. Is it possible to simplify the correcting key, or is the key in the reading universal?
Michelle's comments on miscue analysis were interesting to me. I have some experience with miscue analysis from participating in my clinical work while earning my M. Ed. in Literacy, but I never thought about the idea of a content-area book versus a novel and the types of miscues that would occur as a result. I am also struggling with learning the coding system for the miscue analysis. I feel that I will need to record my students' reading because I do not know if I will be able to keep up with coding them while they read.
ReplyDeleteAlso, Michelle's response brought up more questions for me. If a content-area teacher conducts a miscue analysis, What is the expected protocol for the results after? Does he/she give the product to the reading teacher? Does he/she then embark on trying to tackle the reading issues in the science class? What is the appropriate way to handle the issues brought forth from the miscue analysis? Is there a certain way to help correct each miscue?
Overall, I feel that this process can be very helpful for teachers. I am just eager to discuss some of the finer points about it in class.
Wow, after reading Amanda's comments, I actually have even more questions than I thought I did!
DeleteI found it interesting to read the above comments and, like many of my classmates, also had many questions flood my mind after reading this article. While I think the concept of miscue analysis is an interesting one, my first thought was, “How would I find the time to do this? Would this analysis be done with students during my English class? Would this practice be performed by the Reading Specialist in a school instead? Would all students be analyzed or just struggling readers?” I’m eager to discuss during our next class the benefits of performing a miscue analysis and how to use the findings to improve our lessons and help our students, which I know is one of the goals and assignments of our course.
ReplyDeleteI appreciated learning about how meaning is constructed when reading. Goodman explained how three systems - graphophonic, syntactic and semantic - are utilized by the reader in order to understand what is being read. I don’t have a strong background in how to teach reading as middle level and secondary level teachers are not often explicitly taught this via professional development held within their schools. I was excited to learn about this “recipe” for reading and would like to delve further into this area as I think it is important to know as much as I can about learning to read so that I can utilize the strategies with my students, especially struggling readers.
Finally, I found one quote from the article really rang true to me: "Through these understandings as revealed by miscue analysis, it becomes clear that readers learn to read by reading. This does not eliminate the role for a teacher. It simply indicates the importance of readers being in control of and taking responsibility for their reading process." I think it is so important for individuals to take responsibility for their part in learning, or in this case, in reading in order to learn. All too often, people meet a challenge with a kind of apathy and expect someone else to explain things to them. I have found that despite being a teacher, even I can be guilty of this practice from time to time! An active participant will make the best of the challenge and turn it into an opportunity to formulate questions, try to make connections and break down the “walls” in order to make the most sense out of a new reading. Working together with our students we can serve as a guide to help facilitate their own learning and also learn from them as well.
This comment and many others have started a nagging thought in my mind of – what do you do once the miscue analysis is complete?Like Amanda asked, “What is the expected protocol for the results after?” I feel that we are constantly testing our students, and we are always told that assessments are designed to change how and what we teach, yet I rarely see that in actual practice. Through tests like STAR or ANET my school has identified a few dozen students who need intervention and are significantly below grade level. Often, these are the students who have IEP’s Despite the best intentions, these scholars still stay in their regular classes and have materials that are not always modified for them as they should be. An old practice that we used to utilize involved Fountas and Pinnell testing, where the scholars read a passage and we recorded miscues in a similar style as the article. From there, a reading level was designated, and the scholar was encouraged to read books at that level. My questions from this – does this miscue analysis also lend itself to a suggested reading level? It is still appropriate to constrict students to the level they are at, or like the quote “ readers learn to read by reading” should they be challenged to learn new words and see them in new contexts in books that push their intellectual level? Does having a 30 minute reading requirement each night help a reader who doesn’t want to read? If reading becomes more fluent from reading, and more meaning is created through these passages, how will struggling readers learn, with the teachers, through these miscue analyses?
DeleteColleen -- I think you're living inside my head because I have the same questions. I subbed for six years and spent a few months in a long term assignment as a reading specialist - twice! I have seen many different types of reading testing, including DRAs, Wilson programs, more iPad oriented plans, RtI focuses with cloze reading passages, etc. Right now, our school has put aside DRAs because they have invested a huge amount of time, money, and effort into the online STAR reading program. I am not a fan. The kids are so stressed out with having to test and retest. The person-to-person approach of a miscue analysis seems to me to be better suited to pick up on subtle nuances of reading comprehension challenges that a computer might never discern. I am finding that most of my students are going DOWN each time they take the computer testing. I think I will probably target the lowest of my students - the one (or ones) that have continually declined in their scores -- and do miscue analyses for them. Maybe even a secret DRA or two...oh my!!
ReplyDeleteDescribe the discussion
ReplyDeleteI discussed this article with a friend of mine who teaches ELL math (emergency certification) at Shea high school. She had never had any experience with any sort of reading fluency assessment, or disseminating any information from such a reading analysis. After clarifying some of the concepts (unsuccessful correction was a big one), we moved on to discussing the impact that this analysis could have in our classrooms. Knowing that my school has a serious intervention program identified (something usually stronger in middle school than high school) we looked more at her school. We questioned the role that miscue analysis plays in English language learning students, or at what level it applies. This also branched out to seriously struggling readers, and the question of how effective the analysis is if a large percentage of the reading is just wrong. We hypothesized that you would continue to go down in reading level, but weren't fully aware of the appropriateness of sight words in many lower level texts versus words that require sounding out. As well, I know that there is a huge difference for ELL's in their social vocabulary and their academic vocabulary, so I was wondering if those two things would be assessed differently with the use of a variety of texts, or if that depth of information is really achieved through miscue analysis or in some other form of assessment. And of course, we wondered at what the follow-up is for her as a math teacher knowing that there are these seriously struggling English readers (or in some case, students who speak no english) and wondering how to reach them.
Lisa, I am just wondering what your school does with the results of STAR. Our school also uses STAR, and, although I am only privy to the nuts and bolts of the math scores, the scores don't seem to be really detailed as far as what the students can ACTUALLY do, rather giving information on what a student who scores in that range usually needs help on. I personalized miscue analysis seems that it would be helpful after a student has been identified as a struggling student, although I am sure that a student good have strong comprehension skills and still stumble over reading certain words.
ReplyDeleteJust a side note about STAR as well, we have our scholars track their scores and calculate the growth that they make (or don't make). Once they have their growth number, they reflect on why they think that is their growth number, and make a promise to either change their reading behavior or to continue what they have been doing because it has been helping them. My kids used to put up with STAR, now they can't wait to see how much they have grown (and then beg me to retake it if they haven't).
I found a website for graded passages from different content areas. In case you are still looking:http://www.readworks.org/books/passages They are the correct length as well. Hope this helps!
ReplyDeleteAlyssa - STAR is being used for the first time this year, and I think many of us are just getting used to it. I have heard that the motivation level of the students increases greatly if you show them their numbers. Charting the results seems to have helped another teacher instill a little competitiveness in the students - they don't want to see their chart looking terrible! I'm thinking of trying that.
ReplyDeleteThank you, Linda! I was just getting ready to prepare the passages! :-)
ReplyDelete