Retrospective Miscue Analysis and the Socialization of One Young Adult Reader

Joan Leikam Theurer

The purpose of this case study research was to investigate the use of Retrospective Miscue Analysis (RMA) with a community college student enrolled in a college remedial reading course. This study explored two questions: (1) What types of reading strategies and behavior patterns are used by high school graduates enrolled in a community college remedial reading course? and (2) How does participation in RMA sessions change the reading strategies and behavior patterns used by the participants?

Theoretical Framework Retrospective Miscue Analysis (RMA) is an approach to reading assessment and instruction that has been in use for more than twenty years and has a history of established success (Goodman & Marek, 1996; Moore, & Aspegren, 2001; Moore & Brantingham, 2003; Paulson, 2001). RMA is most commonly used with readers who struggle to make meaning of texts by heightening a readers awareness of the reading process. However, research has shown that even procient readers benet from RMA (Theurer, 2002; Wurr, Theurer, & Kim, 2008/2009). RMA encourages readers to understand and value their own knowledge of language rather than giving up and labeling themselves as nonreaders. Through RMA readers analyze their own miscues and view them as attempts to construct meaning rather than viewing them as a failure to learn. RMA research has proven that when readers talk about and reect on their personal reading style there is a direct positive impact on reading ability. RMA is grounded in Vygotskys (1978) social constructivist framework with its presupposition that human learning has a specic
Joan Leikam Theurer, Ph.D. Associate Professor Coordinator of Graduate Reading Programs California State University, Long Beach. Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Dr. Joan Theurer at jtheurer@csulb.edu
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social nature. Optimal learning occurs in an environment in which both students and teachers, or readers and RMA researchers, participate in thoughtful reective discourse. The researcher, taking the role of the knowledgeable other, assists readers in the construction and understanding of new knowledge. The environment in which learning occurs and the perspective of the teacher greatly inuence how concepts are interpreted, learned, and ultimately used. Therefore in RMA the relationship between the reader and researcher is of critical importance Likewise, the sociocognitive perspective of Gee (2004) maintains that reading is more than processing skills. Rather, it is a process rooted in a context of social interaction (Ruddell & Unrau, 2004, p. 94). The values and knowledge of learners are greatly inuenced by the larger learning environment. In the case of RMA, the learning environment is the conversation between the reader and the RMA researcher. In addition, sociopsycholinguists also note the signicance of the inuence of readers social contexts during the reading process (Goodman, 1996; Smith, 1996). During RMA sessions the social interactions between the reader and researcher play a key fundamental role as the reader reects on the reading process and his/her own personal reading strategies. Methods and Techniques Because RMA evolved from miscue

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analysis theory and research it therefore uses miscue analysis methodology (Goodman, Watson, & Burke, 2005). Research into the oral miscues (unexpected responses) of readers provides clues to a readers knowledge and experience with language. As readers transact with text they make judgments about which reading cues (syntactic, semantic, graphophonic, pragmatic) or combination of cues will most effectively provide the information needed to make meaning. RMA extends miscue analysis research by supporting readers as they discover their personal reading strategies and assisting them to nd new reading strategies with the assistance of a knowledgeable other, thus supporting them as they move through the zone of proximal development (Vygotsky, 1978). During RMA readers are involved in a series of reading workshops in which the reader is recorded orally reading unfamiliar unpracticed texts. The readings are then analyzed using miscue analysis techniques. Later the reader and RMA researcher listen to the recorded readings and are involved in a dialogue about the reading, noting places where the observed response (i.e. what the reader actually said) varied from the expected response based on what was printed in the text. Each deviation from the printed text reveals the ways in which the reader interacted with text. The conversation between the reader and researcher focuses around four central questions: 1) Did the miscue make sense? 2) Was the miscue corrected? 3) Did the miscue need to be corrected? 4) Why do you think you made that miscue? However, the conversation between the reader and researcher is free owing and questions are added or changed based upon responses of the reader. Through the RMA conversations the researcher helps guide the reader to realize, that just as authors make decisions on how to create meanings in text,

readers make those same decisions as they work towards constructing meaning (Strickland & Strickland, 2000). In essence the RMA sessions become like individual tutoring sessions where the researcher uses teachable moments to help the reader reconstruct their perception of the reading process. Through the course of multiple sessions readers participating in RMA begin to understand what procient reading involves and become empowered to make personal reading choices. In many cases for the rst time they begin to view themselves as readers and develop more effective and efcient reading strategies. That is exactly what happened to the subject of this case study during her RMA sessions. Leticia Leticia [pseudonym] was a young energetic African American woman who was enrolled in a local community college in a large urban setting in the southwestern United States. She had recently graduated from high school having taken honors English classes there and had passed the state mandated exit examination. Upon acceptance to community college she took a reading placement test and based upon the results of the placement test she was required to enroll in remedial reading classes. When I interviewed Leticia at the beginning of the research she said she loved reading and considered it her hobby. Her choice of reading material was reective of her African American heritage. However, she did not always consider herself a reader. When describing her literacy history she said, Growing up in my house homework and reading wasnt a priority. No one cared to help me with my homework let alone make me read a book. She also said there were no books in her house except the ones assigned from school and that she never went to the library because she didnt have any reason to do so. Although Leticias family did not understand the importance of parental

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involvement in a childs literacy development (Padak & Kindervater, 2008) she was trying to break that cycle. I had to babysit my little cousins and I was reading to them all weekend. It made me happy to see them want to read. Leticia went on to say that, I never had trouble with reading, it was just [a] dumb thing to me at the time I had to do in school. However the fact that she was enrolled in a remedial reading class indicated that she had more trouble with reading than she thought. When talking about specic school experiences with reading Leticia said it was often used as a punishment. She said that when she got in trouble her teachers would say, Youre not paying attention. Okay, you go read. Thats just what it was. Reading was never a rewarding thing. Everything changed for Leticia during one long car trip with her family. To help pass the time she decided to read a book her aunt had brought along. I was very bored and I decided to read. Once I read the rst paragraph it just caught me and ever since ... it started everything. Leticia was proud of the fact that she has read nine books in the last two years. Determined to be more than what I am now she has dreams of one day nding a job in the medical eld. No one in her family has ever gone to college nor did they encourage her to attend. She was told, College is not for everybody. You might just have to nd a full time job. And it doesnt help you out with your fears. She is now a role model to her younger cousins. They ask questions about college and Leticia encourages them keep interested in school and tells them that education is the way to go. When I spoke with Leticia about specic reading strategies that she uses this young woman who spoke so eloquently and passionately about the importance of education was not able to articulate any specic reading strategies. I try to like really focus on it. I try to really get my own meaning and if Im

wrong then I try to give the right meaning of it. She also talked about getting the ow of reading. This self-proclaimed lover of reading obviously used some reading strategies successfully but did not know what she knew and how reading works, an important characteristic of procient reading (Ford & Opitz, 2008). Approaches to Word Reading To answer the rst research question Leticias reading strategies were compared to those used by procient readers. Ehri (1994) identied four different ways in which advanced readers approach word reading: by sight, decoding, analogy, and prediction. Leticia effortlessly utilized all four approaches in her reading. Leticia had a large bank of sight words in her reading repertoire. For the purposes of this research sight words are dened as words that can be recognized instantly and automatically (Ehri, 1995). Words Leticia read by sight ranged from simple words commonly found on sight words lists (e.g. a, the, was) (Eldredge, 1995) to words with a more complex linguistic structure (e.g. though, obvious, fortune). In a decoding approach to reading words readers use their knowledge of the relationship between graphemes and phonemes to identify the sounds of individual letters or clusters of letters blending them together to make known words. For example, when reading the word supposedly Leticia began by correctly sounding out the rst two syllables and then omitting the ed sound in the third syllable, producing the non-word supposely. She then reread the word and incorrectly put the accent on the third syllable instead of the second and over emphasized the sound of the letter d. On her third attempt to read the word Leticia had enough phonemic information to correctly pronounce supposedly. However, in some cases using an exaggerated articulation, or more commonly known as sounding out, results in reading nonsense words as was the

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case when Leticia attempted to decode the word frugally. Instead of a standard English enunciation Leticia pronounced the word frag-you-ly and continued reading. While frugally may have been a part of Leticias speaking vocabulary it obviously was not a part of her reading vocabulary. When readers use an analogy approach to read unknown words they draw on their knowledge of spelling and linguistic patterns of familiar words and apply that knowledge to unfamiliar words, such as Leticia did when she read the word beau. Leticia admitted she had never seen beau in print but was familiar with the word beautiful and so pronounced beau in the same way you would read the

rst syllable of beautiful. Lastly, prediction, or informed guesses, is a nal way for readers to approach reading. Based upon linguistic, context, and visual cues readers predict what upcoming text might be (Goodman, 1970). Leticia used prediction when she read the sentence in Figure 1. She inserted the word could in front of cashiered and substituted cashier for cashiered. In describing this miscue Leticia said, Im assuming as Im reading and she could cashier. Her intonation when she spoke the word could indicated that working as a cashier was something the character from the text could do.

could cashier She found a job in a small restaurant where she ^ cashiered from the busy hour until closing. Figure 1 Leticia had a solid foundation in word reading but at the beginning of the research she was not able to articulate specic strategies she used nor did she have the knowledge of when to apply them. Additionally, when reading material of her own choosing she appeared to have little difculty with comprehension as evidenced by Leticia acknowledging reading as her hobby. However, when she was assigned reading tasks, such as her community college reading placement test, her ability to read prociently was hindered. The RMA Sessions In total Leticia and I met for three RMA sessions. Over the course of those meetings 24 miscues were examined and discussed in-depth. What is presented here is a sample of the miscues and discussions which are representative of the entire RMA sessions.

Being white in this class is not going to give him the same status would get that he ^ gets in society. Figure 2 The very rst miscue Leticia and I discussed was the uncorrected miscue in Figure 2. Leticia agreed that her miscue kinda says the same thing but she felt it was a problem for her. I would already assume what was coming before I read and I go back and try to correct myself. I explained to Leticia that she was using the strategy of prediction, that good readers often predict when reading, and if the miscue did not change the authors intended meaning good readers usually do not correct every prediction miscue but continue reading. The look on her face, her nervous laughter and the discussion about the next

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miscue indicated that Leticia knew she sometime inserted and/or substituted words but felt that was a sign of reading weakness. In the miscue in Figure 3 Leticia substituted where for it and omitted the period, reading the two sentences as one. When discussing this miscue she said, [Im] just assuming as I read and trying not to get stuck and keep going with the text so I wont keep stopping and stopping before I start forgetting what was before. She only needed to hear once that it was okay to substitute words while reading as long as meaning was maintained. Her comments also indicate that she knew that constant stopping and starting would interfere with her comprehension and that sometimes she just needs to keep reading. where I can already see it. Were going to be stuck with some fat-ass second grade English book Figure 3 By the time Leticia and I discussed the third miscue she had abandoned the use of the word assume and instead was using the word predict. In this case Leticia made a prediction which was semantically unacceptable and was self-corrected (see Figure 4). When the \ With this class, though Figure 4 Sometimes I predict something and it makes sense and then you realize that what you just said didnt make sense and then you go back and kind of put it together the way its suppose to be. In that quote Leticia was discussing her use of prediction and conrming/correction reading strategies. Keep in mind that when initially asked about specic strategies she used when reading she was only able to talk about the ow of reading and

focus[ing] on it. Clearly in this case she knew which strategies she used when reading but did not have the specic language to use the terms prediction, conrming, correcting, nor did she have previous knowledge that these were strategies used by procient readers. slug It had a long strap and she carried it slung across her shoulder. Figure 5 The uncorrected substitution miscue in Figure 5 prompted a discussion about the use of mental imagery. Leticia said, In my mind I was picturing her carrying it. And instead of saying slung I said slug. Leticia admitted she realized she had made the miscue but felt no need to correct it because as she said I had a picture in my mind. I knew what it meant. This miscue occurred early in the reading and Leticia no longer felt the need to correct myself as she had stated during the rst RMA session. with . \ What did you want to do ^ it ^ for? Figure 6 Thinking became another theme that was discussed several times during the RMA sessions. In the miscue found in Figure 6 Leticia inserted the word with and rather than reading the sentence as a question she read it as a declarative sentence and ended the sentence after it, omitting the word for. She immediately stopped reading, read the sentence as it was written, paused ve seconds, softly said okay and continued reading. When Leticia listened to this miscue she said, I heard myself saying how I thought it would be said and then I corrected myself and said it how its actually written. And then I had to take a second to think about it because that

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does not sound right at all. During the rst RMA session on several occasions I spoke about how good readers think as they are reading. In this example Leticia demonstrated that she was consciously thinking about her reading. Lottie had bank account that had never grown lean. Figure 7 Another discussion on thinking while reading came about after Leticia read the sentence in Figure 7. She read the sentence haltingly and with the intonation of a question. I had just started the story and I dont know what grown lean means. I didnt gure out what it meant until just now looking back on it. This comment prompted another discussion about thinking while reading. Leticia said thinking while reading was something I never had to do in middle school, elementary or high school. She went on to say her teachers didnt care what kind of book you grab. Whether its a magazine or a little paper they dont really actually care if youre reading it. As long as you have to be looking at it. Whether that harsh criticism is true or not that was Leticias perception. Changes in Reading Strategies Initially Leticia used reading strategies similar to those used by younger readers (Kucer, 2001). She relied heavily on the graphophonic cueing system, sounding out words and continuing to read even if she was not understanding the text. After two RMA sessions the percentage of miscues with no sound similarity and no loss of meaning dropped by almost 70%. In other words, Leticia was focusing less on sounds of letters and more on the meaning of the text. Likewise, when examining the graphic similarity of her miscues the number of miscues with no graphic similarity and no meaning loss tripled. She was relying less on the graphic

cueing system and more on the semantic cueing system. Making meaning was becoming more important than accurate word reading. Furthermore, after the rst RMA session there was a 22% drop in the percentage of miscues which resulted in a loss of meaning. The most powerful cueing system for procient adult readers is the syntactic cueing system (Fries, 2008; Kucer & Tuten, 2003). When examining Leticias miscues there was a 7% increase in the percentage of miscues which showed grammatical strength after one RMA session and after a second RMA session there was another 14% increase. After just two RMA sessions Leticia was beginning to rely on the same strategies used by procient adult readers. Additionally, there was also a 70% drop in the number of miscues which were classied as an overcorrection, an indication that Leticia no longer felt the need to correct herself. At the conclusion of the RMA sessions Leticia was talking about her RMA experiences when she said, Its just better to be informed about things, period. Leticia had become informed about reading strategies she uses regularly and was able to talk about those strategies, something she could not do previously. I know that I have strategies that I use that I didnt even know. I summarize and ask questions to myself. I use prediction a lot. I get a picture in my head. Visualization. After reading something I kind of reect about what it was because it kind of helps me remember. Discussion Moore & Aspegren (2001) challenged the research community to further investigate the use of RMA especially with learners who are academically disempowered. Leticia t that description. She was disempowered not only by her socioeconomic status but also by her former teachers who would use reading as a form of negative classroom management. While this research focused on one young adult reader the ndings have

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implications for elementary, middle and high school classroom teachers. Leticia had a strong foundation of phonics knowledge but Gee (2004) contends that learning to read involves more than knowledge of phonics. Readers are socialized into a specic use of language in which the elements of vocabulary, syntax and discourse are just as important as the letters on the page. This specic language is learned through involvement in communities where the language is practiced and used (Galda, & Beach, 2004). Gee (2004) goes on to say that more people fail to become successful school-based, academic, or work-related readers (p. 122) because they are not mastering the discourse of reading. Classrooms must be environments in which students can become engaged in the practice of being socialized into the discourse of reading. This means teachers not only need to teach and model specic reading strategies but they must give the students the language to talk about the strategies they are using in the same way that Leticia adopted the use of the word prediction when I modeled the language for her. Students also need ample opportunity to practice using the language when talking about their own reading and the reading of others. Additionally, Leticia had underdeveloped higher order thinking skills. It appeared that her reading instruction had focused largely on constrained skills. Paris (2008) identied constrained skills as those that develop in a brief timeframe, can be taught directly, are quantitatively assessed and have a small set of knowledge and skills. In contrast, unconstrained skills are developed over a lifespan, are interrelated within an individual and never reach a upper limit. This view of reading juxtaposes with Alexanders (2005/2006) developmental perspective on reading. Alexander contends that readers need to continually develop their domain knowledge about reading. In other words, what a reader knows about reading will directly impact their reading development. She

goes on to describe three stages of reading; acclimation, competence and prociency/ expertise. With her limited base of reading knowledge, Leticia was initially in the acclimation stage. Her reading strategies focused on the surface level of text which limited her overall comprehension ability. Readers in the acclimation stage are in need of thoughtful guidance from more knowledgeable others (p. 430). During the RMA sessions the thoughtful guidance I provided assisted Leticia as she moved to a competence stage of reading. The thoughtful guidance developing readers require cannot be provided via a program or a curriculum. Only through social interaction with others, whether it be teachers or fellow classmates, will students continue to develop their reading skills. Finally, Leticia was never expected to use higher order thinking skills in her reading. She clearly said that thinking while reading was something her teachers never expected of her. To an experienced reader it might seem obvious that readers must think as they read. However, Leticia is not alone in her experiences. Another adult I worked with using RMA, this one a highly educated procient L2 reader, indicated that when she was in school she had never been told that reading was suppose to make sense (Theurer, 2004). It wasnt until she gured it out on her own that she became a better reader. How easy it would be for teachers to tell their students they must think when they are reading and that reading is suppose to make sense. The RMA sessions empowered Leticia with knowledge about the reading process which in turn allowed her to take more risks and develop condence in her personal reading abilities. When asked about changes in her reading strategies following the RMA sessions Leticia summed up her experiences in the following way, I just pay attention more. I dont go back and correct or change every little thing as long as Im still understanding it. I just keep going. Thats what we want our students to do. Just keep reading.

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