| OR: It my little monkey here. | ER: Is my little monkey here? |
| OR: We got to tell. | ER: We've got to tell. |
| OR: Frog look at Toad calendar. | ER: Frog looked at Toad's calendar. |
| OR: A word what sounded good. | ER: A word that sounded good. |
| OR: hisself | ER: himself |
| OR: I can come to your party? | ER: Can I come to your party? |
These children's miscues are evidence of proficient reading. Even though words were changed or missing, these children still showed an understanding of the text. This shows grammatical errors verus comprehension errors. The students have a grasp of understand what is being read, but still have difficulty with all the grammatical comcepts of the English language. Weaver (2002) states on p. 76, according to the Goodmans, "that there is "no evidence that inability to cope with Book English is a general problem for any group" (1978, p. 3-5). The students' dialect or interlanguage influence was evident in their reading, "but it is not in itself a barrier to comprehension" (p.3-22).
If I were teaching children who made these miscues, I would not feel the need to provide any additional assistance beyond what was already being taught. These children are struggling with the different dialects of their home language and the English language. As long as their miscues are not affecting their understanding of a text, extra assistance would not be needed.
I taught many children at my previous school whose first language was not English. I noticed many of these miscues in their reading, however they were able to give me complete answers when asked what they comprehended about the passage. I also noticed that many of these miscues were not present in their writing, which showed me they understood and were able to put into words what they had read.
Amanda,
ReplyDeleteI think that before reading these chapters and looking at this challenge, I thought very differently about the process of reading. I believed that identifying words correctly and comprehension were equally important. However, my mind has been changed and this is a great example of why. The reason that these children miscued is because of their dialect. They can still comprehend what is going on in the text, they are just missing a few function words. However, their miscues are not altering the meaning of the text.
In my post, I said that I would ask follow up questions that showed their comprehension of the text, so I'm glad that you shared your successful experiences with that. That is helpful to know. It is also interesting that their miscues were only in reading and not their writing, which is just more evidence that it is truly their dialect.