Miscue analysis of a fourth-grade reader's oral reading patterns

¶ … old in fourth grade. Her name is Cynthia. She is Caucasian-American. She is the daughter of a neighbor.

What kind of books do you like?

I like books that have dragons and magic. I love the Harry Potter books.

Would you say you like fantasy fiction?

I like things that are not real.

How many books do you read each month?

Maybe 2 or 3, more if it is for school.

Do you enjoy reading?

Sometimes if I get to choose the book. If I don't. No.

Why don't you like books that you don't get to choose?

Because they are sometimes hard to read and they sometimes have big words and I don't like the stuff in those books sometimes.

Can you give me an example?

Sure. There was this book about a girl from China and although it had a dragon in it, it was very sad in the beginning because the family was very poor. I liked the ending though, sort of.

Would you say you're a reader?

Maybe.

Who is your favorite author?

JK Rowling. She wrote Harry Potter.

Your favorite book is Harry Potter.

Yes and I also like The Wind in the Willows.

Why is that?

Because it had talking animals in it and it seemed magical.

That's a hard book to read for your age.

Not really. I like reading about adventures and friendship. That's why I like Harry Potter. It's because of his friendship with Hermione and Ron.

What kind of books do you dislike?

Anything that has no magic in it and makes me sad.

Can you give me an example?

"Number the Stars" it was about two girls, Nazis, and Jews. It even had the Star of David on the cover.

Do you like to listen to others read stories?

No. I get bored.

Do you think you're an above average reader?

I think so. I'm not great, but I can understand things good enough.

Miscue Analysis

The first step was to ask Cynthia to perform an oral reading from a passage of a book. The book was Blubber by Judy Blume. Things that were noted were any time she said something other than what was printed in the book. When a child deviates from the text, it may not be a simple, random error (Moore & Gilles, 2005, 56). They give clues to patterns and could help reveal useful information concerning her reading ability. One thing observed were the times Cynthia had to say an adjective before a noun. For example, "heavy jacket." She would ignore the heavy and say jacket. Anything describing a noun she would gloss over like "yellow feathers," Cynthia would say feathers.

This seems as though Cynthia is looking to get the overall picture of a scene in the story than get the small details. She was more focused when the passage concentrated on friendships and interactions. Simply put, she enjoyed the parts of dialog and never miscued then. An example of this is "You brought the eggs didn't you?' I asked Tracy" (Blume, 2014, p. 48). Since I had an additional copy of the book, I coded within the passage the times she missed a word. I also noted times when she would substitute, pause, and insert words.

Cynthia paused when there was a word she was not familiar with like "Miss Rothbelle." She would insert words when she was getting bored. For example "Linda didn't say anything"- and then insert "at all." She would substitute if it was a name. This did not happen often. "Donna for Dawn." "

Fluency

Another thing that was assessed was her fluency or fluent processing. Some people often have fluency problems when engaged in public speaking (Vazire & Wilson, 2012, p. 34). She was nervous since I did not know her well, and she did stutter at times, especially in the beginning. In the middle, she was more fluent and relaxed with less mistakes made, especially in terms of missing words. Towards the end, she started looking a bit agitated and tired. She would increase substitution here and would put down the book for a moment and speak again. She had some pauses and repetition.

Impressions

Overall, my impressions of Cynthia are that she is a good reader. She can skim text and remember what happens in the scene. However, if she is bored, she will not remember details like the names of people or colors of things, etc. If she likes the story, she can remember details. Her fluency is normal.