Miscue Analysis/Running Record

I conducted a miscue analysis with two English language learners using the Qualitative Reading Inventory.  Each student was asked to read two passages.

The first student was a third grade male whose first language is Spanish.  We’ll call this student Javier.  Javier read a level one passage first.  While reading this passage, Javier had 14 miscues, and he read 88 correct words per minute.  Of the 14, Javier self-corrected 7.  Of the 7 he did not correct, two were insertions, and the remaining 5 were graphically similar to the word in the passage.  For example, Javier would say “stars” instead of “stairs.”  After analyzing Javier’s miscues, it seems that he is able to decode the beginning and end parts of words, but often struggles with the middle sound.  In this case, the middle sounds that Javier changed were vowel sounds.  These kinds of errors are typical of Spanish speaking students who are learning a new language.  In Spanish, vowels make the same sound in almost every word.  In English, there are different combinations of vowels that make different sounds.  This can really trip up an English language learner.  Javier’s miscues were similar when he read the level two passage.  Although Javier made fewer errors while reading this passage, the nature of his errors were the same.

Javier would benefit from some additional phonics and decoding instruction to help him identify the differences between short and long vowel sounds and patterns.  This could be done using literature- the teacher could choose a specific vowel sound or pattern to focus on.  As the teacher reads, she could point out the words with that sound.  The teacher could also use word sorts to help Javier become familiar with vowel patterns.  Javier could sort words with long and short vowels, or two different vowel patterns that make the same sound (for example: oi and oy).

The second student was a fourth grade female whose first language is Anuyak, which is a tribal language spoken mostly in South Sudan.  We’ll call this student Edna.  I asked Edna to read a level two passage to me first.  She had four miscues, three of which were graphically and syntactically similar the written word, and one of which was an omission.  She self-corrected each miscue immediately.  Edna read this passage at a rate of 113 correct words per minute, which is several words faster than expected.  The second passage Edna read was a level three passage.  Again, she had four miscues, but this time she did not correct any of them.  One miscue was an omission, and the others were graphically different, but syntactically similar.  There was no real pattern in her miscues.  On one, she left off a suffix, on one, she got the vowel sound right, but mis-read the beginning and end sounds, on another, she changed the vowel sound.  One thing I did notice is that Edna would frequently pause and repeat words or phrases.  It seemed like she was trying to make sense of what she was reading.  This, however, did affect her fluency.  On this passage, she read 105 correct words per minute.  The expected rate for a level three passage is 127 correct words per minute.

Edna would benefit from continued exposure to fluent reading.  It would also be helpful to have Edna read aloud using passages at her instructional level (around a 3^rd or 4^th grade level).