Yetta Goodman, Prisca Martens, and Alan Flurkey
page
Revaluing Readers:
Learning from Zachary
R
etrospective Miscue Analysis (RMA) is
one of the most powerful instructional
strategies for helping readers. We share this
case study of our work with Zachary to demonstrate
the potential of RMA in bringing positive changes
for struggling readers.
It was January 1994. We had been working regularly with Zachary, age 9, since September in one-­on-­
one RMA sessions to help him discover his reading
strengths. Our last session began like our first—­using
questions from the Burke Reading Interview (Goodman, Watson, & Burke, 2005). [T indicates one of the
authors, interacting with Zachary (Z).]
T: What do you do when you come to
something you don’t know?
Z: Pronounce it out, put in a different word,
and keep going . . .
T: Are you a good reader?
Z:Yes.
T:Why?
Z: I read better, I read fun books, and I enjoy
books.
Four months earlier, Zachary only named
“sound it out” as a strategy he used when he came
to something he didn’t know. He said he was not a
good reader because he couldn’t “spell some words.”
But, as we came to learn, while Zachary was one of
those kids who wasn’t very talkative, he was always
observing and listening closely, even when he didn’t
seem like he was paying much attention. Now, in January, he spoke confidently and named multiple strategies for dealing with problems encountered in his
reading. And when he read, he demonstrated greater
proficiency and stated his understandings clearly.
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Our work with Zachary provided groundbreaking information about the ability of elementary-­aged
students to have conversations about their reading
and, as a result, to revalue themselves as readers. We
had been using RMA successfully with adolescent
and adult readers for about ten years (Y. Goodman
& Marek, 1996), but it wasn’t until our work with
Zachary that we learned younger readers also build
confidence when they understand their strengths
and strategies as readers. Teachers find such information useful to guide reading instruction.
Zachary’s transformation did not occur quickly.
It took place over 14 RMA sessions spanning five
months during which he read and retold successfully more than a dozen stories, listened to himself
rereading excerpts of those stories, and actively participated in conversations with us about his miscues
and reading strategies. The stories he read included
materials we have used with other readers for comparison purposes, materials we selected that would
be of specific interest to him, and some that he
selected. Through these sessions, Zachary came to
view reading as meaning making and himself as a
capable reader and learner—­a shift we call revaluing (K. Goodman, 2003). Whether in one-­on-­one,
small-­group, or whole-­class settings, RMA research
shows that raising reading to a conscious level is an
instructional strategy that develops self-­confidence
and builds insights about reading (Flurkey & Goodman, 2000; Goodman, Martens, & Flurkey, 2014;
Martens, 1998; Martens & Doyle, 2011; Moore &
Gilles, 2005). RMA demonstrates that:
• Miscues (see below) are an important part
of reading and provide evidence of readers’
background knowledge and meaning making.
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High-­quality miscues show the reader is
comprehending, while disruptive miscues
interfere with making sense (Goodman,
Watson, & Burke, 2005).
• In-­depth analyses of readers’ miscues during
RMA provide opportunities for teachers and
readers to transform their views of reading and
offer an environment in which readers learn to
revalue themselves as learners.
• Readers actively make sense as they transact
with texts.
• Comprehension is central to all reading. There
is no reading without comprehension.
• Readers use strategies (selecting, predicting,
confirming, and inferencing) to construct
meaning and address their disruptive miscues.
• Readers need multiple opportunities to read
for authentic purposes with authentic materials
across the curriculum. Such experiences are
the major focus of reading instruction.
A miscue is any response to a text a reader
makes that is not expected. Miscues can be substitutions of one word or phrase for another, omissions,
or insertions. Miscues are not mistakes, although
miscues are often referred to as errors. We reject
the mistakes/errors label and concept because all
readers—­even proficient ones—­make miscues.
All classrooms include readers like Zachary
who lack confidence and believe that sounding out
is the only worthwhile reading strategy. Our study
of Zachary and other readers provides insights into
ways to use RMA procedures to support reading
development and to help readers become interested
in how they read.
We Meet and Get to Know Zachary
We met Zachary (pseudonym), a fourth grader with
whom we collaborated in RMA at the request of
his school’s principal. She asked us to work with
him in response to concerns about his reading by
his teacher and his mother. Though quiet, Zachary
eagerly looked forward to our sessions, welcomed
our conversations, and was always cooperative.
Perceptions of Zachary as a Reader
Zachary’s mother did not consider him to be a capable reader. She told us that she didn’t have many
opportunities to work with Zachary because she
was busy with his siblings. However, when she did
work with him, he was unable to sound out words,
couldn’t read directions, and couldn’t spell or write,
making it difficult for him to complete his homework. Zachary’s teacher stated that while he was
doing well in math, Zachary had difficulties in reading. He also commented that like many of his classmates, Zachary struggled with phonics, accuracy,
and sounding out.
Zachary’s Perceptions
In our first meeting, we used the Burke Reading
Interview (BRI) (Goodman et al., 2005) to gain
insights into Zachary’s perceptions of reading and
himself as a reader. The BRI consists of 10 questions that reveal reading strategies readers believe
they use, strategies they think “good readers” use
when they experience difficulty, and instruction
they or a teacher would use to help readers having
difficulty. (See Appendix B at www.retrospectivemiscue.com/resource/.) The information we learned
from Zachary became the basis to plan our sessions.
His responses during our first interview indicated
that he held a reading-­is-­word-­recognition perspective of the reading process.
T: When you are reading and come to
something you don’t know, what do you do?
Z: Try to sound it out.
T: What is the “it” that you sound out?
What do you look at when you sound
something out?
Z: Look at the “i.” That’s the first letter. [He
was referring to sounding out the <i> in the
word “it.”] Then sound it out like a, e, i, o, u.
When we asked Zachary to name a good reader
he knew, he named a classmate because “Jason
practiced reading when he got home.” When we
asked what Jason did when he came to something
he didn’t know, Zachary said that Jason “sounded
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it out” or “asked his mom.” He then told us how he
would help someone having trouble reading.
Z: Show ’em how to sound it out.
T: How would you do that?
Z: I’d tell them the a b c d and sound ’em out.
T: Do you think you’re a good reader?
Z: (shakes his head no).
T: No, how come you’re not?
Z: Some words I don’t know how to spell.
While these responses revealed Zachary’s
focus on words, phonics, spelling, sounding out,
and negative perceptions of himself as a reader, his
comments about his personal reading at home provided a different perspective. Zachary said that he
liked reading and named Steven Kellogg’s Pinkerton books as being “fun to read”; he even shared
some of Pinkerton’s antics with us. He was familiar
with other children’s literature authors, kept favorite books in his bedroom, and regularly checked out
books from the library. Zachary thought oral reading was more difficult than silent reading. He knew
it was good to “understand it” even if he didn’t
know particular words. He thought reading to someone else and “practicing” would help him be a better
reader. He tried to read to his sister and brothers, but
they usually didn’t sit still long enough to listen.
It became evident that Zachary’s perception of
himself as a poor reader grew out of his belief that
error-­free reading was the standard by which good
reading was measured. In his reading-­is-­word-­
recognition and skills views of reading, he considered any mistake as disruptive. He did not appreciate his strengths, nor did he value his enjoyment of
reading. His hunches about the importance of making sense in reading didn’t fit with the instructional
view he was experiencing at home and school. His
negative views affected his self-­confidence.
Retrospective Miscue Analysis
The major purpose of RMA is to help students
revalue reading as a process of constructing meaning and revalue themselves as capable readers who
have knowledge about the world, their use of language, and about how text works (Goodman, 2003;
Goodman et al., 2014). For teachers, one of the values of RMA is its flexibility. RMA conversations
can be easily worked into guided-­reading lessons as
well as into whole-­class settings by using the same
procedures we outline here (Goodman & Goodman,
2011). In this article, we show how, during individual reading conferences, RMA engages readers in
critical conversations about what they do when they
read. (See the For Inquisitive Minds sidebar for references about using RMA in other settings.)
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Selecting Reading Materials for RMA
Several criteria guide selection of materials for
students to read. Well-­written short stories, appealing books with pictures, or nonfiction expository
texts are all good candidates for RMA. Consider
selecting a) texts that are interesting and somewhat
challenging without being frustrating; b) texts that
build on background knowledge, including familiar concepts and language; and c) texts that include
opportunities to use stratThe commercial leveling
egies that lead to thoughtful discussions. Feel free
of books often constrains
to use texts that challenge
reading development because
readers, because such texts
give readers opportunithe material can be artificial
ties to engage with new
and inauthentic.
ideas and concepts and
to explore new linguistic structures and genres. RMA sessions provide
opportunities to support readers in the reading of
complex materials and to explore the strategies they
use as they read authentic texts. Well-­selected texts
lead to discussions about critical issues that engage
readers in becoming more sophisticated in selecting
their own reading material.
The commercial leveling of books often constrains reading development because the material
can be artificial and inauthentic. Also, sometimes
the reader is fully capable of grasping the material even when the published reading level suggests otherwise. Therefore, teachers with a strong
background in children’s and adolescent literature
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should make their own decisions about materials
based on knowledge of readers and texts (Goodman, Goodman, & Martens, 2002; Kontovourki,
2012; Mooney, 2004; Pierce, 1999; Wilson, 2001).
RMA Procedures and Reading Sessions
Readers are always engaged in making sense to various degrees; examining their miscues makes their
strategy use highly visible. Analyzing readers’ miscue patterns and strategies gives us evidence to discuss their strengths, their problem solving, and their
own thinking.
The first RMA session includes getting to know
readers and their views using the Burke Reading
Inventory as we did with Zachary. Before the interview and first reading begin, we introduce the use
of the recording device. Letting readers choose
a pseudonym for later research purposes, say the
day’s date, and then play back what they’ve just
said helps put them at ease. After the preliminary
interview, we ask the reader to read aloud a text of
our choosing and then retell it immediately afterwards. We explain that we will not be interrupting or giving any help—­we just ask the reader to
do what they would normally do reading by themselves. After the reading, we ask the reader to tell
us about what they’ve read. We record each session
to re-­listen to the reading later in order to mark and
select miscues, transcribe the retelling, and listen to
excerpts of the recording with the reader in subsequent sessions. While miscue analysis is the starting
point for RMA, completing a full miscue analysis is
not necessary before initiating RMA sessions. That
said, we encourage teachers/researchers to learn
miscue analysis (Goodman et al., 2005).
At the beginning of the second session, we
continue to establish rapport with readers, discussing literacy experiences at home and school and
finding out more about their interests. We remind
them that the purpose of the session is to show them
For Inquisitive Minds
Miscue Analysis and RMA
The following resources provide additional information about miscue analysis and RMA:
• http://www.retrospectivemiscue.com/ is the website that supports The Essential RMA (Goodman, Martens, &
Flurkey, 2014), a practical short book that explains the essential steps in doing miscue analysis and RMA. The
website contains forms, audio and video examples, an extended reading list, and other resources related to
miscue analysis and RMA.
• Reading Miscue Inventory: From Evaluation to Instruction (Goodman, Watson, & Burke, 2005) provides deeper
background on miscue analysis, including its theoretical grounding, the different procedures that can be used,
and how to use what is learned from miscue analysis to inform instruction.
• Ken and Yetta Goodman’s website at http://www.thosegoodmans.net offers articles that provide additional
information on miscue analysis and retrospective miscue analysis as well as audio files of students reading.
• http://www.retrospectivemiscue.com/recommended-­readings/ is an additional website with helpful readings
related to miscue analysis and retrospective miscue analysis. These readings include the miscue analysis edition
of the journal Primary Voices and the article “Principles of Revaluing” by Ken Goodman in which he outlines
revaluing as the alternative to remediation.
• For information on using RMA in guided reading/small-­group or whole-­class sessions, see Section III of The
Essential RMA (Goodman, Martens & Flurkey, 2014). These additional resources will also be helpful: Goodman &
Goodman, 2011; Martens & Doyle, 2011; Moore & Gilles, 2005.
A video of the authors interacting with Zachary in RMA sessions can be found at http://www.retrospectivemiscue.com
/video-­recordings/
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what they’re already doing that allows them to
make sense of their reading and that making sense
is central. We discuss selected miscues from their
previous reading, emphasizing their strengths. Each
session ends with the reader reading and retelling
another story or article that we analyze in preparation for the following session.
For our initial RMA conversations, we select
miscues that highlight readers’ strengths and focus
on constructing meaning. Selecting high-­
quality
miscues allows us to raise to a conscious level the
readers’ successful strategies. We legitimize readers’ use of proficient reading strategies and give
them permission to keep developing them. Because
much of their instruction has focused on reading
accurately and “fluently,” appropriate reading strategies such as skipping linguistic units, substituting
high-­quality synonyms and proper names, selecting cues from the text, making educated guesses,
predicting, and self-­correcting when necessary are
actions readers often believe are not acceptable. As
a result, the successful strategies they use and the
ones we encourage them to use often feel incompatible with their existing views. Many readers report
that they think they are cheating when they use such
appropriate meaning-­making strategies.
We focus on what good readers do when they
read by demonstrating that all readers make miscues and explaining what those miscues reveal
about their search for meaning. We discuss the ways
in which their high-­quality miscues are actually evidence of their concern for comprehension. In this
way, we introduce a shared language to be able to
talk about the reading process.
In preparation for RMA, we examine the miscues and select high-­quality examples that we deem
suitable for discussion: substitutions, omissions, or
insertions that result in sentences that make sense
(or are self-­corrected if they don’t make sense),
and that are easy for readers to hear. Readers tend
to hear miscues on content words or phrases like
nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs, but have a
harder time hearing things like definite or indefinite
article substitutions (i.e., a for the; the for this). We
list the selected miscues on a form in the order we
want to discuss them based on the reading strategies
217
they highlight. (See sample forms in Appendix G1
& G2 at www.retrospectivemiscue.com/resource/.)
This form becomes the
We remind [students] that the
lesson plan we use to organize the session. We typipurpose of the session is to show
cally select more miscues
them what they’re already doing
than we plan to use, just in
case some miscues don’t
that allows them to make sense
yield much discussion.
of their reading and that making
The more experienced
we become with RMA,
sense is central.
the more our judgment
improves about which miscues yield rich and reflective discussions. For each miscue, we note the reason for discussing it, and we include the timer or
counter number on the recording device as well as
the line number in the text so we can find the appropriate place quickly.
Zachary Revalues Reading and
Himself as a Reader through RMA
The excerpts we share from Zachary’s RMA sessions are selected from 200 pages of analyzed
transcripts that demonstrate how Zachary revalued
himself as a reader. The first excerpt shows the language we used to introduce RMA and encourage
Zachary to think and talk about his reading. The
second excerpt demonstrates how we used Zachary’s repeated miscues across the text to show him
how he uses cues in the text to make sense.
Getting Started with RMA: Highlighting
Zachary’s Successful Reading Strategies
After getting to know Zachary in our first session,
we asked him to read and retell The Man Who Kept
House (McInnes, 1962), a story we have used successfully with other readers, in part because it
results in conversation-­provoking miscues. Decades
of experience as miscue researchers have taught us
that longitudinal use of the same texts with readers of various ages and reading proficiencies yields
a wealth of information about syntactic, lexico-­
grammatical, semantic, and pragmatic elements
of texts and how readers respond to linguistic elements. It forms the basis of a longitudinal data set
that has helped us learn about how texts work, and
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how texts teach (Meek, 1988). The Man Who Kept
House is a familiar folktale about a woodcutter who
changes places with his wife. The woodman stays
home to do chores and take care of the baby while
his wife goes out to cut wood. The woodman is not
very successful with housework.
For our second session, we selected high-­
quality miscues that demonstrated Zachary’s concern with constructing meaning. In these examples,
note that the first miscue
corrected
[Zachary] produced was not self-­
and that the second misappropriate linguistic
cue was a reasonable
structures that sound prediction that was self-­
corrected as Zachary
like language and make
gathered additional inforsense in the story. mation from his reading.
By organizing the RMA
session in this way, we are able to set the stage for
rich conversations that allow us to follow readers’
leads building on their comments, expanding their
ideas, and providing the language of reading to
facilitate discussions. In this way, readers assume
responsibility for their own reading and learning.
We told Zachary that together we were going
to listen to excerpts of his previous reading and
discuss what he does as a reader. The miscues we
selected were Zachary’s high-­quality substitutions
of spilled for splashed and basket for bucket. In
each case, the resulting sentences with the substitutions are syntactically and semantically acceptable.
In other words, he produced appropriate linguistic
structures that sound like language and make sense
in the story.
We played the recording, providing context by
beginning with the sentence prior to the target sentence that contained the miscue. The sentence prior
to the miscue of spilled for splashed read: It [The
pig] bumped into the churn knocking it over. Then,
The cream splashed all over the room. Zachary
read: The cream spilled all over the room. After listening to the recording, we asked, “Did you notice
something in your reading that was surprising or
that you didn’t expect?” Our plan was to help Zachary think about his miscues to reveal his grammatical and phonics knowledge and his strategies for
making sense. Zachary read the excerpt orally starting with the previous sentence and then listened to
the recording so he could identify his miscue.
Z: I see it . . . splashed.
T: You see it. And what did you say?
Z: Spilled. (Sounds dejected)
T: Let’s talk about that one. Does spilled
make sense in the story?
Z: Um hm (+ yes).
T: Does it mean a similar thing to splashed?
Z: Um hm (+).
T: Is there a difference to you between the
cream spilled or the cream splashed?
Z: Uh uh (-­negative)
T: Actually, I like the way that you read
it better. Sometimes readers make authors
sound better! Especially when they substitute
high-­quality miscues like that. Do you have to
self-­correct that one?
Z: Uh uh (-­)
T: Why not?
Z: It sounds . . . better.
T: Tell me something else. Does that sound
like a good sentence: The cream spilled all
over the room?
Z:Yeah.
T: And, do the two words look like each
other?
Z: Kind of.
T: They do look like each other. So, you were
using phonics, too . . . because the s-­p is the
same.
Z:The e-­d.
T: Yes, the e-­d . . . . You’re using your
phonics knowledge—­the sounds of the
language, how it looks, and what it sounds
like, and what it means.
Even in the first miscue we discussed in our first
session, Zachary understood what we were driving
at. He was not immediately convinced of our view
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of his strengths, but he was able to conceptualize
and discuss, even with short phrases, that reading
involves meaning making. Whether or not this provided evidence of his strengths remained an open
question for several sessions.
Our plan to discuss the substitution of basket
for bucket included talking about the difference
between carrying water in baskets versus carrying
water in buckets (some Native American groups
carried water in baskets made from tightly woven
grass), the roles of predication and self-­correction,
his use of grammatical knowledge, and the fact that
both words ended in -­ed.
The preceding sentence read: Perhaps keeping
house is harder work than I thought. It was followed
by He took a bucket and went to the well for some
water. Zachary read: He took a basket . . . bucket
and went to the well for some water. Before listening to the recording, Zachary said he remembered
this miscue from his previous reading. He often
reminded us of his miscues before hearing them,
which enriched our discussions and our appreciation of him as a reader.
Z:(reading) He took a basket . . . bucket and
went to the well for some water. I put basket.
T: How do you remember that?
Z: I remember this one (points to bucket) and
that one (points to spilled five lines above).
T: How do you remember that?
Z: I remember basket and then I remember
him trying to get some water.
T: In the basket. Did you have the basket. . . .
is that the picture you had in your head? Were
you reading ahead? How did you know about
the water?
Z: I saw bucket. When I saw bucket, I was
looking, I was looking at water.
T:And water is right underneath bucket on
the next line, isn’t it?
Z: Um hm. (+)
T: And so that’s what made you change your
mind?
Z: Um hm. (+)
T: We call that predicting. You’re looking
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ahead and you’re thinking ahead. And you’re
saying, “What’s the language going to be like
in this story?” Can you get water in a basket?
Have you ever seen anybody get water in a
basket?
Z:Yeah.
T: Ok. Now this one you self-­corrected
[pointing to bucket] and this one you didn’t
[pointing to splashed]. And it’s ok that you
self-­corrected because maybe you thought
bucket would go better with water. And this
one [spilled] didn’t make any difference at all
so you didn’t self-­correct it. And you did the
right thing in both places.
By acknowledging and supporting Zachary’s failure to correct a high-­quality miscue (spilled for
splashed), we emphasized the centrality of meaning
making in reading.
As the session ended, we summarized the evidence we discussed from the different miscues:
Zachary used phonics, language knowledge, and
showed concern for meaning making. Together, we
examined his predicting
Examining repeated miscues
and confirming strategies,
explored appropriate self-­
. . . helps readers consider how
corrections, and suggested
they pay attention to language
that he was using language
that sounded better than
and idea cues as they make
the author’s. And we used
sense.
language about reading
(i.e., making sense, miscues, substitutions, predicting, and self-­correcting)
so he would become comfortable using similar language in our discussions.
Learning that the Text Provides Clues to
Support Making Sense
Examining repeated miscues (those that occur on
the same word or phrase more than once across a
text) helps readers consider how they pay attention
to language and idea cues as they make sense. Zachary rarely miscued on the same word throughout one
text and never repeated an identical miscue when
he was reading another text. When he repeated the
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same miscue across a text, he eventually read the
expected response.
By exploring his repeated miscues, we helped
him think and talk about the reading strategies and
language cues he used as he encountered the same
word in different contexts. Zachary needed to know
that reading is more than saying words—­it is influenced by context, concepts, meaning, and grammar,
as well as how a word looks.
To make this point, we used the repeated substitution of hand for head during Zachary’s reading
of “Joe,” a chapter in Sideways Stories from Wayside School (Sacher, 1985). In “Joe,” head occurs
nine times. Zachary read the first occurrence of
head prior to the excerpt in Figure 1, Enough hair
to cover my head, without any miscue. The next two
times head appears is in a context where the teacher,
Mrs. Jewls, is hitting her head against the wall so
that Joe, her student, will count how many times
she does it. In both instances, Zachary substituted
hand for head. In the second occurrence, he read the
expected response head first, then after commenting, “That’s head” (indicating he knew the word),
abandoned his correct response and substituted
hand again. Our conversation continued:
T: What happened here?
Z: I was saying head instead . . . I was . . .
hand instead of head.
T: Why do you think you did that?
Z: Cause it . . . I don’t know. ‘Cause they’re
both kind of spelled the same way.
T: Think about a meaning-­level reason. You
talked about how the words looked, think
about the meaning. Would it be smarter to hit
your hand or hit your head against the wall?
Z:Hand.
T:Why?
Z: ‘Cause. It wouldn’t hurt your hand.
T: Listen again . . . you did something else . . .
I think you said head, and then you changed it
to hand, which is so interesting.
[Zachary listens]
Figure 1. Zachary’s responses to head in Joe (Sachar, 1985). Markings: Substitutions are written above the printed text; C
in a circle shows self-­correction; AC shows abandoned correct—­the expected response was read first and then the reader
miscued; UC shows an unsuccessful correction; $ indicates a non-­word.
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Z: I said head and then hand.
T: Right! You knew it was head. You read it
head. And then you decided, “Wait a minute
. . . Why would anybody hit their head? Must
be hand.” Sort of a silly thing, especially for
a teacher. Do you think that was a good thing
you worked out or a problem?
Z: A good thing.
T: Do you know why? What kind of
strategies were you using?
Z: Keep on going strategy?
T: You kept on going, but also, what were
you doing in your head?
Z: I wasn’t thinking about what I was saying.
T: But you were thinking about what you
were saying. Listen to the tape again. What
you said was, my head. You were thinking!
As Zachary listened to the same excerpt a third
time, we supported his use of reading strategies that
showed he knew words have different meanings in
different contexts and helped him realize that when
he focuses on meaning, he makes miscues because
of his thoughtful decisions about making sense.
After our discussion about head, Zachary read it as
expected every time without hesitation. He learned
that, while it was foreign to his background experience, this teacher did hit her head against the
wall. The difficulty was not with whether Zachary
“recognized” the word head, it was with Zachary’s
understandings about why a teacher would hit her
head in this particular context.
Words that look alike may or may not have
the same meaning in different contexts (Flurkey &
Goodman, 2004). As we examined his miscue on
head in “Joe,” we checked to see if he read head
correctly in his other readings. Head occurred
23 times, and he read them as expected in all the
other contexts. In such discussions, readers learn
that words are not the same in every context, and in
order to comprehend, a reader’s main focus should
be on making meaning. By discussing his strategies
with repeated miscues, we demonstrated for Zachary the different cues he used to comprehend and
how he used his grammar to expand on different
word meanings.
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Zachary’s Growth over Time
To document Zachary’s growth, we asked him to
read “Space Pet” by Arthur C. Clarke (1966) in our
last session. We chose it because he had read this
story four months earlier, and we knew he enjoyed
stories about space travel and liked talking about
animals. This challenging story also included some
unfamiliar concepts and wording, and we were curious to examine his problem-­solving strategies after
several RMA sessions. Comparing Zachary’s first
and second readings of “Space Pet” showed that he
used strategies more flexibly, was more comfortable
talking about his miscues, and showed greater confidence in himself. His retellings included greater
detail and deeper conceptual understandings.
Figures 2a and 2b show excerpts, several
months apart, of Zachary’s readings of lines 8 to 14
of the first page of “Space Pet.”
In his first reading (see Figure 2a), Zachary read
slowly, making multiple attempts and sounding out,
showing his focus on graphophonic information
(Claribel [lines 108 & 115], whistle [line 110]). He
first read whistle as expected in line 110, but abandoned it, focusing on phonic approximations. He
produced two unacceptable sentences with few self-­
corrections (starting on line 109: He heard a musical whis-­tull . . .; starting on line 112: I wanted for
the news to fall.). Zachary
Readers learn that words are not
read 41 (59%) of the story’s 70 sentences either
the same in every context, and in
correctly or with miscues
order to comprehend, a reader’s
that were fully acceptable,
both semantically and
main focus should be on making
syntactically; that is, he
meaning.
used appropriate linguistic structures that sounded
like language and made sense in the story. We calculated a holistic retelling score of 2 out of 5, with 1
indicating little information and 5 indicating a rich,
detailed understanding. A score of 2 suggests that
he included basic information (i.e., the setting was
a space station with a lot of men, the canary was
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Figure 2b. Excerpt of Zachary’s second reading (Jan.) of
“Space Pet.”
Figure 2a. Excerpt of Zachary’s first reading (Sept.) of
Space Pet (Clarke, 1966). Markings: Substitutions are
written above the printed text; C in a circle shows self-­
correction; AC shows abandoned correct—­the expected
response was read first and then the reader miscued; UC
shows an unsuccessful correction; $ indicates a non-­word.
dying because of lack of oxygen) but few details or
interpretations.
In his second reading of “Space Pet” four
months later (see Figure 2b), Zachary substituted a
name for Claribel in line 108 and continued reading. When he encountered Claribel in line 115, he
read it as expected. When his miscues did not make
sense (i.e., lines 110, 111, 115), he self-­corrected.
Zachary read 49 (70%) of the 70 sentences as fully
semantically and syntactically acceptable, including miscues, demonstrating a shift in patterns of
strategy use that could not be solely attributed to
the fact that he had read the story three months
previously. Zachary also had 50% fewer miscues
per hundred words, from 14.3 in his first reading to
7.4 in his second reading. And his holistic retelling
score was 3. He included more details, the sequence
and plot of the story, and proper names and roles for
the characters. Zachary’s limited background and
conceptual knowledge about space made it difficult
to retell complex aspects of the plot.
Along the way, we learned something else
about Zachary. An analysis of the recordings of our
sessions, field notes, and post-­
RMA debriefings
showed us that although Zachary was always willing and happy to voluntarily attend RMA sessions,
he was rarely effusive or expansive in his contributions to our discussions. We came to appreciate that
this didn’t mean he wasn’t absorbing the conversation. Even as we struggled to give him the lead in
conversations, he remained rather quiet. Excerpts
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from our notes following the second reading provide insights into Zachary’s growth, and we made a
point to discuss these with him:
It is easy to tell that Zachary is processing the text more
efficiently than at the beginning of the study. Zachary
remembered that he read the story previously and reminded us of some isolated incidents from his first reading. When we asked him after his reading how he read
this time, he responded “Really good! I hardly made
miscues.” When we asked, “What kind of miscues did
you make?” he responded, “Good miscues.” Then he
shared: “I can read faster. I don’t have to stay there and
keep on pronouncing it out. I got more out of the story.”
(Session 14 RMA field notes)
Zachary Revalues
Himself as a Reader
Revaluing is a process that takes time, especially for
readers like Zachary who lack confidence and need
evidence to be reassured that what they do shows
that their problem-­solving abilities are similar to
those of proficient readers. While Zachary talked
about his effective “making sense” and “keep
on going” reading strategies for months, he was
unwilling to accept, despite the evidence, that he
was a good reader. In our first RMA session, Zachary admitted that “it’s a good thing” when he makes
meaningful substitutions and self-­corrections, even
while using language that was different than the
text. But it wasn’t until four months later that he
stated that he was a good reader because “I can read
better.” As he read more and gained experience with
different texts, he developed more sophisticated language and concepts to discuss his strategies. He also
became more successful at integrating language
cues related to grammar, meaning, and graphophonics. In other words, he read more proficiently.
The Burke Reading Interview was conducted
three times (September, January, and April) to
document changes in Zachary’s perceptions. The
BRIs provided evidence that Zachary was revaluing
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Now A ct !
Giving RMA a Try
• Interview some of your students to learn their perceptions of reading using the Burke Reading Interview (see
Appendix B at www.retrospectivemiscue.com/resource/). Questions include: 1) When you’re reading and you
come to something you don’t know, what do you do? 2) Who is a good reader you know? What makes him/her
a good reader? 3) How would you help someone having difficulty reading? 4) What would you like to do better
as a reader? 5) Do you think you’re a good reader now? Why? Reflect on your students’ responses and consider
what you have learned about them.
• To think more deeply about the Reading Interview, read “Learning through Interviews¨ by Yetta Goodman at
http://www.retrospectivemiscue.com/recommended-­readings/.
• Record a student reading and retelling an entire story without any assistance. Listen to the recording and mark
the student’s miscues on a typescript. Re-­listen to or watch the recording. Highlight the reader’s inferences,
predictions, and self-­corrections. What new insights about reading did you learn from this experience?
• Select a few miscues that demonstrate the reader’s strengths. Play the recording for the reader and have him/her
talk with you about the miscues you selected. Help the reader understand the strengths of the miscues. What
insights did you and the reader gain from this experience?
• Make note of miscues you make when you read aloud to your students (or ask them to listen for them and let
you know). Use those as teaching opportunities by sharing what you observed and discussing the miscues with
your students. Ask the students what they think about your miscues, why they think you made the miscues, if
you corrected the miscues, and if correction was necessary for making sense.
• Even professional readers make miscues. Have your students write down the miscues they think they hear when
they listen to newscasters on television or radio. Here’s a classic example: https://www.youtu.be/EPaho6bDO9U
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himself and revaluing reading as a process through
which he actively made sense. Initially, Zachary viewed reading from a word recognition perspective, saying that the strategy he used and that
teachers used to help readers was sounding out or
spelling. While sound it out remained a strategy in
subsequent interviews, Zachary articulated a range
of reading strategies conEvery reading is a learning cerned with meaning
experience and contributes making. During our final
RMA session, he admitted
to continuous reading that he was a good reader
development. and claimed “I can enjoy
the books.” When asked
to name a good reader, Zachary responded “Me”
because “I can read fast better. I hardly make any
mistakes. I understand most of the story.” When we
met with him in April, three months after our final
RMA session, he shared that now when he reads, he
“keeps going to understand the point.”
Learners Make Sense
of Their World and Their
Reading through RMA
Zachary’s case study shows the possibilities and
power of RMA. Every reading is a learning experience and contributes to continuous reading development. Ferreiro and Teberosky (1982) make clear
that educators tend to confuse instruction with
learning. As a result of their research, they find it
unacceptable “that success in learning is attributed
to the method and not to the learner” (p. 12). They
state that “there are learning processes that do not
depend on methods. A method may help or hinder, facilitate or complicate but not create learning.
Obtaining knowledge is a result of the learner’s own
activity” (p. 15).
Zachary’s role in his own learning is evident: he
willingly took risks as a thinker and problem solver.
He collaborated with us to analyze his reading,
opened himself up to consider different perspectives
on reading, drew on his knowledge and experiences
as resources, and demonstrated his deep understandings and metalinguistic awareness through
his language about his reading. He revalued reading and himself as capable. Our role in the RMA
sessions was to create the setting, provide language
to talk about the reading process, encourage discussion, and facilitate learning by following his lead.
Through critical conversations, RMA experiences
raise reading to consciousness and demystify the
process. Readers become aware that they are learners who control their own reading, construct meaning, and, as a result, continue to grow as readers.
RMA has taught us not to generalize readers’
performances with one text and label them as good
or poor readers. All readers struggle with specific
written texts. Using RMA with a variety of written
materials over time helps readers acknowledge that
some texts are easier to read than others, and that
flexibility in reading stems from such understanding (Flurkey, 2008; Flurkey & Goodman, 2000).
Zachary did not read various texts with equal ease
or difficulty. When the reading was hard, he persevered and stuck with the task. His risk taking and
problem solving gave us a new appreciation for the
term struggling. It helped us understand the importance of supporting Zachary as he worked through
a text (Duckett, 2003). Even when he read slowly
and hesitantly, his retellings revealed insights into
characters, focus on important story elements, and
a sense of humor, indicating he understood what he
read. RMA supports reading development, but must
be part of a rich reading curriculum that involves
readers in authentic reading as the heart of a reading
program.
The power of a case like Zachary’s is that it
provides a concrete means of examining the reading process. Only by studying individual readers
do we understand how they make meaning. When
the findings of Zachary’s case are added to others,
our understandings grow. Dyson (2013) states, “By
comparing the studied case to others, the phenomenon itself is probed, its dynamic enactment is better
understood, the social factors that matter take shape,
and the larger sociopolitical processes the cases
entail sharpen. We as a profession learn” (p. 418).
We encourage teachers to learn through using RMA
with their students. They will deepen their understandings of the reading process, and students will
revalue reading and themselves as readers as they
expand their knowledge of literacy and the world.
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Yetta M. Goodman is Regents Professor Emerita at University of Arizona and can be reached at
[email protected]. Prisca Martens is a professor in the Department of Elementary Education at
Towson University and can be reached at [email protected]. Alan D. Flurkey is professor of literacy
studies at Hofstra University and can be reached at [email protected].
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