Literacy educators hold different beliefs about the best approaches to teach students how to read and about the reading process including a skills view of reading and learning to read versus a transactional, sociopsycholinguistic view of reading and learning to read (Weaver, 2002). Reading for understanding is an important skill to develop in students to promote overall success (Keene, 2008). When orally reading, readers occasionally say something differently than what is printed—which is called a miscue. Goodman, Martens, and Flurkey (2014) defined a miscue as “any response during oral reading that differs from what a listener would expect to hear” (p. 5).
The purpose of this study was to teach a small group of fourth grade readers a process called Collaborative Retrospective Miscue Analysis, or CRMA (Costello, 1996), to help readers learn how to notice and analyze miscues during oral reading through small group collaborative discussions about their miscues and understanding during reading. In this CRMA study, the students’ teachers viewed video recorded student small group reading sessions to understand how students changed over the course of 14 weeks.
A reading survey called the BIMOR, or Burke Interview Modified for Older Readers (Goodman, Watson, & Burke, 2005) was used before and after the study and student and teacher CRMA sessions were video-recorded to study what students thought about themselves as readers and keep track of changing views about reading. In addition, students orally read two different texts to determine if there were any changes in readers’ miscues over time through the use of the Miscue Analysis In-Depth Procedure Coding Form (Goodman et al., 2005). This analysis allowed a deeper understanding of the readers’ usage of the three cueing systems during reading including the syntactic (grammar) system; the semantic (meaning) system; and the graphophonic (letters and sounds) system (Goodman & Marek, 1996).
As a result of the CRMA process, three themes emerged from the analysis of the data collected. Readers moved to a more meaning-based orientation to reading although the CRMA study students still employed the use of other less emphasized reading strategies such as sounding it out, using a dictionary, and asking for help. Students developed more self-efficacy as readers as they became more confident and aware of their reading process as they participated in the CRMA student sessions. Finally, teachers revalued readers through observing their students as readers with strengths, effectively using problem-solving strategies during reading, and by noticing, “what the reader’s smart brain does during the reading process” (Goodman, Martens, & Flurkey, 2014, p. 29).
Implications for both classroom instruction and teacher professional learning are explored as useful applications of Collaborative Retrospective Miscue Analysis in schools and classrooms to help readers move to a more meaning-based orientation to reading and to help readers become more self-efficacious and aware of their own reading process, as well as revaluing readers.