Introduction
While listening to the reading of children, I was to contrast and to compare the quality of reading of two children who a good level of reading skills and a bad one. This kind of descriptive analysis is aimed at defining the major concepts of training and at a successful preparation of the lessons. In addition, a thorough examination of two readings will promote more approaches to eliminate the shortcomings of classrooms activities and to create some extra activities that will improve the reading skills (Justice 2004).
Main body
Considering the evaluation of common mistakes in reading, both children confuse the letters “b” and “d” since they look alike. Such confusion especially occurs when these graphemes are placed within one word that makes the children be puzzled even more. However, a good reader tries to pronounce these letters in the right way in further reading after my correction. Another common mistake is a subconscious omitting some words in the text. The misunderstanding of graphical images lies in the wrong association formed in the mind of a child.
It should be stressed that in the course of reading both readers were attempting to correct themselves. However, a child with enough level of reading was more successful in self-correction. That means that a child realizes that he/she made a mistake and tries to read in the proper way. Another child had the least intentions to pronounce the words correctly thus concentrating on the reading speed. Hence, the child was still ignorant of the meaning of the text and might even reverse the word structure by putting the final letter in the beginning of the word and vice versa.
During the oral reading, there were cases when a poor reader was replacing the unknown words by the known ones. The reason lies in the child’s misunderstanding of the text. Judging upon this concrete case, the child was not able to make a logical substitution. Unlike the poor reader, the pupil with the developed reading skills also chanced to replace the worlds but this replacement was consistent and stipulated the child’s adequate perception of the text. There was case when the reader inserts some new words in the text. However, the difference was that an advanced child does it meaningfully whereas a child that lags behind does it at random.
While reading both readers stop when they encounter the unknown words but for the good reader, less time is required to understand the word and to read in the correct way. Instead, a poor reader might even avoid it or read incorrectly. That was explained by the fact that the child is incapable to perceive a new combination of syllables.
While reading the passage both readers tried to single out the meaningful phrases by the intonation, making pauses and stresses on the necessary words. However, the child with good reading level successfully identifies the meaningful passages owing to his complete cognition of the text. In contrast, the second child failed to single out the stressed utterances thus ignoring the actual idea of the sentence and putting the stresses incorrectly.
In the course of reading, the good reader tried to read accurately and quickly, thus taking into account the meaning of the words grouped in phrases and sentences. The child linked the meaning of one sentence with the meaning of another focusing on the context of the whole text. Arising from this, the child was rather selective while reading since he focused on the moments that are important. During my observations, I concluded that a poor reader had great difficulties in handling long words with a great amount of syllables. The child was unable to associate the essence of one sentence with another. Such a difference in reading could be explained by the different level of background experience in reading.
The comparison of reading showed that there is a significant distinction between the good and poor reader in terms of realizing of the idea of the whole text. Thus, the child with poor reading skills was not sure whether he understands correctly the meaning of the world du to the lack of background. The opposite must be said about the advanced reader who was completely aware of the text idea.
Consequently, the child that caught the meaning did want the teacher to reveal the plot of the text since he was able to reproduce it independently. Regarding this, the good reader actively participated in the discussion. Unlike the first child, the latter one did not read in the organized way thus having no purpose in reading. Instead, they reveal their passive participation in the process of recognition and comprehension. Hence, the second reader was not inclined to re-read the text in order to get deeper into the plot of the passage.
Conclusion
In conclusion, the results of the reading comparison showed both readers have the different level of reading background. In addition, the analysis is of great importance for teachers to explore their knowledge of conducting the reading classes. The usage of miscue analysis will foster the teachers to assist the children that face difficulties in understanding the text.
Reference
Justice, W. P. (2004). Relevant Linguistics US: CSLI Publications.