Self-Corrections and the Reading Progress of Struggling Beginning Readers

While there is consensus that self-corrections (SCs) ought to be coded as part of oral reading assessments, less agreement exists as to what, if any, role self-correcting plays in reading development. The purpose of this study was to address limitations of prior research and provide a more statistically accurate estimate of the role of SC in early reading progress. A dataset that included running records (n = 3184) and baseline and posttest literacy achievement data for first-grade struggling readers (n = 140) was used. Baseline achievement, errors, and total words served as covariates. To investigate the potential moderating effects of errors and words, we interacted SC with errors and with total words. We then conducted hierarchical linear modeling to examine the role of SC in beginning reading. Our findings indicate that SC significantly and positively predicted early reading progress for struggling readers. Further, SC was found to have additional predictive power for students who were at the earliest period of literacy development. Results suggest that early reading instruction ought to pay careful attention to self-correcting behavior during oral reading and that oral reading assessments may be enhanced with specific instructions about what to do with SCs.