A Comparison of Oral Reading Strategies of Fourth- and Seventh-Grade Children of Fourth-Grade Instructional Level.

The oral reading miscues of three groups of ten children were qualitatively analyzed to determine whether disabled readers approach the reading process as do young normal readers who read at the same level or as average readers of their own chronlogical age. The groups included ten seventh graders and ten fourth graders who read at a fourth grade instructional level and ten seventh graders who read at a seventh grade instructional level. The scoring procedure used was that of Hood (1976). Statistical analysis showed that disabled readers made more uncorrected miscues which resulted in meaning loss than did younger average readers. Disabled readers tended to make miscues on high frequency words whereas average readers did so on low frequency words. (Author/AA)