Miscue Analysis Made Easy: Building on Student Strengths

Understanding what students do when they read, and then helping them take the next step, can be easy for an informed teacher. For Sandra Wilde, the key is to focus on the strengths students bring to the process and build from there. With Miscue Analysis Made Easy, Wilde leads the way, offering a lucid, commonsense explanation of what exactly reading is and how it works.

Beginning with a series of lively, interactive exercises Miscue Analysis Made Easy leads us through the thinking processes and linguistic systems that readers use to build their understanding of text. Through a careful review of these systems, we then learn to assess what readers can do. An easy-to-use, step-by-step diagnostic procedure, including a thoughtful retelling guide, helps us to identify and then maximize the student’s specific strengths. Wilde also offers ideas on how to help students develop the self-monitoring strategies they need to keep track of their own meaning-making process as they read.

Sandra Wilde, Ph.D., is the author of numerous Heinemann professional books including Quantity & Quality and  Funner Grammar as well as the firsthand classroom resource Strategic Spelling. She is widely recognized for her expertise in developmental spelling and her advocacy of holistic approaches to spelling and phonics.

She is Professor of Curriculum and Teaching at Hunter College, City University of New York. She is best known for her work in invented spelling, phonics and miscue analysis. She specializes in showing teachers how kids' invented spellings and miscues can help us work with them in more sophisticated and learner-centered ways.

Looking at what kids do as they read and write is at the heart of Sandra's presentations and workshops. She can do lively keynote presentations that highlight the interesting things that we can learn by paying close attention to students' invented spellings and miscues, as well as workshops of varying lengths that focus on student-centered teaching of spelling and phonics. She has recently begun offering workshops that focus on understanding students' miscues as a guide to appropriate instruction, particularly for struggling readers. She lives in New York City.

Sandra is quoted in this Huffington Post article about trends in grammar instruction in the Common Core era.

John Staniunas is a professional director and actor and an Associate Professor at the University of Kansas where he teaches directing, acting, and musical theatre.