"Young readers should be corrected whenever they make a mistake"

The question as to whether children should be constantly corrected while reading is one which sparks up many different issues. By analysing a transcript of 7 year old George reading a section of Biff and Chip book, we can look at whether it is more effective to correct children during speech, or let them figure it out for themselves.

By looking at the transcript between George and his mother, it is evident that there are many examples of correction in order to improve George's speech. According to Skinner's operant conditioning theory, language needs to be learnt through positive and negative reinforcement. This way, a child will associate a reward (or no reward) with a response. By referring to the data given, George's mother provides positive reinforcement when he correctly says "they saw a lorry (2.0)" and "in (2.0) the street it was (.) loaded". She says "yeah that's right" and "that's it" in order to encourage George to carry on speaking the way he is. As well as this example of positive reinforcement, George's mum demonstrates negative reinforcement and corrects the verb “made” to become “may” in the middle of George’s utterance. This immediate response shows George that he used the incorrect morpheme because they had similar phonemes e.g. ‘may’ and ‘made’. The quick correction allows George to carry on so it doesn’t disrupt the flow of his utterance. Following the reinforcement, George uses the correct morpheme and says “may get worse”, just like it says in the book he is reading. By referring to Skinner’s theory, it is evident that using correction techniques such as positive/negative reinforcement, causes children’s miscues to be re-worded and improved.

Furthermore, Vygotsky’s theory of the Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD) supports the statement that young readers need to be corrected when they make a mistake. When George makes a mistake in his speech, his mother is there to model and scaffold the language he uses, in order to enhance his development. For example, the mitigated imperative “watch the endings” in response to George missing out the pluralisation of “house”. Not only this, George realises he needs to use the standard term “we need” instead of “we never” after his mother uses a mitigated correction of “nooo” to highlight his error. By softening the harshness of her response, it indicates to George that he needs to self-correct. With reference to Vygotsky’s theory, it is apparent that George’s mum has provided him with the scaffolding he needs to acquire language, and it is effective. Therefore, young readers should be corrected and supported whenever they make a mistake.

Despite the data being supported by certain theorists, the answer is not fully dependable on them. According to Piaget’s 4 Critical Stage Theory, George is beginning the Concrete Operational stage, being 7 years old. Piaget’s theory suggests that children actively explore and make sense of the world around them, mostly without guidance from their caregivers. At this stage, George would be expected to begin to think logically, but sometimes struggle with abstract concepts. For example, it can be said that he still struggles with concepts such as the “endings” of morphemes. He miscues more than once during the transcript by using “never” instead of “need”, and “made” instead of “may”. This suggests that George is at the very early stages of the Concrete Operational stage, but will progress as he gets older.

Overall, it can be said that children need to be corrected when they make mistakes in speech. If they didn’t, then they would never develop and acquire language the way adults do. However, when being corrected all the time, a child would be concentrating too much on saying it right, instead of actually following the narrative of a book like they should be. So, correcting through positive/negative reinforcement and scaffolding is useful as it provides a model for children, however, too much of it can affect their confidence and ability to speak fluently.