George Transcript

Young readers should be corrected whenever they make a mistake

Young readers usually make miscues; early readers make miscues such as whole word errors, letter confusion such as d and b, and blending errors. Miscues are mistakes that readers make; sometimes they use virtuous errors whilst attempting to read something.

When George is trying to read with his mother he pauses for 2 seconds after saying ‘with’, this shows that he may be struggling to read the word after, which is ‘sandbags’, a more complex word. His mum then uses the phonics strategy to help him out by saying ‘sound it out’. It is likely that George has been taught phonics in school so he may be able to do it after being told to use the strategy. George’s mum helping him supports Vygotsky’s Zone of Proximal development theory, scaffolding. George is at the zone of proximal development, he is unable to read the word himself but with help from his mother he is capable of doing it. After having help from his mother he was able to have a go at sounding it out and eventually says the correct compound ‘sandbags’. When sounding it out he was unable to make the ‘d’ sound so his mother did it for him. She may have been aware that George may find that sound more complex due to letter confusion, d looking very similar to b. Rather than asking him to try and do the sound himself, she uses the scaffolding technique. This may give him confidence, he is in the process of learning to sound the word out so if he was pushed harder to try and make the ‘d’ sound he may of given up. Georges mum then goes on to say ‘well done’ which supports Skinner’s theory, operant conditioning, giving him positive reinforcement in order for his speech to develop further. Skinner believes that if speech isn’t given a response, it won’t develop any further. Positive reinforcement is giving the child praise or a response, negative reinforcement is punishment or getting ignored. He believes that children are like empty blood vessels in which language has to be put in to. George says ‘people (2.0) were taking the s (.) sandbags’ he has a false start as he has only just learnt how to say the word, and then when saying sandbags he makes a virtuous error by missing out the ‘d’ sound which shows he is still struggling with the word even though his mother had just helped him.

Imitation is used in this transcript which also supports Skinner’s theory. Skinner believes that children imitate people in order to learn language. When his mother was helping him out with saying ‘sand’ and ‘bags’ George repeated her, this shows that he can’t do it on his own but if he gets help from his mother he is able to do it. This also supports Vygotsky’s theory, when given guidance; the child is able to complete it. George imitating his mum does not support Chomsky’s Language Acquisition theory. Chomsky believes that children do not learn language through imitation as language adults use are usually ungrammatical and broken up, he believes children will usually notice if a sentence used is ungrammatical.

Throughout the transcript there is a pattern of George missing out the endings and making whole word errors due to this. His mother had picked up on this as he said ‘never’ instead of ‘need’, she told him to watch his endings. When George first said ‘we never’ his mother uses negative reinforcement ‘nooo’ which causes for George to then self-correct himself and repair the virtuous error he had made. This supports Skinner as he believes in operant conditioning, behaviour is influenced by its consequences. George realises he had gone wrong after getting negative reinforcement which caused for him to try again. His mother said ‘nooo’ instead of ‘no’, she is protecting his positive face needs, not trying to bring his confidence down by using a firm ‘no’, she softens the word instead which gives him the chance to have another go.

The transcript of George reading a book with his mum supports Bruner’s interaction theory. Bruner believes that interaction between the child and care giver is key to language development. When speaking to children, caregivers use child directed speech, they adjust their speech to interact with the child. Georges mum uses phonology, she asks him interrogatives in order for adjacency pairs to take place. ‘What do you think is happening’ she gives him an open interrogative; this may enable him to broaden his imagination and develop his speech whilst having to decide for himself. George uses a strategy to look at the pictures to work out the story. George replies with 'look at that flood (.) you'll have to get loads there and one there(.) and one there and one there' this shows that he is interacting with his mum, replying to her interrogative with a declarative and he may be pointing at the pictures whilst explaining it to his mum. Bruner's theory is supported here as interaction with his mum is enabling him to answer a question and give an explanation to his mum showing he can work things out independently.