| Abstract: | The teacher response to the miscues of substitution, produced by two beginning readers (6 years old) during the course of a complete academic year within the naturalistic setting of an infant classroom, was explored. The teacher responses were categorised into five main types. The study demonstrated that the teacher response was determined, in part, by the nature of the miscue in terms of its graphophonic, syntactic and semantic link with the text word. The effectiveness of the teacher response was also explored. It was found that although ‘providing the word’ was the most effective strategy to employ for immediate results it was least effective for supporting the child during future readings. Non-response when used for meaningful substitutions did not impede the child's subsequent reading. Most effective was the restarting of the sentence for the child; this helped the child to repair the miscue immediately and had a continuing positive effect when the word was next met. |
