Listening to Children Read: The Empathetic ProcessAuthor(s): Frank GreenSource: The Reading Teacher, Vol. 39, No. 6 (Feb., 1986), pp. 536-543Published by: Wiley on behalf of the International Reading AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20199152 .

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Listening to children read: The empathetic process

From his experience working with students in classrooms in En

gland and the United States, Green decided that the process of

listening to children read needs to be planned and carried out in a special way.

Frank Green

Listening to children read should be an

important part of the primary school curriculum. The italics are because af

ter 2 years of active consideration of the subject of oral reading, I have

made this radical departure from my

previous convictions, which had been based on years of negative experi ences.

The inanity of the round robin proc ess had seeped into my psyche. As a

child in fear, a teacher in boredom, a

principal in frustration, and a teacher educator in despair, I've watched the

process of listening to children read in turn around the circle survive the most

vigorous of logical attacks. Then there were the problem read

ers: A fair number of 10 and 11 year old disabled readers that I've known have sensed, on some intuitive level,

the futility of remediation processes that sent them year after year in pursuit of letter perfect pronunciation of streams of lifeless, dull words.

At the other extreme, I've observed

precocious readers patiently glide through required oral renderings while

waiting to get on with the fluent, silent

reading that they could do much more

quickly and efficiently by considering dynamically flowing ideas rather than

single words.

Miscue analysis and oral reading In recent work with teachers, I've en

couraged more and earlier silent read

ing while reluctantly recognizing the oral processes as almost a necessary

evil in the lower grades. My personal research efforts, however, took a dif

ferent turn. I began to study and learn to use various forms of miscue analy sis in the college reading clinic as the staff sought better techniques for the

536 The Reading Teacher February 1986

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diagnosis of reading problems. Miscue analysis involves listening to

children read in order to gain insights into the thinking processes that enable them to make sense of print. Educators

writing about miscue analysis have tended to see oral reading as a positive process that could reflect on the child's use of an elaborate cueing system in

volving not just phonics but also mean

ing, word order, and prediction and

confirmation (Arnold, 1982; Weaver,

1980).

My reading led to a new consider ation of oral reading, and I began visit

ing schools and talking to teachers about their successful experiences. I

worked in classrooms listening to chil dren read in the United States and also in England where there tends to be

more expectation in the schools that

primary teachers will listen to individ ual children read orally as they work their way through the reading schemes

(basais) or other text material. I realized, ultimately, that in addi

tion to the usual oral reading practices that I spoke of earlier, something else

was possible. I became aware that the

process of listening to children read should not be discarded, but rather

planned and carried out in a special way.

The teachers who found oral reading productive listened to children in such a way that their responses to miscues and other obstacles were more than

random or intuitive. They weren't just observers of a process or judges of a

product; they were participants, and their comments to children seemed not

only empathetic, but discriminating, with different types of responses for different types of miscues.

This article presents a summary of

my practical experiences with oral

reading in a format that should give others some insights into why listening to children read empathetically is im

portant. It offers guidelines on how to

organize and use such a process.

Principles of the empathetic process (1) When involved with a child who is

reading aloud, the teacher who be haves more as a reader than a listener

sets the stage for any intervention into the process. As difficulties arise that

get in the way of fluency, the teacher can quickly respond as if s/he were ex

periencing the problem. When this process is working, the

children's attitude will subtly change; suddenly, they are sitting with a part ner rather than an evaluator. The

teacher's comments then appear to be

coming from a second self or a model. The tense atmosphere that often exists in a performer/observer situation dis solves into the facultative climate that is typical when two people strive to

wards the same goal?in this case, get

ting meaning from text.

(2) One principle that should govern a teacher's reactions as the reading

progresses involves the purpose:

Meaning comes first. If there is a

doubt about how to respond to a mis

cue, the teacher should react in a way that brings understanding as quickly and efficiently as possible.

(3) The empathetic process can only take place when the teacher gives total attention to an individual child. A number of concerns can logically arise from this principle: how to organize the class, the number of times a week each child is heard, discipline prob lems, the effect on the basal group,

etc. The answers to all such consider

ations rest in the relative nature of

teaching. Individual attention, no matter what

the purpose, always depends on the number of children in a class, the re

sponsible nature of the group, the

space and resources available, the number of problem readers, and other

changeable factors. Let me leave the issue involved with this principle by just restating the main premise of this article: The empathetic process can

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make oral reading a productive activ

ity. The more time available, the better the results!

How to practice the empathetic process If pure empathy were the only con

cern, then the process would simply involve identifying with the children's

experiences as they read. What we're

after, however, involves more than that. We want to identify with what

children experience as they encounter

problems in the text and, at the same

time, facilitate understanding and flu

ency. There is sometimes a fine line

between an empathetic, facultative re

sponse and the not uncommon prac

tices of filling in the difficult word

every time the child pauses for help or

correctly pronouncing each word that the child says incorrectly.

Here are four ways an empathetic teacher might respond to the oral read

ing discrepancies a child experiences, with examples from possible reading text materials to illustrate each

method.

(1) No response is necessary?let the

reading continue.

Children often will leave out or sub stitute words in a text that don't inter fere with the meaning. If the child is

flowing through the text with a clear

understanding, then stopping for the sake of pronunciation or preciseness is not appropriate.

For example, if the text says "It was a huge gray animal having its dinner"

(talking about the big elephant eating hay), and the child reads "It was a hun

gry gray animal" let it go. The nature

of the substitution clearly indicates that the child understands the theme. Like

wise, if the text states "The attractive fir tree was blooming in the sunshine" and the child leaves out attractive, un

less the assignment involves a search for details, the reading should continue

uninterrupted. Other examples of miscues that need

not be corrected involve the changing of words or sentences to simplify the

process of getting meaning. For exam

ple, the child might change the text

"You can't change the time" to read "You can never change the time." "She

went steadily on and realized that what

she had imagined would come true,"

might be changed to "She went steadily on. She realized that what she had

imagined would come true." Words that seem extraneous might

be removed when the text is read, as in

this example "She quite forgot what it was she was thinking about" that a stu

dent changed to "She forgot what she was thinking about." In all of these ex

amples the meaning stays intact so the

reading should not be interrupted. (2) A quick response is necessary.

Sometimes a child's miscue changes the meaning of the text. The teacher,

reading with the child quietly, will

catch this and after allowing just

enough time for the student to use the

context to self-correct, if she is going to, will quickly get the reading back on

the right track. For example, when the

text read "Even Harold was careful to sit" an 8 year old girl began the sen

tence "Every Harold." Every caused

confusion in understanding, as the

girl's frown showed. She repeated "Every Harold," and the teacher

quickly said "No, Sue, that's 'even'?

even Harold." The child nodded and

the reading continued.

A similar example involved the sen

tence "He had none of the wisdom of his father." The child read "He had done" but the teacher didn't correct

yet; there was still time for the child to use the context following the word to

notice the incongruity (with the words

prior, either done or none could be correct. In this case the child went

right on "of the wisdom," and at that

point the teacher said "Excuse me

Tom, back here that word is 'none.' "

The same technique could be used for long words that are difficult to pro

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nounce but for which the child proba bly knows the meaning. It is always possible to work on sounding tech

niques later, but while the text is being read, this type of confusion should be

quickly alleviated. "Mary was sad dened by the dog's death" forced a 10

year old girl to pause after was and stutter "sa-sa

? sa?." The teacher

simply said "That word is 'saddened,' "

Aeron," and the reading continued. Please note, however, that this type

of intervention is appropriate for the child who has only infrequent sound

ing problems and is obviously under

standing the flow of the text. The child who constantly seeks teacher reassur

ance by asking for sounding help is be

ing allowed to stray from the major purpose: You read text to get meaning.

When this type of insecurity becomes

evident, the teacher should use the fourth sequence pattern discussed here. The common technique of wait

ing for the troubled child to figure it out should be abandoned. Life's mira cles rarely include phonic insights for the reader with problems!

(3) A longer response is necessary. Children sometimes become so en

grossed in decoding that sound/symbol matching unconsciously becomes the

major task and meaning gets set aside. At other times the opposite occurs: Children will revert to an earlier time when they used words more appropri ate to their imaginations than to the

print. When this happens, the teacher

quickly reestablishes appropriate con tact with the text. For example, when "Gloria depended on her brother" was

read by a 7 year old as "Gloria debened on her brother," the teacher said some

thing like "Wait a second, Timmy. Glo ria did what?" "Debened" Timmy repeated with a question in his voice. "But that doesn't meaning anything, does it? The word is "depended." I think she really expected him to help her." This type of dialogue is providing

a model for Timmy that in the future will become internalized so that when ever his sounding abilities lead him

astray or he forgets to relate his ideas to the print, a little voice inside will

say "wait a minute" and he'll get back on course.

Another possibility is that children will become such good decoders that

although they will be able to pronounce all the words correctly, meaning occa

sionally will get lost through the au thor's use of difficult words or

metaphorical phrases. The student en

grossed in meaning might stop and say

"Hey, what does that word mean?" At another time, however, the teacher

might notice nothing more than a slight pause, a puzzled look, or a change in inflection. This is where the teacher should stop the reading at a logical place and check the understanding.

"He was a furtive young man" read the student. The teacher asked: "Do

you know what 'furtive' means, Ro bert?" and that set the stage for a short

vocabulary lesson. When the text said, "His father was spineless as everyone knew" and the teacher said "What does

'spineless' mean in that sentence?" the student's answer, "Doesn't have a back

bone, I guess," led to a short discussion that clarified the metaphor, established an important meaning for the rest of the text, and modeled for the child once again the internal dialogue that is

typical of active reading. (4) A special response is required "The little Dutch boy quickly stuck

his finger in the hole in the dick," read the 10 year old, substituting dick for

dyke. The teacher stopped the reading for a moment rather than simply sup

plying the correct word. Her sense was

that further reading should be pro ceeded by a background discussion, if the child had in fact started reading

without knowing anything about Hol land. Reading for meaning is not pos sible unless the child can relate in some significant way to the subject.

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The empathetic teacher is easily aware

of "robot reading" when it occurs and wouldn't think of proceeding without

adding substance and color to the print on the page.

At other times the teacher may see

the need for some specific followup at

the end of a passage: If the child has

omitted or had trouble pronouncing several basic sight words, such as and,

his, or were, a special review might be

helpful. The child who has trouble dis

tinguishing look-alike words such as

through, though, and thought may need to see those words written to

gether to practice with before reread

ing them in the text.

At times when punctuation is ig nored, the problem may be discussed and a particular section reread to prac tice appropriate pauses or inflections. I'm sure there are other situations that could be reviewed in this section; how

ever, the important thing is that when the teacher is reacting with empathy and constantly emphasizing meaning, s/he will come to know when a special response is required.

I should mention one rather special oral reading situation in this category. It involves "word by word" readers

?

the children who concentrate so hard on saying the word correctly that

meaning is the furthest thing from their minds. Reading for them is often a trial, with each word a problem solv

ing crisis. How can the teacher practice empa

thy or encourage meaning when the reader is so overwhelmed by the sym bols on the page? Many questions come to mind with this type of child: Is the text too advanced? Should s/he be

given special practice with sight words or read to by the teacher with a more

repetitive text? Are specific phonics lessons necessary? Should there be

testing or conferences with the par ents?

The possibilities are many, but no

matter what is done in addition to the

oral reading session, there is an appro

priate response for the empathetic teacher as the child tries to read out loud: The usually silent teacher be comes the oral reader and the child be comes the empathetic listener.

Much in the style of the Neurologi cal Impress remedial technique (Heck elman, 1978; pp. 28-32), the child is

encouraged to say aloud the words s/ he knows as the reading proceeds and the teacher enthusiastically models

what reading is all about. The end result is successful completion of a

story. The teacher and the child to

gether can then share the excitement of what happened to the children in the cave or the diver in a sunken ship, and the child leaves the session with a

more positive attitude.

Why listening empathetically as children read is important Every child develops reading skills ac

cording to a personal timetable. No one has exactly the same conceptual history or school experience or lan

guage models or learning rates. At any one moment in a child's developmental progress, his or her immediate needs will be different than every other

child's, depending not only on the fac tors mentioned above, but also on the

material being read and the motivation involved. When the teacher listens to a child read using an empathetic proc ess, s/he becomes immediately and di

rectly immersed in an intricate and

unique literary pattern and can there fore be continually aware of how the

complex process of learning to read is

coming together for the child at that moment.

Listening empathetically as children read can be at once diagnostic and in structive. Teaching takes place when it is needed most?at the exact time the

problem is encountered by the child in the appropriate context. No special testing required! No isolated drills needed! Just functional interaction fo

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cused on getting meaning from text.

Empathetic listening does not involve

lesson planning or behavioral objec tive formulation. The goal is always the same: To help children get mean

ing from text. Any planning would

only get in the way of the primary pur

pose of giving total attention to the child and the text in the present. This total attention allows the teacher to

function fully as a fellow reader, re

sponding appropriately as model, demonstrator, resource, motivator,

clarifier, or facilitator, depending on

the child's needs.

When is oral reading appropriate in the school curriculum?

Ideally, children come to school with a

background of rich experiences with

reading: Listening to parents at bed

time, experimenting with words and

phrases from their world of print inside and outside the home, and memorizing

significant words from their environ ment. The necessity of building that

background if it hasn't existed, and en

riching it if it has, is considered fully by such writers as Don Holdaway (1979). I mention the child's back

ground here because, if exciting and

joyful experience with literature doesn't exist before formal instruction, the empathetic process becomes more

difficult later on.

The first formal phases of instruc tion usually involve a child's awaken

ing to the mechanical aspects of

reading: sound/symbol relationships, sight word memorization, letter identi

fication, and other intricacies. This

phase of learning how to decode print usually takes most of a year.

Near the end of first grade or early grade two, children move into the next

phase, which involves using a broad

spectrum of text materials to practice their developing skills. This is a time of consolidating skills and ideas, as well as learning more complex decod

ing skills through extensive reading.

The empathetic process takes place best during this time, continuing until

oralcy no longer seems functional. In

fact, there comes a time when (except for sharing, performance, or proving a

point) reading out loud can actually in terfere with the progressing skills of si lent reading.

The ages of 7 to 10 are approxi mately those when oral reading is most

appropriate. Each child is so different in so many ways that a precise period is impossible to designate. If a teacher is truly practicing empathetic listen

ing, the appropriateness for any child will become obvious. Chall's work

(1983) is extremely helpful in consid

ering oral reading related to a com

plete developmental continuum.

Some final questions What about checking comprehen

sion? As indicated earlier, preplanning is

not necessary, not even for developing questions to ask at the end of the read

ing. If the teacher is reading with the child empathetically, there will usually be a clear sense of understanding be tween them, and questions won't be

necessary. When questions do come,

however, they evolve from the dy namics of the reading as the child or teacher explores unusual words, meta

phors, sentences, or different dimen sions of the story. "Do you suppose he

will really put the tack on her chair?" "I wonder what she'll do if she sits on it?" If the teacher becomes so involved

with the story that questions or com ments come almost without thought, then the empathetic process is cer

tainly working! How is such individual attention

possible for a teacher with 30 children and an impossible schedule?

Any teacher contemplating individu alization of any kind needs to plan carefully, taking into account the vari ables previously discussed. Planning should begin with the review of some

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of the excellent resource books availa ble in personalized education (Cha rles, 1980; Veatch, 1978).

Another possibility is to involve other adults in the oral reading pro gram. Several schools in the county of

Dorset, England, have programs to

train parents to work as volunteers.

These specially trained aides listen to

children read on a regular schedule. In

the U.S., where the use of aides and volunteers is more widespread, per

haps the addition of specific training programs is all that would be neces

sary to make an empathetic reading program possible.

Another thing to remember is that in most active classrooms, there are

many chances for the teacher to hear

children read functionally as projects are carried out or as groups explore

problems that arise as they share a

story. Consequently, the empathetic process, while regular, wouldn't have to be carried out as frequently as other

more crucial tasks. Some children

might be read with daily or twice a

week, and others only biweekly.

What recordkeeping is neces

sary? Since there is no preplanning or

goals, there is no need for complex re

cords of accomplishment. Just keep track of how many times each child has read with the teacher and which books

have been completed. Is the empathetic process appro

priate for the problem reader? An unfortunate syndrome often ap

pears when children aren't progressing as quickly as their classmates. It in

volves our needs as concerned educa

tors to find out why. We spend time

testing, discussing, planning, and in

volving the child in activities that are

about reading, but are not reading. In

contrast, empathetic reading allows

every child to feel all the power and ex

citement that comes from reading a

story and understanding the fullness of it. It also lets any teacher work with

any child with confidence, excitement, and a knowledge that reading can pro ceed easily without any mystical reme dial training. If the child isn't reading all the text, s/he is at least hearing it read and having the process of active involvement with text constantly mod

eled.

Conclusion The empathetic process is not yet sup ported by pillars of research. There is some doubt that traditional research

procedures could ever be applied to a

process so personally interwoven with the teachers and children using it.

Nevertheless, the successful use of one or more of the techniques described in this article by teachers in schools in both the United States and England is a

fact.

From the collected experiences of teachers and from work done directly

with children trying different oral

reading methods, the structure and substance of the empathetic approach to oral reading has taken form. I hope the form, as presented here, provides other teachers with a fresh perception of listening to children read that is worlds removed from the round robin recitation that has held our attention for so long.

A training booklet on the empathetic reading process, designed for new

teachers, aides, and volunteers, has

been developed and used at Lyndon State College. Teachers and adminis trators interested in pursuing empa thetic techniques can obtain a copy by sending a stamped, large self-ad

dressed envelope to Frank Green, De

partment of Education, Lyndon State

College, Lyndonville, Vermont

05851, USA.

Green teaches at Lyndon State Col

lege, Lyndonville, Vermont, where he is also director of the College Reading

Center.

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References Arnold, Helen. Listening to Children Read. Sevenoaks, En

gland: Hodder and Stoughton, 1982.

Chali, Jeanne S. Stages of Reading Development. New

York, N.Y.: McGraw-Hill, 1983. Charles, CM. Individualized Instruction, 2nd ed. St. Louis,

Mo.: C.V. Mosby, 1980. Heckelman, R.G. Solutions to Reading Problems. Novato,

Calif.: Academic Therapy Publications, 1978.

Holdaway, Don. The Foundations of Literacy. New York, N.Y: Ashton Scholastic, 1979.

Veatch, Jeannette. Reading in the Elementary School, 2nd ed. New York, N.Y: John Wiley and Sons, 1978.

Weaver, Constance. Psycholinguistics and Reading: From Process to Practice. Cambridge, Mass.: Winthrop, 1980.

Teachers, librarians?help students

become published authors

Landmark Editions, which has already published two books written and illus

trated by students, is now offering the same publishing opportunity to young

people. The National Written & Illustrated By...Awards for Students is under

way with an entry deadline of May 1,1986. All entries must be submitted by a

teacher or librarian.

Books may be entered in three age categories: A = 6 to 9 years, B = 10 to

13 years, and C = 14 to 19 years. The same student must be both writer and

illustrator of an entry. One winner will be selected from each category by a

panel of professional writers, illustrators, teachers, and school librarians. They will use originality and writing and illustrating skills as the selection criteria.

The winning books will be published according to the finest quality stand

ards. Their authors will receive a complete publishing contract (royalties are to

be placed in an individual trust fund) and an all-expense-paid trip to the Land

mark offices in Kansas City, where artists and editors will help them in the final

reproduction phases of their books. They will also tour professional art studios

and printing, typesetting, and bindery facilities.

Briefly, these are the guidelines for preparing entries: (a) text and illustrations

should be 16 to 24 pages, with text typed neatly, double spaced, using pica size type on 8V2

" x 11

" sheets (preferably good quality sketchpad or drawing

paper); (b) students may develop as many illustrations as they choose but there must be at least one illustration for each two page spread; (c) illustrations may be done in any medium as long as they are two-dimensional and flat to the

paper's surface; (d) books should be stapled or sewn to the centerfold so that

pages lie flat when open, and should have end sheets, a cover of stiff card

board or chipboard, and a loose jacket that wraps around the cover; (e) each

entry should include a self-addressed book mailer with sufficient postage to

ensure the book's return.

Landmark Editions encourages teachers and librarians to submit only the

very best books. For more detailed guidelines and official entry forms, write to

Landmark Editions, 1420 Kansas Avenue, Kansas City, Missouri 64127, USA. Include a stamped, self-addresed envelope for reply.

Listening to children read 543

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