Young readers should be corrected whenever they make a mistake. Evaluate.
The transcript is of George, aged 7, who is reading a book to his mother and its clear to see that the use of Skinner's operant conditioning theory of positive reinforcement is frequently applied throughout. At the beginning of the transcript, after George pauses and seems to become slightly hesitant with the lexis "sandbags" his mother says "sound it out" and he continues to do so in which he successfully says "sandbags. His mother then rewards George with positive reinforcement by saying "well done". However, once again George seems to struggle with the lexis 'sandbags' as he says "sanbags" instead. His mother then uses the breaking down approach and separates the compound word into "sand" "bags" which allows George to echo her language and therefore use the standard form. After George uses the standard form of "sandbags" his mother rewards him after he has struggled by praising him and saying "good boy". The lexis "sandbags" is a compound word and a consonant cluster which is really unusual for George to see which may explain why he had such difficultly with it.
Throughout the transcript Georges mother provides him with a range of strategy's which is a form of scaffolding and a part of Vygotsky's zone of proximal development theory. The first strategy that she provides for him is the phonic approach which she applies and prompts him to "sound it out" after she notices that he is struggling with one of the words in the book. Another strategy that Georges mother suggests and uses is the breaking down approach. After George pronounces the lexis 'sandbags' as "sanbags" his mother begins to break the compound word down and models "sand" and "bags" as separate words and then George follows on by repeating and echoing what she has just said. By using the breaking down approach and the strategy of finding words within words will help George to read independently.
Another example of when George is corrected by his mother for a mistake made in his language is when after he says "we never" his mothers response is "nooo". This could be seen as a use of negative reinforcement as well as it also providing George with slight scaffolding. By his mothers response being "nooo" she is only highlighting the error that needs to be corrected and allows George to self correct his language himself to "no we need". Towards the end of the transcript Georges mother makes another correction to his language when he says "made" rather than "may". Although because her correction was immediate it preserves the flow of the speech and allows George to continue with the book but at the same time still making him aware of the meaning of the text.#
In conclusion, I strongly believe that young readers should be corrected whenever they make a mistake. This is because it allows them to have a understanding and identity the mistakes that they have made and will allow them to self correct their own mistakes in the future.
