Beginning readers’ sensitivity to different linguistic levels : an error and correction analysis at the lexical, syntactic, and semantic levels

Abstract

As the first step in a longitudinal investigation ofSwedish beginning readers' reading behaviour, thisstudy investigated the role of different linguisticlevels in beginning readers' oral reading. The 30participating beginning readers were all able to reada short running text without help. Recordings of theiroral readings of unfamiliar texts were video-recorded,transcribed and analysed as to linguistic consequencesof reading errors, and tendency to correct errors withdifferent linguistic consequences. The results revealthat the readers are sensitive to all of thelinguistic levels analysed: the majority of readingerrors lead to acceptable linguistic consequences,regardless of what linguistic level is analysed;moreover linguistically unacceptable errors weresignificantly more frequently corrected thanlinguistically acceptable errors, independent of thelinguistic level affected by the error.