Why "Let It Go" Is the Wrong Response to Reading Errors
Think about how a GPS handles a wrong turn. It says "recalculating," gives you the next correct turn, and keeps you moving. The whole thing takes a couple of seconds. That's what strong feedback should feel like during instruction. The best error correction is immediate, brief, and ends with the student saying the right answer. The teacher models the correct response, the student repeats it, and the lesson continues. Research on corrective feedback has pointed to this pattern for decades.
It's also one of the reasons I recommend the routines in our book, Routines for Reading Results: A Practical Approach for Accelerating Growth (Stollar et al., 2027). Every routine has an included error correction routine, so the teacher has the words ready instead of inventing a correction on the spot.
Why the moment after an error matters
The moment after an error is when a student either practices the right response or keeps practicing the wrong one.
A student who reads slip as sip and keeps going has just practiced reading it wrong. If the error slides by, they'll probably do it again on the next page. In a 30-minute small group, those uncorrected errors add up fast, and they tend to come from the students who can least afford them.
The 3 reasons I hear for letting errors go uncorrected:
When I talk with teachers about correcting errors, I usually hear some version of these:
"Stopping a student mid-sentence will throw off comprehension."
"We want students to correct their own errors."
"Stopping students all the time will make them feel bad."
Each one of these concerns come from caring about kids. Here's how I think about them.
Comprehension. Students understand more of what they read when their errors are corrected (Pany & McCoy, 1988). A misread word changes the sentence the student is trying to make sense of, so fixing it helps.
Self-correction. It’s a great tool and goal, and it’s also a learned skill. Students don’t pick it up by leaving errors uncorrected. A student who reads right past an error probably didn’t notice it. It doesn’t happen through letting a student make errors without correction. Students will be able to self-correct when they are able to accurately read.
Feelings. A 5-second correction in a calm, neutral voice ends with the student reading correctly. That's a small win, and students experience success immediately.
So correction belongs in the lesson. The trickier part is what the correction looks like.
What makes an error correction work
Three features show up in the research.
Error correction happens immediately. In one comparison, errors were corrected either immediately or at the end of the practice session. Immediate correction produced better results on every measure the researchers used, including how well students remembered the words later (Barbetta et al., 1994).
The student says the correct answer. In my experience, this is the step teachers skip most often. In another study, some errors were corrected by the teacher modeling the word while the student looked at it. Other errors were corrected by the teacher modeling the word and then having the student say it. Every student in the study learned more words when they said the word themselves. They also remembered those words 2 weeks later and read them correctly in sentences (Barbetta et al., 1993).
It's short. A correction that turns into an explanation pulls attention off the task and takes time from the rest of the group. The student needs the correct response, a chance to say it, and a chance to show it stuck. It can be enticing to to expand the correction into a lesson but that’s not the point of the moment.
What a correction sounds like
An error correction routine has 4 parts.
Model. "This word is* slip.*" Or, when the student has already learned the skill, a quick prompt back to it: "Sound out the word.”
Lead. The teacher and student say it together if the student needs the support.
Test. The student says it alone: "Your turn. What word?"
Firm. Come back to the word later in the lesson to make sure the student can read it accurately on their own.
Model, lead, and test take about 5 seconds. That's the goal. These steps can be included in a walkthrough or teacher checklist, too, because you can hear it.
Next Steps to Consider
If you’re an administrator or instructional coach
Observe interventions and watch for errors. For each one observed, note which parts of a strong correction you saw:
Did they correct the error immediately?
Was the correction short?
Were students asked to say the correct answer?
Bonus points: Did they return to the skill later?
If you’re a teacher
Decide on an error correction procedure. Model, lead, test, and firm.
Practice routines.
Many curricula already include strong error correction routines. Direct Instruction curricula like Reading Mastery and Corrective Reading, published by McGraw Hill and supported by NIFDI, have great examples of error correction and where these routines were first used in education. You’ll also find them in programs like Phonics for Reading, REWARDS, The Third Quest, and others.
Make error correction consistent across your team
If you want every adult in your building correcting errors the same way, come learn more about routines with us. On December 10, all 4 authors of Routines for Reading Results will lead a full-day, in-person workshop at the NIU Naperville Conference Center, focused on K–2 word recognition and language comprehension.
Registration is $325 and includes a copy of the book, a participant guide, breakfast, lunch, and snacks. Bringing 5 or more? Use code TEAM15RRR for 15% off. Learn more and register here!
References
Barbetta, P. M., Heron, T. E., & Heward, W. L. (1993). Effects of active student response during error correction on the acquisition, maintenance, and generalization of sight words by students with developmental disabilities, Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 26(1), 111–119.
Barbetta, P. M., Heward, W. L., Bradley, D. M., & Miller, A. D. (1994). Effects of immediate and delayed error correction on the acquisition and maintenance of sight words by students with developmental disabilities, Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 27(1), 177–178.
Pany, D., & McCoy, K. M. (1988). Effects of corrective feedback on word accuracy and reading comprehension of readers with learning disabilities. Journal of Learning Disabilities, 21(9), 546–550.
Stollar, S., Powell-Smith, K. A., Madden, B. A., & Brown, S. (2027). Routines for reading results: A practical approach for accelerating growth. Solution Tree.
