Error!

Seeing that message on a computer screen isn't exactly my favorite experience. It means that I have to stop all the wonderful things I planned to do and fix the problem. I would like to ignore the warning and just go on as if it had never happened. However, the computer, being the dictatorial machine that it is, won't allow users to proceed without paying attention to a situation that threatens its life.

Education is something like that, but not exactly. When a student makes errors, red marks appear on papers and low numbers on tests and report cards. However, unlike the computer user, a student can continue to make the same mistakes again and again until much educational damage is done.

Successful and unsuccessful students respond quite differently to marks on their papers. Struggling students typically glance at the assignment, correct the errors if they have to, and forcibly expel the memory of it from their minds forever. On the other hand, students who are progressing well look carefully at each error, find out what the right answer is, and ask themselves why they made that mistake. Finally, they think of a way to avoid that mistake again.

One of the first signs of progress for a remedial student is spontaneous self-correction without teacher intervention. For example, a beginning reader may miscall a word and read right on without detecting the error, even though the passage makes no sense. At first, someone else has to intervene and help the child detect and correct the mistake. Later on, the more mature reader self-detects the error. Then the child may either self-correct or ask for help.

I often hear parents or teachers say that errors are just careless. Or, they might say that the student doesn't study enough. Errors, however, have patterns and those patterns will persist until the student detects and corrects them. Some students, for example, fail to pay attention to meaning. These students read words or math problems with little insight into the significance of the words and symbols. They try to memorize facts or processes without understanding. These students need to visualize meaning and connect the new information with previous experience. They will improve when adults or other students discuss and demonstrate meaning in ways that help them make internal connections with the material. Reading aloud with plenty of discussion, Internet research, and dinner table conversations can get reluctant students started on the road to the comprehension of meaning.

Another common error is the failure to notice patterns. There are letter patterns in phonics and spelling, number patterns in math, structure and function patterns in science. Students who don't notice patterns are left with the tedious rote memorization of unrelated pieces of information. No wonder they hate school. These students need diagrams and graphic organizers plus people to show them the regularities in the information.

The most educationally dangerous mistake is to trash test papers without analyzing the errors. Unprocessed errors keep coming back like unstudied history that repeats itself. For better or for worse, children aren't computers. They can't be programmed to stop when they make a mistake. Being human, they have to learn.

Mary Sue Laing, M.Ed.
Resource Teacher, St. Ambrose School
newskill7@msn.com

by Mary Sue Laing, M. Ed., New Skill, Inc. Academic Tutor