Catching and Fixing Your Own Mistakes

Fluent readers notice when something doesn't make sense and fix it.

Even strong readers misread words sometimes. What makes them fluent is that they notice and fix the mistake, called self-correcting. The signal is meaning: if a sentence suddenly sounds wrong or makes no sense, stop and look again. Suppose you read, 'The horse ate a big pile of hat. ' That's silly, so you look back and see the word is 'hay'. You reread the sentence correctly and continue.

Notice that you don't need to stop for every tiny slip. If you read 'a' instead of 'the' and the meaning stays the same, you can keep going. Save your corrections for mistakes that change what the sentence means. Asking 'Does that make sense? Does that sound right? Does that look right? ' keeps you on track.

• 1Self-correcting means noticing and fixing your own mistakes.
• 2If it doesn't make sense, stop and look again.
• 3Fix mistakes that change meaning; small slips can pass.