A nonoptimum reaction is anything the student does besides read the page easily, naturally and perfectly. Examples of some of the nonoptimum reactions that may show up are:
- Student adding a word or leaving out a word or changing a word in the sentence he is reading.
- Student stumbling on a word or saying it incorrectly.
- Student pausing or reading more slowly.
- Student frowning or looking uncertain.
- Student going stiff or tensing a body part, such as squinting his eyes or tightening the grip of his hands, or biting his lip or some other physical reaction.
- Student reading with effort.
- Student reading with a glib, robotic attitude (which is how he gets after he has been forced to read “correctly” by someone who doesn’t know anything about misunderstood words).
Other manifestations can occur.
Note that the above is not a complete list of reactions but is intended to give an idea of what to look for. In all fairness, one can stumble when reading if he is trying to read in a dim light or he is having eye trouble or the print or handwriting or penciled corrections in the text are very hard to make out. Thus, it is necessary to do Reading Aloud Word Clearing only in bright light, and if the fellow is supposed to be wearing glasses, he should be wearing glasses, and the material being read must not contain smudges and deletions itself. All possible reasons why he cannot see the text and unclear text must be removed. Otherwise, the student will simply say he couldn’t see it or the light was bad.
Anytime the person makes an error in his reading or reacts in some nonoptimum way, a misunderstood will ALWAYS be found before that point or sometimes at that point itself.
Example: The student is reading the page aloud. He reads, “Raymond walked home slowly and thoughtfully,” then he frowns. The other student, who is word clearing him, says, “That’s it. Is there some word or symbol there that you didn’t understand?” (If the student wonders why he was stopped, the Word Clearer tells him what reaction he noticed.)
The student looks over what he has read. He feels uncertain about the word “slowly.” He tells this to the Word Clearer and the word “slowly” is looked up in the dictionary and used in sentences until the student fully understands it.
When the word that was misunderstood is located and cleared, the student will brighten up and will begin reading clearly and correctly once again.
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