On page 61 Bean tells us that at least half of students errors result from inattentive editing and proofreading. This was one of my main frustrations coming into 4th grade Language Arts. I would tell the student to go back and read what he had written but he would not do it, but said he had!
While looking at the script with him I would have him read aloud what was written. Then the student would say, "Oh, I missed that!" "and that" "and that"!
I think that Haswells (1983) system of "minimal marking" is a great idea in helping them to learn to proofread and edit their work. This would make them more responsible for their final work also.
When I want student writing edited, I have them exchange papers and have their paper read back to them by someone else. It's amazing how they suddenly can recognize their errors when someone reads them out loud.
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