The term "miscue" is an unexpected response made while reading, either by the listener or the reader. These responses provide information about the reader's language and concept knowledge that they possess. Miscue is used instead of the word "error" to describe these responses because "error" has a negative connotation, and miscues can sometimes be acceptable in the semantics of the sentence. Miscue analysis is conducted through the reader orally reading a semi-familiar, yet sufficiently challenging, paragraph to a listener, marking the miscues. The listener carefully marks down the miscues, regressions, and other behaviors of the reader while reading. Listeners determine the "quality" of the miscues made, meaning that some miscues can be acceptable in the given sentence, and some are not. Miscues reveal a lot about the reader: like their knowledge of grammatical sentence structure--including nouns, verbs, and their relationship with each other in a sentence. Overall, the use of miscues in learning more about readers is important because we cannot always look at "mistakes" or "errors" in the oral reading as a negative thing, but as the presence of other knowledge.
"During this problem-solving process, readers either confirm as they read and keep reading or disconfirm when their reading does not make sense or sound like language. If their reading does not make sense, they self-correct selectively to support their construction of a meaningful text." (Goodman p. 1)
I liked this quote because it shows how readers selectively make their miscues in order to validate their own preconceived interpretations, not because the readers simple do not know any better.
