Students from low-income homes and students who are learning English as an additional language both tend to struggle with reading comprehension. This study investigates whether the reasons for the reading challenges faced by low-income students and English Learners are due to the same aspects of reading. To investigate this, this study examined the number and types of miscues created by fourth grade students at a suburban school in Oklahoma and examined student explanations for the miscues that occurred during a retrospective miscue analysis. Miscues were tallied in total, by type and by the cueing systems used to create them. In addition, explanations for the miscues that students gave during the retrospective miscue analysis were classified into categories. Students were divided into groups based on language status as either English Only (EO) or English Learners (EL). Students were also divided based on whether they come from homes above or below the median income in Oklahoma. The results showed that the EO students from low-income homes produced a far greater number of miscues than any of the other groups. In addition, the EO low-income students and the EL students from both income groups relied more heavily on visual cues than did the high income EO students. Lastly, the retrospective miscue analysis suggests a distinction in the ways that the students viewed the miscues that they created. EO students from higher-income homes often indicated that the miscues that they created were improvements on the original text by improving the word choice or fluency. On the other hand, the other groups most often blamed their miscues on mistakes like blinking, blurry eyes, or reading too quickly. This suggests that there may be differences in reader identity and confidence based on income level
