How to Use Corrective Feedback

Remember the saying, "Practice makes perfect"? Well, that's only partly true. Practicing incorrectly and producing errors actually has the opposite effect. Practicing and receiving specific, intentional feedback, on the other hand, helps students to generalize the skills they've acquired in classroom lessons. This type of feedback is referred to as "corrective feedback," and it's a critical part of a structured literacy classroom.

Corrective feedback is an oral language experience, where the teacher capitalizes on student errors for a supportive and productive learning experience. Teachers use their knowledge of the content to anticipate errors, and by using immediate, explicit questions or comments, the teacher coaches the student to apply what they know to correct their mistake. 

Consider two scenarios:

Scenario 1: Ms. Martin's Classroom
Ms. Martin asks Kelly to read this sentence aloud:

Swans, snakes, and many fish live in a wetland habitat.

Kelly reads,

Swans, snakes, and many fish live in a wetland ha-tat.

Ms. Martin says,

Habitat. Wetland habitat. Good.

Scenario 2: Mr. Rodriguez's Classroom
Mr. Rodriguez asks Josh to read this sentence aloud:

Swans, snakes, and many fish live in a wetland habitat.

Josh reads,

Swans, snakes, and many fish live in a wetland ha-tat.

Mr. Rodriguez points to the word habitat and says,

Scoop that word into three syllables.

Both teachers gave feedback to correct the error. Let's try to put ourselves in Ms. Martin's shoes first. Ms. Martin may be thinking about how she's short on time or doesn't want to embarrass Kelly by singling her out to work through the decoding error. Hallmarks of corrective feedback, however, are that it's immediate and supportive. 

Mr. Rodriguez's approach demonstrates strong corrective feedback. His prompting grants Josh the opportunity to practice a learned skill (syllable segmentation) to self-correct his error in the moment. This supports Josh's ability to transfer a skill he learned in isolation to a connected reading experience in science class. Next time Josh comes to an unfamiliar word, he may be more likely to know what to do in that moment, fostering his independence and success with an important skill. 

When one of your students makes an error, consider moving through these two to four steps:

Step 1: Quickly respond to the error with supportive questions or prompts to guide your student’s ability to correct their error. 

Step 2: Give your student the chance to correct their error using what you shared. If they get it right, you're done!

Step 3: If your student doesn't respond accurately in step 3, model the skill.

Step 4: Give your student a second chance to correct their error using what you shared. If they get it right, you're done! If not, you may need to follow up with additional explicit instruction and more practice.

Here's how this could look:

A student incorrectly reads pat for bat. The teacher says,

Look at this word again. This word starts with 'b'. What sound does 'b' represent? 

The student responds, 

/b/

The teacher says, 

That's right! 'b' represents the /b/ sound. Now please read our word again.

The student reads,

bat

Here's a more advanced approach:

A student incorrectly reads pat for bat. The teacher says,

Look at this word again. Touch your throat and turn your voicebox on for that first sound.

The student self-corrects: 

/b/, bat

Note how, in the advanced example, the teacher anticipated that this student would have difficulty with voiced/unvoiced consonant pairs. Because /p/ and /b/ are produced identically except that /b/ is voiced and /p/ is unvoiced, the prompt "touch your throat and turn your voicebox on for that first sound" reminds the student to produce the voiced sound whenever they see the consonant 'b'.

When the student is not able to get the correct sound with either correction, here's what the teacher could do next:

The teacher says, 

The letter 'b' represents /b/, so this word is /b/, /ă/, /t/, bat.

Or the teacher might place a hand to their throat and say,

Listen to the difference: /p/, /b/. When I say /b/, I feel my throat vibrate. Try it. 

Self-correcting, the student might say, 

/b/, bat

The teacher reacts, 

Excellent, so here we have /b/, /ă/, /t/, bat. 

As you watch this classroom video, see if you can identify when instructional coach Dr. Carla Miller shares corrective feedback.

During the initial practice, did you notice the corrective feedback she issued for the letter 'b'? 

You may have observed how Dr. Miller immediately noticed the error (some students responded "/d/"), and coached them with a prompt to draw attention to the visual cues ("It's a straight back, big belly."). She then gave them the chance to respond correctly with "/b/."

She also shared corrective feedback during the word blending component of the lesson. 

After one student read the word nip, Dr. Miller asked another child, "What word did she read?" The student looked down at the word and said, nap. The teacher noticed that the student read the middle sound incorrectly and immediately issued this supportive prompt: "Let's tap it together: /n/, /ĭ/, /p/." And the student then blended it correctly to produce the word nip.

Now imagine that the teacher simply said, "No, that's not it," and turned to a different student to provide the correct response. This robs the student of the opportunity to carry out what they’ve learned and recognize that they CAN do it! 

Corrective feedback that's focused on improvement can be a powerful learning tool.

John Hattie's Visible Learning (opens in new window) (2018) is a meta-analysis synthesizing over 800 studies on factors influencing student achievement. It found that feedback has a high average effect size of about 0.70, well above the typical benchmark of 0.40, indicating it can significantly accelerate learning. This shows that feedback is one of the most powerful instructional strategies, especially when it is specific, actionable, and focused on helping students understand how to improve rather than simply telling them whether they are right or wrong.

In 2022, Fyfe, Borriello, and Merrick (opens in new window) reviewed 44 empirical studies to examine how corrective feedback affects children's learning (ages ~3-11) in literacy, math, and problem-solving. This comprehensive review found that feedback improves learning when integrated into practice, especially when it is clear, specific, and timely.

Educators who use corrective feedback are having a real impact on student achievement. Strive to implement corrective feedback naturally and consistently in all practice opportunities, and you should notice a difference in your students' confidence and proficiency.