The Miscue-ESL Project was a lengthy, in-depth study of the ESL reading of four language groups. The project began in 1973 at the Reading Miscue Research Center, Wayne State University, under the direction of Kenneth S. Goodman; this chapter is a report of some of the early major findings. The Miscue-ESL Project was prompted by the results of an earlier study (Goodman and Burke 1973) in which the miscues of children from 2nd, 4th, 6th, 8th, and 10th grades were analyzed.

One of the major points of that report was that the reading process was the same for all subjects, regardless of race, age, or reading proficiency. That is, all the subjects clearly used three cuing systems – graphophonic, syntactic, semantic – and clearly followed the basic process of sampling from these systems, predicting and confirming. There was wide discrepancy among individuals as to how effectively and how efficiently this process was carried out, but the process itself did not differ from individual to individual. The result prompted the question, “Are there universals in the reading process?”

As a first step, the question was restricted to English, and rephrased as “Are there universals in the reading process when the reading is in English?” Four groups of subjects, children in 2nd, 4th, and 6th grades whose languages were not English, were selected. The groups spoke, respectively, Arabic, Navajo, Samoan, and Spanish as their first language. The Arabic speakers were recent immigrants, primarily from Lebanon, to an urban suburb of Detroit.