By the way you react to their mistakes, you can play a very important role in learners' success. Unfortunately, when they feel dumb, they very often act dumb. As a result, improvement is slowed or blocked. A mistake should be treated as clue, not as a fault. It is a signpost that points to the learning that needs to be done.
Mistakes are negative only if they go uncorrected .
Would-be critical readers need to know how to find their mistakes, and how to deal with mistakes once found. Adults can help by encouraging readers to monitor their own understanding and to use the appropriate fix-up strategies when they run into trouble. It also helps to show faith in readers' ability to find and deal with mistakes, and give them praise as they do so. Adults in and out of school can remind readers to keep a mental eye as it were on how they are doing with understanding all the time as they are reading. They can also give a reminder that readers are not helpless, but have various strategies they can use to shore up understanding if necessary.