This strategy is used by students to detect and correct errors in hand written work or on a printout of a written assignment that was done on a computer.

With the Error Monitoring Strategy program, teachers can help those students turn in the kinds of papers they can be proud of (and others will want to read). Students begin by learning how to correct four types of errors in documents that have errors in four categories: capitalization, overall appearance, punctuation, and spelling. Next, they learn a strategy for making drafts and correcting their own errors. When their final drafts are made, the products are squeaky clean! This instructor’s manual contains all the step-by-step instructions and student materials needed for teaching the strategy.

Instruction in the strategy stresses the importance of proofreading written work for errors and eliminating those errors before the work is submitted to the teacher. Students make a rough draft writing on every other line of the paper, follow the PENS steps of the Sentence Writing Strategy and check their work for organizational errors. Next, they check the rough draft sentence by sentence, asking themselves a series of questions regarding their use of capitalization, punctuation, the appearance of the work, and the correct spelling of work. Students then neatly recopy their work and reread the final copy as a final check.

Please note that professional development, coaching, and infrastructure support are essential components to effective implementation of SIM instructional tools and interventions. It is highly recommended that you work with a SIM professional developer.