The first concern is that miscue analysis has very poor validity. Gersten, Keating, and Irvin (1995) assert the following:
Despite two decades of often fascinating research on miscues in reading (e.g., Goodman, 1973; Goodman, 1994; Leu, 1982), little in the way of valid instructional practice has emerged. The research of Stanovich (1993) explains why. Empirical studies have consistently shown that proficient readers invariably use phonological cues, not context cues. Thus prematurely labeling a beginning reader or a less proficient reader by her miscue pattern as a "context reader" is unlikely to be helpful. Once the student becomes a proficient reader, she will invariably lose her pattern of making errors. At least in this case, according to Stanovich, attempts to “enter the student's mind” through miscue analysis will not be productive. (p. 517)
The second concern is that scoring procedures for miscue analysis are largely subjective. Concerns about the scoring procedures used in miscue analysis have emerged from educators and researchers who use miscue analysis. For example, Dewitz and Dewitz (2003) cite Goodman and colleagues on the use of miscue analysis: “The scoring of comprehension responses is not a precise process and reflects many of the pitfalls that educators encountered when Reading Miscue Analysis was developed (Goodman & Burke, 1972; Hood, 1975-1976). Incorrect answers to comprehension questions do not always fall into discrete categories” (p. 429).
In a critique of miscue analysis, Hempenstall (2003) notes the following:
The RMI was designed to provide a "window on the reading process" (Goodman, 1973, p. 5); however, the analogy with a window is a misleading one as it implies a direct and transparent medium. The picture of reading obtained through the RMI involves an interpretation of what is viewed through this window. What is really displayed by a student is reading behavior (words, sentences)--the subsequent analysis of miscues involves making inferences about unobservable processes based upon assumptions about the reading process. With this instrument, the picture is colored by a discredited conception of reading.
The final concern is that the RMI is an unreliable measure of reading skills. In a review of oral reading error analyses, Leu (1982) found that such analyses created serious problems of unreliability. Leu found that the unreliability problems arose primarily from ambiguous definitions of the error categories. Hempenstall (2003) wrote, “Determining when meaning has been essentially preserved may produce different decisions from different teachers for the same miscue.”