The oral reading miscues of 18 proficient readers, six each from grades 2, 4, and 6, were divided into those which did not change syntactic structure (nontransformation miscues) and those which did (retransformation miscues) and were analyzed through the use of the Goodman Taxonomy of Reading Miscues. The two groups of miscues were compared with the following categories: (1) correction attempts, (2) cueing from the peripheral visual field, (3) dialect, (4) graphic and phonemic relationships, (5) grammatical function, (6) level of syntactic involvement, (7) syntactic and semantic proximity, and (8) syntactic and semantic acceptability. Retransformation miscues were further categorized according to changes effected on the deep and surface-level structures. A total of 1,742 miscues were analyzed, of which 1,061 were retransformation miscues. Qualitative differences between retransformation and nontransformation miscues and qualitative differences within retransformation miscues were considered. Tables, appendixes, and a bibliography are included. (WB)