Despite an intense focus and considerable financial commitment to remediate nonproficient readers in high school, the large suburban school district that was the target of this study had been unable to consistently improve student achievement in the lowest 25% of students as measured by outcomes on the FCAT Reading. Scholarly literature on high school reading had focused mostly on evaluation of curriculum rather than on teacher practices. A clear understanding of these differences in practice will inform future decisions related to staffing, scheduling, and professional learning. This study sought to identify the underlying professional and instructional differences between the most effective and least effective teachers of tenth grade intensive reading courses through teacher and principal/assistant principal surveys along with teacher evaluation data. This study revealed with regards to a teacher’s preparation to teach reading (research question one), that years of experience in the classroom and years of experience as a high school reading teacher were the only significant factors that influenced a teacher’s effectiveness. For research questions two and three; which had to do with the beliefs and professional practices of the teacher, the educationally relevant belief that the more effective teachers were more confident about their abilities than their less effective peers was noted. Research question four provided the data with regards to the general classroom teaching strategies and the adolescent reading strategies the effective teachers employed. This data revealed that the more effective teachers implemented posting and communicating daily and long term learning goals more frequently than their less effective peers. In addition, the general classroom teaching practices of efficient use of iii learning time, establishing and maintaining classroom routines, and checking for understanding proved to be educationally relevant. Additionally, the adolescent reading strategies of sustained silent reading, paired/partner readings, and students reading oneon-one with teacher, were educationally relevant as well. Finally, in regards to research question five, it was of statistical significance that administrators valued the use of the general classroom teaching strategy of posting and communicating daily and long term learning goals and were able to recognize the use of this strategy when observing and evaluating the teachers.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:ucf.edu/oai:stars.library.ucf.edu:etd-3927 |
| Date | 01 January 2013 |
| Creators | Williams, Mary |
| Publisher | STARS |
| Source Sets | University of Central Florida |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | Electronic Theses and Dissertations |
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