Reading is a basic skill for survival and those who have reading difficulties in early
grades continue to struggle in school and later in life. Previous studies have shown that
instructional procedures that incorporate basic language constructs with literacy instruction
are helpful in improving reading skills. It has also been shown that many teachers and
reading professionals are not familiar with such concepts. The purpose of this research is to
explore reasons for classroom teachers' poor preparation to teach literacy skills and how
this situation might be improved.
First, a basic language constructs survey assessing self-perception, knowledge, and
ability (46 items, Cronbach's a = .903) and based on recommendations by the National
Reading Panel and reading research was administered to university instructors of EC-4
reading education (n=114). Forty-eight of these university instructors completed the survey
after at least two years of participation in a professional development program (Higher
Education Collaborative, HEC) geared towards the incorporation of scientifically-based
reading research (SBRR) and research-based reading instruction (RBRI) into teacher preparation. The other sixty-six university instructors completed the survey prior to their
participation in the professional development program (HEC).
Second, the same survey was administered to pre-service EC-4 teachers (n=173) at
the completion of their reading education coursework. Fifty-five of these pre-service
teachers had been taught by the "HEC university instructors." The other 118 pre-service
teachers had been taught by "non-HEC university instructors."
Results indicate non-HEC university instructors and their pre-service are not
familiar with basic language constructs and how to teach these concepts to primary level
children. However, while room for improvement exists, HEC university instructors and
their pre-service teachers did perform statistically significantly better on the survey than
their counterparts.
This study indicates pre-service teachers need better preparation in teaching the
basic language constructs of the English language and university instructors often lack the
knowledge to prepare teachers with such information. However, professional development
programs designed for university instructors might be one way to help improve the
situation.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:tamu.edu/oai:repository.tamu.edu:1969.1/85925 |
| Date | 10 October 2008 |
| Creators | Binks, Emily Suzanne |
| Contributors | Joshi, R. Malatesha |
| Publisher | Texas A&M University |
| Source Sets | Texas A and M University |
| Language | en_US |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Book, Thesis, Electronic Dissertation, text |
| Format | electronic, born digital |
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