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5 Preparing Reading Teachers
Pages 75-102

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From page 75...
... What casual observers may miss is the extent of knowledge and preparation a skillful teacher brings to a classroom that may include students with a range of impediments to learning to read. Successful reading teachers -- and we include both teachers of elementary students in the early stages of reading, and teachers of older students who are struggling with reading -- understand how students learn to read and how to provide the support they need.
From page 76...
... Yet there are now so many publications on teaching reading, from so many sources, that there is a certain amount of fog around the question of how much of the guidance is based on research. The National Reading Panel identified approximately 100,000 research studies published between 1966 and the late 1990s (National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, 2000)
From page 77...
... of the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (2000) , and the International Reading Association (2007)
From page 78...
... Research on reading has produced a portrait of successful readers at various stages of their development and has characterized the principal difficulties that impede progress in learning to read fluently. We summarize here the main findings from the three summary documents that relate to the question of what successful readers know.
From page 79...
... to form lettersound correspondences." The NRP found that "systematic phonics instruction produces significant benefits for children in kindergarten through 6th grade and for children having difficulty learning to read" (National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, 2000, p.
From page 80...
... are used by the faculties of teacher preparation programs and state departments of education in planning for the training of classroom reading teachers, paraprofessionals, reading specialists and coaches, reading teacher educators, and administrators. They are also used for evaluating both candidates and programs.
From page 81...
... The picture is somewhat different for adolescent readers and English-language learners. The still-developing literacy of adolescents has been less thoroughly studied than that of young children, though some recent work has expanded thinking on this topic (International Reading Association and the National Middle School Association 2002; Kamil et al., 2008)
From page 82...
... Specifically, the report finds that adequate reading instruction for young children provides them with opportunities to: • use reading to obtain meaning from print, • have frequent and intensive opportunities to read, • be exposed to frequent, regular spelling-sound relationships, • learn about the nature of the alphabetic writing system, and • understand the structure of spoken words. As noted above, the NRP report (National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, 2000)
From page 83...
... The report also identifies "guided repeated oral reading" as an important experience for all students -- those who are developing in the typical way and those who are struggling, even though methodologically strong evidence linking these experiences to fluency is not available. Both direct and indirect vocabulary instruction also appear to be valuable: the NRP found that students benefit from exposure to multiple methods of vocabulary instruction, though there is no firm basis for identifying specific methods or combinations as optimal or even essential.
From page 84...
... , and the National Reading Panel (National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, 2000) have put forward summary descriptions of what excellent reading teachers know and can do.
From page 85...
... The NRP's vision of what teachers need to know is grounded in their framing of what students need to know. Thus, they posit that teachers need to understand and know how to teach the foundational reading skills (National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, 2000)
From page 86...
... The IRA identifies an array of knowledge that is important for teachers to have. Based on professional judgment and on a review of the literature on reading and reading instruction, the IRA concluded that any preparation program for reading teachers should include six elements (International Reading Association, 2007)
From page 87...
... Experts believe that teachers draw on both a macrolevel understanding of instructional goals (such as assessing and diagnosing readers' strengths and weaknesses, adapting available strategies and materials to students' needs, creating a rich literary environment with numerous and varied opportunities to practice reading skills, etc.) , as well as a microlevel understanding of the foundational skills and challenges students face in mastering them, building vocabulary and comprehension (including, for example, a detailed picture of developmental stages and knowledge of how to effectively group diverse students)
From page 88...
... has examined class 5 The IRA collaborated with the National Middle School Association to produce a joint position statement summarizing the key elements of reading instruction for this age group, which draws on the association's own publications. The statement recommends that schools provide: ongoing reading instruction across the curriculum for all students; assessment that informs instruction; and ample opportunities to read and discuss reading with others (International Reading Association and National Middle School Association, 2002)
From page 89...
... . Thus, it is important that teachers of middle and high school students understand the importance of helping students continue to build on the foundational reading skills established in elementary school and know how to identify students who are still struggling.
From page 90...
... Preparation for All Teachers The National Literacy Panel for Language Minority Children and Youth prepared a report similar to that of the National Reading Panel, which summarized the evidence on the development of literacy among English-language learners using similar criteria in identifying high-quality empirical research (August and Shanahan, 2006)
From page 91...
... In terms of second-language development, Lucas and Grinberg (2008) cite a range of empirical and other work that indicates that the development of literacy is much smoother for English-language learners if they have already developed strong skills in their native language and that teachers should help students draw on their original language as a support in improving their English.
From page 92...
... The integration of second-language and reading development requires specific teacher preparation, particularly for those who teach English-language learners in content areas such as mathematics, science, and social studies (August et al., 2005a; Valdés et al., 2005; August and Calderón, 2006; Calderón, 2007; Short and Fitzsimmons, 2007; August, 2008)
From page 93...
... The NRP report noted that many questions -- regarding the content, length, and effectiveness of preservice education, and other issues -- deserve further research. In its synthesis of empirical and theoretical work on teacher preparation, the IRA's Teacher Education Task Force identified six characteristics as essential to programs that "produce teachers who teach reading well" (International Reading Association, 2007, p.
From page 94...
... also analyzed the research on the education of reading teachers. They identified 82 studies that focused on the preparation of teachers for K-12 classroom reading instruction that met their critieria.
From page 95...
... However, states' policies and requirements regarding readiness to teach reading provide some indications of the characteristics of reading preparation programs. In addition, we commissioned analyses of New York City and Florida about the preparation of reading teachers in those two jurisdictions.
From page 96...
... 7 and information from our commissioned analyses. The database tracks state policies related to various questions, including whether the state's standards for beginning teachers or requirements for preparation programs include any provisions related to the teaching of reading.
From page 97...
... Elementary teacher candidates complete instruction in reading/language arts, reading theory, and research and practice." North Carolina stipulates that teachers must know the North Carolina and district standards for reading. Examining the reading content of teacher certification exams provides yet another window into the kinds of reading instructional practices and knowledge beginning teachers are expected to have.
From page 98...
... . There are several case studies of "exemplary" or "excellent" literacy teacher preparation programs that discuss various aspects of literacy program components (e.g., International Reading Association, 2005)
From page 99...
... The data available regarding the types of instruction and experiences that participants receive in teacher education programs do not provide a sufficient basis for any conclusions about the extent to which teacher preparation programs in reading draw on converging scientific evidence regarding the teaching of reading or other relevant aspects of literacy education. Although our four-question framework had the effect of highlighting the relative dearth of empirical evidence about what teachers should know and how they should be prepared, we did find useful research.
From page 100...
... 00 PREPARING TEACHERS Box 5-1 Teaching and Learning Reading -- The Foundational Skills The Foundational Skills: Phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, comprehension Examples of Student opportunities to Learn Small-group instruction focused on, e.g., recognizing and manipulating phonemes Explicit instruction in, e.g., the systematic relationships between spoken sounds and letters Guided oral reading Independent reading Examples of Teacher Knowledge and Skills Understanding of the way the five foundational skills are integrated in fluent reading Understanding of developmental benchmarks Strategies for assessing and monitoring student progress Strategies for systematic phonics instruction, e.g., synthetic phonics (children learn to convert letters or letter combinations into sounds and how to blend them into words) Familiarity with literature appropriate to developmental levels Examples of Teacher opportunities to Learn Coursework in the theoretical basis for the foundational reading skills Guided practice in the university classroom Extended fieldwork Mentoring and peer feedback Practice applying student data to classroom challenges
From page 101...
... A variety of instructional approaches that address these foundational skills can be effective when used by teachers who have a grounding in the foundational elements and the theory on which they are based. The importance of those foundational skills supports conclusions about what is most important in the preparation of teachers of reading: Conclusion 5-2: It is plausible that preparation in the nature of the foundational reading skills and research-based instructional approaches would improve teachers' practice to a degree that would be evident in learning outcomes for their students.
From page 102...
... 02 PREPARING TEACHERS • nvestigations of the development of teachers' knowledge and skills i as they progress from novices to accomplished reading teachers; • xpansion of the array of tools for investigating the relationship e between features of teacher education and teachers' preparedness to teach; • fficacy studies and scale-up studies that use experimental or quasi e experimental methods and measures; and • nvestigations of outcomes for teachers exposed to particular i coursework and fieldwork. We discuss the need for research more fully in Chapter 9.


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