Spelling-Related Teacher Knowledge: The Impact of Professional Development on Identifying Appropriate Instructional Activities

Informed instruction that adjusts content, materials, or intensity to student needs is critical for students with learning disabilities. Informed literacy instruction requires teachers to have thorough knowledge of literacy-related content, which includes phonemes, syllables, and morphemes. The current study investigated whether teachers who possess this knowledge are better able to identify student needs and appropriate instructional spelling activities than teachers who do not possess this knowledge. In Study 1, 36 preservice teachers and 38 inservice teachers completed measures to evaluate their literacy-related content knowledge and ability to identify appropriate spelling activities. Overall, the inservice teachers demonstrated greater knowledge and were better able to identify appropriate instructional activities than the preservice teachers. In Study 2, the knowledge of 196 inservice teachers completing varying numbers of hours of professional development was analyzed to determine the effects of professional development on literacy-related content knowledge and ability to identify appropriate activities. Generally, greater teacher knowledge and identification of appropiate activities were related to the number of hours of professional development completed.