Journal of Learning Disabilities

Several national reports have suggested the usefulness of systematic, explicit, synthetic phonics instruction based on English word structure along with wide reading of quality literature for supporting development in early reading instruction. Other studies have indicated, however, that many in-service teachers are not knowledgeable in the basic concepts of the English language. They may be well versed in children’s literature but not know how to address the basic building blocks of language and reading. The authors hypothesized that one of the reasons for this situation is that many instructors responsible for training future elementary teachers are not familiar with the concepts of the linguistic features of English language. This hypothesis was tested by administering a survey of language concepts to 78 instructors. The results showed that even though teacher educators were familiar with syllabic knowledge, they performed poorly on concepts relating to morphemes and phonemes. In a second study, 40 instructors were interviewed about best practices in teaching components and subskills of reading. Eighty percent of instructors defined phonological awareness as letter-sound correspondence. They also did not mention synthetic phonics as a desirable method to use for beginning reading instruction, particularly for students at risk for reading difficulties. In conclusion, providing professional development experiences related to language concepts to instructors could provide them the necessary knowledge of language concepts related to early literacy instruction, which they could then integrate into their preservice reading courses.

This article reviews the literature and presents data from a study that examined the effects of professional development in scientifically based reading instruction on teacher knowledge and student reading outcomes. The experimental group consisted of four first- and second-grade teachers and their students (n = 33). Three control teachers and their students (n = 14), from a community of significantly higher socioeconomic demographics, were also followed. Experimental teachers participated in a 35-hour course on instruction of phonemic awareness, phonics, and fluency and were coached by professional mentors for a year. Although teacher knowledge in the experimental group was initially lower than that of the controls, their scores surpassed the controls on the posttest. First-grade experimental students’ growth exceeded the controls in letter name fluency, phonemic segmentation, nonsense word fluency, and oral reading. Second-grade experimental students exceeded controls in phonemic segmentation. Although the teacher sample was small, findings suggest that teachers can improve their knowledge concerning explicit reading instruction and that this new knowledge may contribute to student growth in reading.

As teacher quality becomes a central issue in discussions of children’s literacy, both researchers and policy makers alike express increasing concern with how teachers structure and allocate their lesson time for literacy-related activities as well as with what they know about reading development, processes, and pedagogy. The authors examined the beliefs, literacy knowledge, and proposed instructional practices of 121 first-grade teachers. Through teacher self-reports concerning the amount of instructional time they would prefer to devote to a variety of language arts activities, the authors investigated the structure of teachers’ implicit beliefs about reading instruction and explored relationships between those beliefs, expertise with general or special education students, years of experience, disciplinary knowledge, and self-reported distribution of an array of instructional practices. They found that teachers’ implicit beliefs were not significantly associated with their status as a regular or special education teacher, the number of years they had been teaching, or their disciplinary knowledge. However, it was observed that subgroups of teachers who highly valued particular approaches to reading instruction allocated their time to instructional activities associated with other approaches in vastly different ways. It is notable that the practices of teachers who privileged reading literature over other activities were not in keeping with current research and policy recommendations. Implications and considerations for further research are discussed.

This study examined the learning of teacher candidates taking a language arts course in a special-educator preparation program and that of the second graders they tutored in a supervised field component of the course. Teacher candidates’ knowledge of literacy instruction was assessed using five knowledge tasks; children were assessed on several measures of basic reading and spelling skills as well as on their knowledge of phonics concepts such as syllable types. Teacher candidates generally had inaccurate perceptions of their knowledge at pretest, but their knowledge improved significantly on all tasks after course instruction. Tutored children improved significantly from pre- to posttest on all assessments. The study suggests that carefully designed literacy coursework with field experiences can benefit both prospective special educators and struggling readers.

A primary hypothesized outcome of consultee-centered consultation, including instructional consultation (IC), is that consultees will become more skilled. However, these claims have not been well researched. Data from 274 teachers implementing IC were analyzed to investigate perceptions of satisfaction and skill development. Results indicated that teachers were highly satisfied, perceived outcomes to meet or exceed their expectations, and felt confident about handling similar problems in the future. The majority reported learning one or more skills or strategies from participating and indicated generalization of skills learned from IC to other students. Relationships between satisfaction, generalization, and perceived outcomes are also presented. Although based on descriptive methodology, this analysis of teachers’ perceptions of IC provides a window into their experiences.

Two reasons may be responsible for the poor grasp of the linguistic concepts related to literacy acquisition by preservice and in-service teachers: a lack of attention given to such concepts by teacher educators (college faculty members) and a lack of relevant information provided in the textbooks used in college courses. In an earlier study, the authors found that many teacher educators involved in the training of preservice and in-service teachers were not well acquainted with these concepts. In this study, the authors examined the extent to which textbooks used in reading education courses contain the information about the five components of literacy instruction (phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and text comprehension) recommended by the National Reading Panel. Such scrutiny shows that many textbooks do not adequately cover these five components and the related instructional procedures for teaching them. In addition to the paucity of information about teaching the five components, some textbooks present inaccurate information.

To determine the extent to which knowledge of evidence-based reading instruction and mathematics is assessed on licensure tests for prospective special education teachers, this study drew on information provided by Educational Testing Service (ETS), the American Board for Certification of Teacher Excellence, and National Evaluation Systems (now Evaluation Systems group of Pearson). It estimated the percentage of test items on phonemic awareness, phonics, and vocabulary knowledge and on mathematics content. It also analyzed descriptions of ETS’s tests of “principles of teaching and learning.” Findings imply that prospective special education teachers should be required to take both a dedicated test of evidence-based reading instructional knowledge, as in California, Massachusetts, and Virginia, and a test of mathematical knowledge, as in Massachusetts. States must design their own tests of teaching principles to assess knowledge of evidence-based educational theories.

Teacher knowledge and instructional expertise have been found in correlational and pre- and posttest studies to be related to student reading achievement. This article summarizes data presented in this special issue and additional research to address four questions: (a) What do expert reading teachers know? (b) Why do teachers need to acquire this knowledge? (c) Do teachers believe they have this knowledge? and (d) Are teachers being adequately prepared to teach reading? Well-designed studies relevant to this topic have been sparse with a noticeable lack of attention given to identifying specific causal links between teacher knowledge, teaching expertise, and student reading achievement. Until the appropriate research designs and methodologies are applied to address the question of causal effects, conclusions about the specific content that teachers must know and the instructional practices that are most beneficial in presenting this content are preliminary at best. Future studies of the effect of essential reading content knowledge must be extended beyond word-level skills to vocabulary, reading comprehension, and writing.