How well prepared are pre-service teachers to teach early reading? A systematic review of the literature

Abstract

This review examined studies that had addressed opinions of pre-service teachers (PSTs) concerning their preparedness for teaching early reading skills to all students, the extent of their content knowledge, and their attitudes towards code-based and/or meaning-based approaches to early reading. From the limited amount of research available, it would appear that although most PSTs were confident in their ability to teach early reading skills, they had reservations regarding their ability to teach children who struggle to learn to read. In addition, even though the majority of primary and early childhood PSTs favoured a code-based approach to teaching early reading, many lack both the necessary knowledge, and the confidence, to implement such an approach. A more comprehensive investigation across teacher training institutions is needed to confirm these findings.     

Who is to retrain the teacher trainers?: A Papua New Guinea case study

The single most important factor to improve the quality of education in a developing country appears to be increased general and professional education of teachers. Initially, it seems that this may be appropriately addressed in the teachers' colleges. However, the teacher educators themselves, often have received their own education either from the universities of developed countries or from “expert” expatriates at home. Often the result has been an adapted western curriculum being offered in the teachers' colleges, which is inappropriate to the student teachers. As a means of obtaining increased insight into a developing country's context, this study sought to gain some understanding of how Papua New Guinea teacher educators and inservice teachers negotiate their western higher education at the University of Papua New Guinea. This may provide assistance to expatriate educators to provide an educational experience that addresses student learning needs with appropriate process and content.     

Why I want to teach and how I feel about teaching—formation of teacher identity from pre-service to the beginning teacher phase

The aim of this study is to investigate the formation of student teachers’ teacher identity from pre-service to the end of the initial year in teaching. We explored why student teachers in Singapore have chosen to enter teaching and tracked changes in their attitudes and beliefs towards teaching at three time points: entry and exit of the initial teacher preparation programme and after 1 year of teaching. The findings showed that, in agreement with previous research, those who are attracted to the teaching profession were mainly motivated by altruistic or intrinsic factors. They also entered the initial training programme with a positive perception of the profession. However, at the point of exit, perceptions towards teaching showed a significant dip. After the first year of teaching, attitudes remained the same as they were at the point of exit. These factors influence the emerging sense of teaching identity.     

The social studies methods course: what do teacher candidates know and want to know about teaching social studies?

During the past decade, there has been more than an adequate amount of research addressing issues regarding social studies methods courses. However, the apparent void is that there is no clear understanding of what pedagogical content knowledge or understanding of pedagogical approaches teacher candidates bring with them to social studies methods courses or what they expect from their time in social studies methods courses. The purpose of this study is to determine the mentality of the typical social studies methods course student, as he or she enters a social studies methods course. Employing analytic induction (Bogdan & Biklen, 2007 Bogdan, R. C. and Biklen, S. K. 2007. Qualitative research for education: An introduction to theory and methods , (5th ed.), Needham Heights, MA: Allyn & Bacon.  [Google Scholar]; Erikson, 1986 Erikson, F. 1986. “Qualitative methods in research on teaching”. In Handbook of research on teaching , (3rd ed.,, Edited by: Wittrock, M. C. 119–161. New York, NY: Macmillan.  [Google Scholar]; Patton, 2002 Patton, M. Q. 2002. Qualitative research & evaluation methods , (3rd ed.), Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.  [Google Scholar]) and content analysis (Patton, 2002 Patton, M. Q. 2002. Qualitative research & evaluation methods , (3rd ed.), Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.  [Google Scholar]) to analyze and interpret the data, 9 categories for what the students know and 8 for what the students wanted to know were constructed.     

A discursive psychology approach to the study of pre-service teachers’ written reflections about teacher effectiveness

This article reports findings from a discourse analysis, informed by a discursive psychology (DP) perspective, of pre-service teachers’ beliefs about teacher effectiveness as constructed in reflective papers. DP treats beliefs as discursive productions that are occasioned by an interactional task and are made visible through discursive features. Our analysis highlights the discursive features employed by pre-service teachers as they wrote about teacher effectiveness in relation to their field observations. We conclude that in their texts, the pre-service teachers went about constructing identities of knowledgeable and legitimate speakers on teacher effectiveness, particularly as they gradually gained firsthand experience via classroom observations.     

Why are teacher recommendations at the transition from primary to secondary education socially biased? A mixed-methods research

The consequences of educational differentiation have been at the centre of research in sociology of education during the past decades. Processes of educational allocation have, however, received much less attention. Despite the fact that research has shown that teacher recommendations in France and Germany are partly determined by pupils’ social background, studies that inquire into the causes of this social bias seem to be virtually inexistent. This study aims to examine whether teacher recommendations at the transition from primary to secondary education in Flanders (northern, Dutch-speaking part of Belgium) are also socially biased, and if so what causes these differentials in advice, using a mixed-methods design. We found the advice given by primary school teachers to be partly determined by pupils’ social background. Analysis of the qualitative data suggests that teachers tend to evaluate pupils from low socio-economic status backgrounds less positively, due to their emphasis on specific pupil characteristics.     

Why aren't teachers being prepared to teach for diversity,equity, and global interconnectedness? A study of lived experiences in the making of multicultural and global educators

Despite increasing demands for teachers to teach for equity, diversity and global interconnectedness, colleges of education are not producing teachers with such knowledge and skills. In this study the author identified teacher educators, who are recognized by their peers for their success in preparing teachers in both multicultural and global education and asked them to reflect upon the experiences that have most influenced their work in these fields. The 80 teacher educators in the study told of encounters with people different from themselves, experiences with discrimination, injustice or outsider status, and their felt contradictions in dealing with multiple realities. There are significant qualitative differences between those experiences identified by people of color and those who are white. Most of the people of color acquired an experiential understanding of discrimination and outsider status by the nature of growing up in a society characterized by white privilege and racism. However, many of the middle-class white teacher educators had their most profound experiences while living outside of their own country. Given the demographics of professors of education, the findings have implications for the ability of the nation's universities to prepare teachers in multicultural and global education.     

Can young students think systemically about the environment? The case of pollution

This paper reports on the thoughts 6-year-olds and 9-year-olds have related to the serious issue of air and sea pollution. More specifically, twenty seven 6-year-olds and thirty 9-year-olds attending two state schools in Volos, a small provincial town in Greece participated in the research which assessed the students’ competence to think systemically about dealing with pollution. The study sheds light on whether students are able to identify interrelations between the components of pollution, and clarifies the mental models they hold. Data was collected through drawings and interviews, subsequent analysis of which indicates that students appeared to hold two mental models related to pollution; pollution is connected both spatially and temporally with visible pollutants; and, pollution is connected indirectly with invisible pollutants. The students seemed to exhibit a kind of systemic thinking, which was done unconsciously to a certain degree. Thus it is a challenge for education to enhance students’ systemic thinking in an attempt to bring it to a more conscious level, which will assist them to reconstruct their mental models of pollution.     

What are the underlying skills of silent reading acquisition? A developmental study from kindergarten to the 2nd grade

Research on reading acquisition and on the processes underlying it usually examined reading orally, while silent reading, which is the more common mode of reading, has been rather neglected. As accumulated data suggests that these two modes of reading only partially overlap, our understanding of the natural mode of reading may still be limited. The present study was set out to explore the underlying skills of reading acquisition examined using silent measures of reading. To this end, children acquiring reading of the phonologically transparent vowelized Hebrew orthography were followed from kindergarten to the 2nd grade. The relations between a range of verbal and visual-spatial skills with measures of silent reading were tested. Phonological awareness, RAN and vocabulary explained a significant amount of variance in fluency in word recognition and in fluency in decoding of pseudo-homophones, while visual speed of processing of numeric symbols explained a notable amount of variance in fluency in word recognition only. Phonological awareness, morphological awareness and phonological working memory were the main skills explaining the variance in reading comprehension. The relations of these skills with the quality of oral reading have been widely established in the reading literature. Furthermore, a similar developmental picture was obtained in the relations between some of these skills and silent reading, as was found with oral reading. Therefore the role of these skills in reading may not be restricted to a certain mode of reading. Also consistent with findings on oral reading, the role of the visual non-orthographic skills in the measures of silent reading was insignificant to very small. Together these results imply that the processes underlying measures of silent reading are not substantially different from the ones underlying measures of oral reading, at least not at the early stages of reading acquisition of a transparent orthography.     

Do intentions and perceptions always meet? A case study regarding the use of a teacher appraisal scheme in an English language teaching environment

This article reports research examining a group of English language teachers’ perceptions of the teacher appraisal scheme with a developmental purpose. Specifically, the researchers tried to find out if there is a discrepancy between what the institution intended to achieve and how teachers perceived the scheme before and after their participation in it. The findings of the study, which were obtained by analysing the data collected from the teachers and appraisers in the form of two structured interviews revealed some significant clues for the institutions which are involved in or interested in running teacher appraisal schemes in their workplace.     

Just one of the boys? A life history case study of a male physical education teacher

Studies of physical education teacher training have already established that hegemonic forms of masculinity are reinforced and reproduced both in the hidden curriculum (Flintoff, 1997 Flintoff A (1997) Gender relations in physical education initial teacher education in: G. Clarke & B. Humberstone (Eds) Researching women and sport Basingstoke Macmillan  [Google Scholar]) and the informal student culture (Skelton, 1993 Skelton, A. (1993). On becoming a male physical education teacher: the informal culture of students and the construction of hegemonic masculinity. Gender and Education, 5(3): 289–303. [Taylor & Francis Online] [Google Scholar]). Given this, an important feminist concern is whether male PE teachers whose own masculine identities are anchored in their athletic prowess simply ‘teach’ their young male charges to construct hegemonic forms of masculinity through PE and school sport and/or whether they necessarily marginalize and inferiorize female students. This paper provides a life history case study of a male PE teacher’s role both in reproducing and challenging gendered norms in his capacity as coach of a schoolboy and schoolgirl Australian Rules football team.     

Are separate schools divisive? A case study from Northern Ireland

In Northern Ireland, where the majority of children are educated at schools attended mainly by coreligionists, the debate concerning the role of schools in perpetuating intergroup hostilities has recently been reignited. Against questions regarding the efficacy of community relations policy in education, the research reported in this paper employs qualitative methods to examine social identity and intergroup attitudes amongst children attending a state controlled Protestant school and the school's response to dealing with issues of diversity and difference. Findings suggest a relationship between ethnic isolation experienced by children and negative intergroup social attitudes and the discussion focuses on issues germane to the separateness of the school that are likely to contribute to strong ‘own’ group bias, stereotyping and prejudice. The implication of the school's separate status for its engagement with a policy framework for relationship building is also considered. The paper concludes with some policy reflections that are likely to have resonance beyond Northern Ireland.     

Is teacher attrition a poor estimate of the value of teacher education? A Swedish case

Far from all who complete teacher education end up working as teachers throughout their entire career. At first sight the value of teacher education, in terms of efficiency, seems to be a failure. In the present article we argue that teacher attrition, when defined as whether one is working as teacher or not, is a too blunt measure to gauge whether teacher education has been valuable. With a unique dataset, where we have detailed information on 87 Swedish teacher graduates’ working life across 23 years, we can consider whether activities and/or experiences point to an apparent use of teacher education. In conclusion, we find that in order to get informative estimates of its value it is important to consider it from different perspectives and to consider attrition related to the total working time spent in educational settings across a career rather than percentage leaving teaching after a set of years     

Assessing the Practicum in teacher education – Do we want candidates and mentors to agree?

One of the most important components of teacher education is the practical part, the Practicum, and assessment of the candidates’ performance plays a major part in forming the future generation of teachers. Little is known about the extent of agreement between the two main actors in the Practicum, the candidates and the school-based teacher educators. The aim of this paper is to add information about a rather blurred area of assessment in teacher education. The findings indicate there is a considerably extent of disagreement about assessment in the Practicum between the mentors and the candidates. It is suggested that instead of seeing the disagreements merely as obstacles to valid assessment, they can be exploited to initiate professional learning for the candidates.     

SMART moves? A case study of one teacher’s pedagogical change through use of the interactive whiteboard

This case study investigates how the use of an interactive whiteboard (IWB) leads to pedagogical change within a UK secondary school classroom. A teacher’s experiences as recorded in a reflective journal, and the responses of students as recorded in a questionnaire, are set within the context of rhetoric about the value of IWBs. It is argued that this action research approach is particularly valuable because of the insights a teacher has on the complexities of the classroom environment. Assumptions about the way in which IWBs should (and do) change the dynamics of interactivity within the classroom are considered by questioning the definition of terms such as ‘interactive’ and ‘pace’. The case study concludes that if a teacher understands and utilises appropriate strategies to meet given learning objectives, pedagogical change will emerge, with teachers empowered by the IWB to consider how learning takes place, and match activities to learners’ needs. However, IWB use will be within the context of the philosophy of the teacher and how much he or she wants to pursue new ideas in order to support learning.     

Power to innovate? A study of how primary practitioners are negotiating the modernisation agenda

Although standards and accountability continue to be at the centre of education policy in England, there has been a shift in emphasis encouraging practitioners to take ownership of and deliver a broader curriculum. This article explores specific projects in one primary school that highlight the way in which staff are embracing, extending and appropriating policy within their own setting. While standards and accountability are still firmly controlled by government policy-makers, the case study demonstrates that practitioners can use their agency to make innovative input into the curriculum and its delivery at grass-roots level.     

Are they ready to teach? Student teachers’ readiness for the job with reference to teacher competence frameworks

This is the first report in a series of studies concerning student teachers’ readiness-for-the-job, defined by a framework of 11 international teacher competences (ITCs). Attaining readiness-for-the-job is connected to four characteristics of teacher education, namely; (1) employing the ITCs in day-to-day teaching in initial teacher education, (2) integrating the ITCs in the curricula of teaching programmes, (3) exercising the ITCs through practicum at schools and (4) by teacher educators modelling the ITCs. In the present study, a student sample from four teacher education colleges (n = 226) was surveyed to explore the extent to which students felt ready-for-the-job. The study outlines the degree to which the characteristics of teacher education are associated with student teachers’ readiness-for-the-job. The results identify the critical areas to be developed in these prospective teachers before they can actually become ready-for-the-job, and especially the central role of their teacher educators in shaping their professional competence.     

Representations of teaching and standards-based reform: are we closing the debate about teacher education?

Since the mid-eighties, national organizations have been working together in an effort to reform schools and, more specifically, to reform teaching. Paralleling the movement toward developing curriculum standards for students, professional standards for teachers have also been developed for the purpose of teacher education program accreditation. The objective of this national coalition is to strengthen the teaching profession and raise its standards—eventually enhancing the quality of student learning—by redesigning teacher licensing and accountability requirements for teacher education programs, and engaging teachers in on-going professional development. In this study we address three specific questions: (1) what representations of teaching and teachers are portrayed in the professional teaching standards, their related policies and assessment? (2) how are standards-based reform policies affecting teacher education programs? (3) what representations or conceptions of teaching and teachers are currently reflected in teacher education programs in the context of this reform? To address these questions two states were selected as test cases. Reform documents, policies and practices, as well as interviews with key participants in the reform (e.g., teacher educators, state-level administrators) are described and analyzed, and constitute the evidential basis for this study. The patterns emerging from the data indicate that teacher educators’ degrees of resistance or cooperation with externally imposed frameworks is influenced by their conception of teaching, education and its purpose. Further, as teacher educators uncritically participate in the standards-based movement it becomes impossible for them to entertain alternative perspectives on teaching and education outside of the framework provided to them by the standards.     

Children’s transitions to school: ‘so what about the parents’? or ‘so,what about the parents’?

Children progress through a number of life transitions and each is a pivotal point of development and growth for them, their parents and family members. Through a review of the literature, the Bioecological Model will be used to frame childhood transitions as highly social, contextualised and political. This paper will assert that governments, schools and educators have an increased role in supporting parents with their changing roles, responsibilities and relationships as their child transitions to school and that schools need to provide space for parents to share their own transition to school narratives in order to better understand the effect these stories may have on the transition process for them and their children. Finally, schools and systems will be challenged to engage in a strengths-based approach to support parents at this pivotal time in their own and their child’s growth and development and call for increased research to identify ways in which this can occur within respectful, collaborative and agentic relationships.