Exploring factors related to preschool teachers’ self-efficacy

This study examined how teacher (teaching experience, perceptions of teacher collaboration and teacher influence) and classroom (children’s engagement) characteristics predicted teacher self-efficacy for 48 preschool teachers in the U.S. Results showed a significant interaction effect between teachers’ perceptions of collaboration and children’s engagement in predicting teachers’ reported self-efficacy. Specifically, a higher level of children’s engagement was associated with a higher level of teacher self-efficacy when teachers worked in preschool with high levels of staff collaboration. Teacher experience and influence in decision-making were not related to teacher self-efficacy. Implications for early childhood teacher education and professional development are discussed.     

Tennessee meets the challenge of dyslexia

In 1993, the Tennessee General Assembly voted funds to establish a model unit of integrated services and research to address the full scope of issues associated with dyslexia. Dyslexia is characterized as significant difficulty in reading and spelling individual words. In the Tennessee Center for the Study and Treatment of Dyslexia, these problems are presumed to be the consequence of a phonological core deficit. When compared to typical readers, matched for age or reading level, dyslexic readers evidence average listening comprehension, a relative strength in reading comprehension, deficits in word recognition and spelling, and severe deficits in word analysis as well as in awareness and manipulation of phonemes. Integration of this information yields a diagnostic profile that may be applied in the differential diagnosis of dyslexia both in clinical and school settings. This paper presents an overview of the Tennessee Center for Dyslexia and the services it provides as well as its guidelines for interpreting the results of norm-referenced tests and criterion-referenced measures to diagnose dyslexia and plan appropriate intervention. Frith’s (1985, 1986) developmental framework for reading acquisition is integrated with the assessment data to outline an instructional plan that addresses mastery of skills within and across the hierarchical phases—logographic, alphabetic, and orthographic—of reading development.