Are preservice teachers prepared to teach struggling readers?

Abstract

Reading disabilities such as dyslexia, a specific learning disability that affects an individual's ability to process written language, are estimated to affect 15-20% of the general population. Consequently, elementary school teachers encounter students who struggle with inaccurate or slow reading, poor spelling, poor writing, and other language processing difficulties. However, recent evidence may suggest that teacher preparation programs are not providing preservice teachers with information about basic language constructs and other components related to scientifically based reading instruction. As a consequence preservice teachers have not exhibited explicit knowledge of such concepts in previous studies. Few studies have sought to assess preservice teachers' knowledge about dyslexia in conjunction with knowledge of basic language concepts. The purpose of the present study was to examine elementary school preservice teachers' knowledge of basic language constructs and their perceptions and knowledge about dyslexia. Findings from the present study suggest that preservice teachers, on average, are able to display implicit skills related to certain basic language constructs (i.e., syllable counting), but fail to demonstrate explicit knowledge of others (i.e., phonics principles). Also, preservice teachers seem to hold the common misconception that dyslexia is a visual perception deficit rather than a problem with phonological processing. Implications for future research as well as teacher preparation are discussed.

Actual Disciplinary Knowledge, Perceived Disciplinary Knowledge, Teaching Experience and Teacher’s Training for Reading Instruction: A Study with Primary Portuguese and American Teachers // Conhecimento disciplinar efectivo, conhecimento percebido...

“…The analysis also showed that there is much common variance shared by knowledge related variables (KPA, KFVC and KASSI) in the prediction of global perceived knowledge, and that there are suppression effects between variables. Although these results are similar to those found by others (e.g., Binks-Cantrell et al, 2012;Washburn et al, 2011), the large overlap between KPA, KFVC and KASSI, suggests that these variables represent one single factor. It seems therefore meaningless to explain the predictive value of any specific knowledge variables.…”

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“…Variable results were also reported by Bos et al (2001) who found that "Whereas more than 50 percent of the preservice and inservice teachers were able to segment the phonemes in a two-phoneme word, they were unable to do this for more complex four-phoneme words." (p.114), and Washburn et al (2011) who reported that, as a group, preservice teachers had a varied range of knowledge concerning these basic skills. This variability might be explained by the way in which this knowledge was assessed.…”

“…Surveys designed by Al Otaiba, Lake, Greulich, Folsom and Guidry (2012), Binks-Cantrell, Joshi and Washburn (2012), Bos, Mather, Dickson, Podhajski and Chard (2001), Babur (2001), Moats, (1994), and Washburn, Joshi and Binks-Cantrell (2011) provided the basis for the development of the survey. Author-developed questions on spelling mirrored the existing items on reading.…”

Enhancing Phonological Awareness and Orthographic Knowledge of Preservice Teachers: An Intervention through Online Coursework

“…Teacher knowledge, however, is critical for the teaching of reading, including for those children who struggle with reading (Washburn et al, 2011). As such, this research study aimed to evaluate whether a targeted online approach to teaching phonological awareness and orthographic knowledge for preservice teachers was successful in improving their skills in these areas during their first year of study.…”