Preservice and inservice teachers’ knowledge of language constructs in Finland

Abstract

The aim of the study was to explore the Finnish preservice and inservice teachers' knowledge of language constructs relevant for literacy acquisition. A total of 150 preservice teachers and 74 inservice teachers participated in the study by filling out a questionnaire that assessed self-perceived expertise in reading instruction, knowledge of phonology and phonics, and knowledge of morphology. The inservice teachers outperformed the preservice teachers in knowledge of phonology and phonics, as well as morphology. Both groups' knowledge of morphology was markedly lower than their knowledge of phonology and phonics. Because early reading instruction does not focus on the morphological level of language but is phonics-based, this result was expected. However, the findings also revealed a lack of explicit knowledge of basic phonological constructs and less-than-optimal phonemic awareness skills in both groups. Problems in phonemic skills manifested mostly as responding to the phonological tasks based on orthographic knowledge, which reflects an overreliance on the one-to-one correspondence between graphemes and phonemes. The preservice teachers' perceptions of expertise were weakly related to their knowledge and skills. Among the inservice teachers, perceived expertise and knowledge of language constructs were completely unrelated. Although the study was exploratory, these findings suggest that within the Finnish teacher education there is a need to focus more on explicit content studies for language structures and the concepts relevant for literacy instruction, as well as phonological and phonemic skills.

Moderating Effects of Teachers’ Teaching Experience on Home Learning Associated with Literacy Skills among Chinese Preschoolers

“…Preschoolers who had teachers with more teaching experience tend to perform lowly in literacy skills. This is contrary to the expectation from previous studies which indicated that teachers with more experience in teaching were more effective in teaching and tend to enhance children's learning outcomes (Aro & Bjorn, 2015;Giles & Tunks, 2014;Son, Kwon, Jeon, & Hong, 2013;Pakarinen, Kiuru, Lerrkanen, Poikkeus, Ahonen, & Nurmi, 2011;Webster-Stratton, Reinke, Herman, & Newcomer, 2011).…”

Reviewing How Preservice Teachers Are Prepared to Teach Reading Processes: What the Literature Suggests and Overlooks

“…Similarly, Mather et al (2001) found that in-service teachers demonstrated greater understanding of “the structures of language” (p. 476) than did preservice teachers, who answered only 50% of the test items correctly, a finding also supported by Bos et al (2001). In a more recent study, Aro and Björn (2016) found that “inservice teachers outperformed preservice teachers in actual knowledge of phonology and phonics, as well as morphology” (p. 122), although the differences between the two groups in knowledge of morphology were slight. In addition, Meeks and Kemp (2017) found that “more than 76% of preservice teachers were ranked as having skills [regarding phonological awareness and phonics] that were minimal to very poor” (p. 6).…”

“…Researchers described preservice teachers as having “low levels” of specific knowledge related to reading processes (e.g., Purvis et al, 2016; Spear-Swerling & Brucker, 2003), as “fail[ing] to demonstrate explicit knowledge” (Washburn et al, 2011, p. 21), and as having “significant difficulty responding to higher order questions” (Modla, McGeehan, & Lewinski, 2014, p. 22). As such, researchers argued that there was “a lot of room for improvement” (Aro & Björn, 2016, p. 122).…”

A Comparison of Teachers Perceptions, Misconceptions, and Teaching of Students with Dyslexia

“…The potentially higher level of understanding of dyslexia by inservice teachers, could be attributed to their years of experience teaching children with dyslexia, and their post graduate education or professional development focused on working with students with dyslexia. While inservice teachers tend to be more comfortable identifying struggling readers than preservice teachers, both groups are likely to overestimate their knowledge of language processing (Aro, 2015). As we continue to gain a deeper understanding of dyslexia, there is a need for educators to learn or keep learning the knowledge and skills needed to effectively support students with dyslexia (Flink, 2014;Mills & Clark, 2017; not be adequate for preparing teachers to assist students who are diagnosed with dyslexia or display dyslexic traits or symptoms (Shaywitz & Shaywits, 2017;Shaywitz, Morris, & Shaywitz, 2008).…”