Learning to teach literacy: A beginning kindergarten teacher\u27s developing pedagogical content knowledge

This study focused on the learning to teach process of a beginning kindergarten teacher in the area of literacy through the investigation of her pedagogical content knowledge. Shulman (1986) described pedagogical content knowledge as the ways of representing and formulating the subject that make it comprehensible to others (p. 9). The purpose of the study was to explore how this teacher transformed her knowledge of literacy into pedagogy for the diverse students she taught. The participant in this study, Nancy Green, was a white female, aged, 43 with two children. Data were collected using multiple data sources including interviews, observations, Nancy\u27s literacy autobiography, and teaching evaluations. Data were analyzed qualitatively using both an analytic coding system and a descriptive coding system. Through the dual analysis of data, I was able to gain an understanding of how Nancy both constructed what it meant to teach literacy to diverse learners and explored the outside factors that both helped and hindered her development as a teacher of literacy. The findings indicated that, in attempting to understand Nancy\u27s process of learning to teach literacy, pedagogical content knowledge was the very thing Nancy needed. While Nancy\u27s pedagogical content knowledge did develop in some ways throughout the course of the study, there were many factors in the structural organization of schools, based on power relations, that both inhibited and enhanced her growth. As a beginning teacher Nancy was marginalized and, thus, the development of her pedagogical content knowledge suffered. While Nancy is only one beginning teacher, the implications of this study suggest important considerations be placed on the decontextualized and fragmented nature of reading methods in teacher education, the placement of beginning teachers, and the support offered to beginning teachers

The Influence of Accelerated Reader on the Affective Literacy Orientations of Intermediate Grade Students

Although the highly popular Accelerated Reader (AR) book reading incentive program claims to motivate children of all reading ability levels, very little independent empirical research has examined this assertion. To help fill this void, we used two related three-factor mixed designs with Method (AR vs. Control), Gender, and either Grade Level(fourth vs. fifth) or Reading Ability (high vs. low) to explore AR’s influence on the reading attitudes and self-perceptions of children in two comparable school districts. The analyses indicate that AR positively influenced academic reading attitudes, but not recreational ones, and that it negatively influenced two types of self-perceptions in low achieving male readers. These findings and others of consequence are discussed along with implications for future research

What Matters Most? A Survey of Accomplished Middle-Level Educators\u27 Beliefs and Values about Literacy

Ninety teachers working in award-winning middle schools responded to a survey that explored, quantitatively and qualitatively, how they (1) defined themselves as teachers of literacy, (2) viewed multiliteracies in adolescents\u27 lives, and (3) valued these literacies in the classroom. Mean scores indicated that Basic Literacies (e.g., comprehension, word identification, fluency, writing) were rated more favorably than New Literacies (e.g., media, Internet, critical, out of school). Strong qualitative support existed for literacy instruction in all disciplines, but interpretations varied. The most positive agreement centered on every teacher being a teacher of literacy. Little support existed for developing students\u27 out-of-school literacies in schools. Such findings have strong implications for altering curricular emphases and merging teacher practice with adolescents\u27 needs and interests

The Writing Observation Framework: A Guide for Refining and Validating Writing Instruction

The Writing Observation Framework (WOF) is a new tool for enhancing writing instruction in schools. The WOF organizes principles of writing instruction In a way that improves the evaluation of teachers\u27 writing practices, encourages a shared philosophy of the writing process and its instruction, and assists schools in demonstrating the integrity of their writing programs

A Whole-Class Support Model for Early Literacy: The Anna Plan

The Anna Plan is a unique delivery model for enhancing schoolwide literacy instruction in the primary grades. Based on the principles of Reading Recovery and Four Blocks literacy instruction, it provides supplementary reading instruction through the distinctive use of teaching staff. Over six years, it has resulted in sweeping changes in the way literacy instruction occurs as well as noteworthy increases in children\u27s reading abilities. This article gives a brief history of the authors\u27 work within the Anna Plan, explains each of the model\u27s seven tenets, and describes the research base that drives it. The focal point of the article is the detailed description of the organization and components of the five-day framework used to augment classroom reading and writing instruction. Finally, the authors recount how the Anna Plan has been embraced by two elementary schools and offer some conclusions about what contributes to the success of whole-class support models for early literacy