Inviting Teacher Candidates into Book Talks: Supporting a Culture of Lifelong Reading
Abstract
This article describes our collaborative inquiry, three teacher educators/researchers of literacy from different institutions who shared a concern about how few teacher candidates in our programs neither viewed themselves as readers nor possessed a love of reading, qualities we view as key to supporting all children as lifelong readers, writers, and communicators. In this paper, we share how we took action and studied the use of book talks in our programs to support a culture of lifelong reading among our teacher candidates and to offer possibilities for candidates’ future teaching experiences. The study took place over two years. In phase one, we studied groups of our candidates from our literacy/ language arts methods courses as they engaged in book talks. In phase two, we followed-up with nine of the participating candidates, three in each institution, during student teaching or their first year of teaching to explore how the book talk experience influenced their early teaching efforts. Findings show that book talks and the culture created in reading for pleasure and purpose made a positive impression on the way candidates viewed what it means to be a reader and their role as future teachers of literacy. In addition, we found many challenges that impeded candidates’ efforts to act on their visions of using book talks and developing independent readers in their classrooms.
Reference
Bixler, J., Smith, S., & Henderson, S. (2013). Inviting teacher candidates into book talks: Supporting a culture of lifelong reading.” Reading Horizons 52 (3), 233–254.
Journal
Reading Horizons
Analysis
Is this article part of a larger project or series of studies?
no
Does this study draw on a large, preexisting data set?
no
Research Approach
Geographic Setting
- northeast US
- Southeast of the United States
Institutional Context
Certification Level
Programatic Focus
Research Location Context
- Book Club
- field-based methods course
Preservice Participants
Preservice Sample Size
30
Duration of Data Collection
Data Sources
- Audio recordings
- Blog
- email correspondence
- Reflective journals
- Self-Assessment of Proficiency to Perform Reading Tasks (SPPRT; Clark & Read, 2012)
- Survey
- Transcriptions
- Video
Data Analysis Tools
Researcher Positionality
- Inside (studying their own practices)
Research Questions
How did our teacher candidates define what it means to be a reader? (p. 240)
Is this research question explicit from the manuscript? Yes
How do their definitions compare to their actions as readers engaged in book talk? (p. 240)
Is this research question explicit from the manuscript? Yes
Did our candidates’ visions of what it means to be a reader, their actions as readers, and their role as teachers to support lifelong readers evolve over time/experience? (p. 240)
Is this research question explicit from the manuscript? Yes