Preparing novice teachers to develop basic reading and spelling skills in children
Abstract
This study examined the word-structure knowledge of novice teachers and the progress of children tutored by a subgroup of the teachers. Teachers" word-structure knowledge was assessed using three tasks: graphophonemic segmentation, classification of pseudowords by syllable type, and classification of real words as phonetically regular or irregular. Tutored children were assessed on several measures of basic reading and spelling skills. Novice teachers who received word-structure instruction outperformed a comparison group of teachers in word structure knowledge at post-test. Tutored children improved significantly from pre-test to post-test on all assessments. Teachers' post-test knowledge on the graphophonemic segmentation and irregular words tasks correlated significantly with tutored children's progress in decoding phonetically regular words; error analyses indicated links between teachers' patterns of word-structure knowledge and children's patterns of decoding progress. The study suggests that word-structure knowledge is important to effective teaching of word decoding and underscores the need to include this information in teacher preparation.
Reference
Spear-Swerling, L., & Brucker, P.O. (2004). Preparing novice teachers to develop basic reading and spelling skills in children. Annals of Dyslexia, 54, 332-364. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007%2Fs11881-004-0016-x
Journal
Annals of Dyslexia
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
- Quantitative
- Quasi-experimental
Geographic Setting
Institutional Context
Certification Level
- Elementary
- Special Education
Programatic Focus
Research Location Context
- Literacy methods course
- University
Preservice Participants
- Graduate and undergraduate
- Undergraduates (university based program)
Preservice Sample Size
147
Other Participant Data
Duration of Data Collection
Data Sources
- lesson plans
- pre-/post-assessment
Data Analysis Tools
- ANOVA
- Correlation
- MANOVA
- Statistical analysis
Researcher Positionality
Research Questions
Would significant differences in post-test knowledge about word structure emerge between novice teachers who did supervised tutoring and those who did not do supervised tutoring?
Is this research question explicit from the manuscript? Yes
Would the tutored children improve in basic reading and spelling skills?
Is this research question explicit from the manuscript? Yes
Would any significant relationships emerge between novice teachers' knowledge about word structure and tutored children's progress in reading or spelling?
Is this research question explicit from the manuscript? Yes