About Knowledge to Support the Teaching of Reading

The NAEd Committee on Teacher Education (CTE) released its latest volume on promoting reading development entitled Knowledge to Support the Teaching of Reading: Preparing Teachers for a Changing World, at a briefing and panel discussion held at the Keck Center conference facility on December 7^,2005 in Washington, DC. Knowledge to Support the Teaching of Reading is the latest report by the NAE Committee on Teacher Education (CTE). In addition to serving as an important project dissemination activity for CTE, this well attended event in NAEd’s new location also supported the goal of building relationships with other DC based education and policy organizations.

The following panelists discussed the implications for policy makers, schools and teacher preparation programs:

· Catherine Snow, Henry Lee Shattuck Professor of Education, Harvard Graduate School of Education (co-editor)

· Janice Jackson, Assistant Professor, Boston College

· Mary Laura Openshaw, Director, Just Read, Florida!

· Lorrie A. Shepard, President, National Academy of Education, and Dean, School of Education, University of Colorado at Boulder

· Joan Baratz Snowden, Director, Educational Issues, American Federation of Teachers

· Arthur E. Wise, President, National Council for the Accreditation of Teacher Education

Knowledge to Support to Teaching of Reading warns that educators must attend to adolescent as well as early childhood literacy. Many people hold the false assumption that students learn all they need to know in the early grades to prepare them as lifelong readers. However, this view fails to address the fact that reading development continues through the later grades, and that the number of middle and secondary students needing intensive work in reading is staggering.

If teachers are to meet this challenge, they must have knowledge to support the teaching of reading as it relates to their subjects, including insight into which students are at risk of reading failure and what aspects of reading generate problems for students. This knowledge should include procedures for assessing students and pinpointing their reading problems, as well as familiarity with effective instructional techniques. However, such knowledge has not typically been part of pre-service teacher education programs, especially those preparing middle and secondary school teachers, and this knowledge base is insufficiently addressed in professional development for experienced teachers. The National Academy of Education report outlines key recommendations to guide reform efforts for teacher preparation as well as teacher professional development. Among these recommendations:

· Teacher preparation programs should view the development of literacy as important for all teachers to cultivate, including those teaching disciplines such as science, math and social studies. Teacher candidates best serve students if they have strong knowledge about reading and its development in addition to knowledge of their own content areas

· Declarative knowledge about reading and its development must be made usable and concrete for beginning teachers in order to ease the transition into classroom teaching.

· Teachers need enhanced training in how to sustain students’ motivation in reading. Teacher candidates should be prepared to work with children from different backgrounds and encouraged to hold high expectations for all students’ achievement.

· Teacher programs should confront the harmful myths that may be held by beginning teachers concerning the reading potential for children, especially those with disabilities, who are second language learners, and who are members of socio/economic minority groups.

· Teachers should understand the basic principles underlying quality assessment, have familiarity with a wide range of assessment tools and practices, build knowledge on how to use assessment outcomes to inform instructional decision making, and increase their skills in communicating assessment results to students, parents, administrators, and other members of instructional teams.

· More collaboration is needed between novice teachers and more expert teachers as well as other consulting professionals within schools, thus creating teams that will serve students better than any individual teacher could.

· And finally, ongoing professional development should be designed based on the expectation that teacher expertise develops over time. Both preservice and professional development programs should adopt a “Learn – Enact- Assess – Reflect” framework, and schools/districts need to build in enhanced rewards as well as responsibilities for teachers as they progress from novice to expert.

Knowledge to Support the Teaching of Reading is available at www.JosseyBass.com.