How to Prepare Expert Reading Teachers

MASTER TEACHERS

Knowledge is important in any endeavor.?Knowledge is what separates novices from experts.?Experts have more of it.?Novices have less of it.?Expert teachers have four kinds of knowledge:

1. Content knowledge.?This is knowledge of what they’re teaching.?Math teachers know a lot about math.?Science teachers know a lot about science.?And elementary education teachers know a lot about a lot of stuff.?For example, when I was a second-grade teacher, I took a college geology course.?This gave me the understanding I needed to create some basic geology units in my second-grade classroom.

2. Pedagogical knowledge.?This is knowledge of basic teaching strategies such as discovery learning, question-asking, discussions, inquiry learning, and cooperative learning.

3. Pedagogical content knowledge.?This is knowledge of teaching strategies for specific content areas.?In reading, this would be reading methods.?You know a variety of strategies for fluency, comprehension, vocabulary, etc.

4. Knowledge of learners and learning.?You know how humans learn and develop.?This is the ed psych stuff – which is the basis of all things.

To move from novice to expert is a rather simple thing.?Simply increase knowledge in all four areas.?It’s not that complicated.

We want expert teachers teaching our students.?It is to our society’s great advantage to have the best, most masterful, expert teachers teaching our children.?They are preparing the next generation of humans.?Trying to get by on the cheap only damages our society.

TEACHER SHORTAGE - NOT

By the way, there is not a teacher shortage. ?Yes, there’s a shortage, but it’s not a teacher shortage.?There's a willingness to work for low teaching wages shortage and a willingness to endure poor teaching conditions shortage. But there is no teaching shortage. ?There are plenty of teachers.?It’s just that many have said, “To hell with you.?I’m not taking it anymore.”

How do you get all the high-quality teachers we need??Pay them a professional wage, give them professional working conditions, provide legitimate professional development opportunities, and for god’s sake, butt out.?Stop foisting all these useless mandates on them that only serve to drive good teachers out of the classroom.

EXPERT READING TEACHERS

Successful reading instruction is dependent on having teachers who are experts in reading instruction.?How do we create expert reading teachers??It’s not through LETRS training or Orton-Gillingham training, or any of these other for-profit boondoggles.?Again, it’s related to knowledge.?Expert reading teachers have a body of knowledge and a broad understanding of the following six areas:

1. Human learning - theories of human learning and development as well as how literacy emerges.

2. The processes used by the brain to create meaning with print - the processes used by the brain to create meaning with print and the writing process.

3. Literacy teaching and learning - the different ways or approaches to teach reading and writing.

4. Literacy pedagogy - a toolbox full of research-based strategies.

5. Literacy research - how to read research as well as familiarity with a wide body of research.

6. Literacy assessment and diagnosis - miscue analysis, running records, qualitative reading inventories, authentic assessment strategies, as well as the strengths and weaknesses of standardized tests.

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THREE SEMESTERS

In most teacher preparation programs, you have three semesters of coursework and one semester of student teaching.?That’s it.?There is not program in the world that can create a finished teaching product in three semesters plus student teaching … much less an expert teacher.?It would be tough to do this in three years, must less three semesters.?To think otherwise shows how very little you know about teaching, human learning, and teacher preparation.

Within teacher preparation programs there are usually two reading methods courses.?These courses are taken within the context of a whole bunch of other courses, all required by our accreditation boards.?These are courses related to science, social studies, health, math, educational psychology, equity, assessment, special learning needs, and such. ?Teacher preparation programs prepare teachers to begin the journey.?It is not possible to create a finished teaching product.?And we certainly don’t create expert teachers of reading.?

The knowledge related to the six areas cannot be learned with any depth in three semesters of undergraduate coursework.?This knowledge is best learned over time in the context of an actual classroom.?This means continued legitimate professional development for practicing teachers.?It takes 5 to 10 years to fully develop the expertise necessary to be an expert reading teacher.

LEGITIMATE PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT

To develop expert reading teachers, we need to provide legitimate professional development that enables teachers to develop their professional knowledge.?The best professional development still comes from accredited graduate programs in education.?These programs are not influenced by profit motives.?Excellent graduate reading programs are aligned with the International Literacy Association standards and informed by a wide body of research-based knowledge in a variety of areas.?High-quality, legitimate teacher professional development is much different from the kind of clown shows put on by for-profit entities such as LETRS or Orton-Gillingham?It’s much different from an Emily Hanford radio documentary.??