Conceptualizing and Measuring Pedagogical Content Knowledge in Reading

Presenters:
Geoffrey Phelps, University of Michigan
Joanne F. Carlisle, University of Michigan
Brian Rowan, University of Michigan

What is it that teachers need to know to be effective teachers of early reading? What does this suggest about constructing an instrument that can measure this knowledge? To address these research questions, we propose a theoretical framework that provides a basis for understanding the knowledge that reading teachers use to manage interactions among the texts, tasks, students, and settings that compose reading instruction. In this poster, we show how currently available survey measures of content knowledge, including items we recently developed for the Assessing Reading Knowledge project, map differently onto the key components of our theoretical framework. We argue that the currently popular view that content knowledge about reading is the critical component fails to capture many important aspects of teacher knowledge. Effective reading teachers need to hold and use a wider range of knowledge, including pedagogical content knowledge, to teach reading. Finally, we focus on aspects of teacher knowledge that have not been adequately measured by currently available teacher knowledge items. We suggest a number of new possibilities for capturing and studying the complex array of knowledge needed to teach reading.