Project Activities
Research question
- To what extent does the content of teacher education programs focus on the essential components of early reading instruction?
- To what extent are graduating pre-service teachers knowledgeable about the essential components of early reading instruction?
Structured Abstract
Design
The study collected information in spring 2007 from a sample of 3,000 pre-service teachers in a nationally representative sample of 100 institutions. The study included a pre-service teacher survey regarding the content of their training programs as well as an assessment of pre-service teacher knowledge about the essential components of reading instruction.
Key findings
- On average, pre-service teachers rated the overall focus on the essential components of reading of their training programs as being above "little" but below "moderate" (1.76 on a 0 to 3 scale).
- Pre-service teachers were twice as likely to report that their field experience offered them a strong focus on the essential components of reading compared to their coursework (40 percent versus 21 percent).
- Pre-service teachers were about twice as likely to report a strong overall programmatic focus on alphabetics (40 percent) and fluency (34 percent) than on meaning (18 percent).
- On average, pre-service teachers responded correctly to 57 percent of the items on the Knowledge Assessment, which included items on fluency, meaning, and alphabetics.
People and institutions involved
IES program contact(s)
Products and publications
A report, titled Study of Teacher Preparation in Early Reading Instruction, was released in September 2010.
A restricted-use file containing de-identified data is available for the purposes of replicating study findings and secondary analysis.
Questions about this project?
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