Reading Teachers Are Asked "What is Relevant In the Classroom?"
One of the most crucial problems facing teacher education today is one of relevancy. This cry for relevance suggests that what we in higher education do as we prepare students to become teachers is not compatible with the real world of the classroom. Backman tells us that as teacher educators we are perceived as (1) delivering preparation programs which have little real influence on the way in which our graduates actually teach; and (2) being completely out of touch with the actual teaching conditions in contemporary schools (1984). READING TEACHERS ARE ASKED "WHAT IS RELEVANT IN CLASSROOM?" Donna Jamar and Leo W. Pauls Emporia State University Emporia, Kansas One of the most crucial problems facing teacher education today is one of relevancy. This cry for relevance suggests that what we in higher education do as we prepare students to become teachers is not compatible with the real world of the classroom. Backman tells us that as teacher educators we are perceived as (1) delivering preparation programs which have little real influence on the way in which our graduates actually teach; and (2) being completely out of touch with the actual teaching conditions in contemporary schools (1984).
PRESERVICE EDUCATION IN READING: WHAT DO THE TEACHERS SAY?
ABSTRACT The purpose of this study was to determine teachers’ perceptions of reading courses at the undergraduate level. Survey data obtained from graduates of 37 institutions were analyzed using frequencies, t‐test, analysis of variance, Duncan's Multiple Range Test, and orthogonal contrast to provide the following results: Graduates between 1970‐80 have not taken more reading courses than earlier graduates. Persons with degrees in elementaty education, early childhood education, and special education have taken reading courses while those in other areas of education have not. Graduates who have taken three or more reading courses feel prepared to teach reading. The most helpful topic in an undergraduate reading course is “how to plan a reading lesson.” The topic which needs to be added to the undergraduate reading courses is “how to organize and manage reading instruction.”
The teacher variable in the teaching of reading
certainly all educators are committed to increasing the level of achievement of their clients whether they be children, young people, or adults, and whether the area be mathematics, science, or foreign language. But with reading, a high level of performance is so important that no stone can be left unturned in our search for ways of facilitating growth and development. Society may raise only an eyebrow for one's inadequacies in spelling, mathematics, or ability to speak a foreign language; but, in one way or another, it castigates an individual who cannot read or read effectively. It is no surprise, then, that to improve reading we have insti tuted research in all directions. Instructional materials have been examined and improved and new ones developed. Reading methods have been searched and researched, and the search continues for ways of improving instruction. Teacher education institutions have sought to strengthen their reading program by adding courses, mod ifying course content, or providing learning experiences that will strengthen the preparation their graduates are receiving. And above all, government funds have been poured into studies, programs, and projects, designed to discover ways of improving the level of read ing attainment on all academic levels. One of the best-known government sponsored studies is the Cooperative Research Program in First Grade Reading Instruction, reported in detail in the Reading Research Quarterly (Bond and Dykstra, 1967). The master study, you recall, involved twenty seven individual studies carried on in various places in the United States, and attempted to discover if there were an approach to ini tial reading instruction that would produce superior reading and spelling achievement at the end of grade one. Instructional approaches currently in use, including the linguistic, basal, lan guage-experience, and i.t.a., were evaluated in terms of objectively measured reading achievement. Though the study has some inherent limitations, its findings and conclusions are significant in relation to pupil achievement, 239