guided field observations: variables related to preservice teachers' knowledge about effective...

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Guided Field Observations: VariablesRelated to Preservice Teachers'Knowledge about Effective PrimaryReading InstructionAlysia D. Roehrig a , Lisa O. Guidry b , Yasar Bodur c , Qun Guan d ,Ying Guo d & Margareta Pop da Florida State University and Florida Center for Reading Research ,Tallahassee, Florida, USAb University of Louisiana at Monroe , Monroe, Louisiana, USAc Georgia Southern University , Statesboro, Georgia, USAd Florida State University , Tallahassee, Florida, USAPublished online: 31 Mar 2008.

To cite this article: Alysia D. Roehrig , Lisa O. Guidry , Yasar Bodur , Qun Guan , Ying Guo &Margareta Pop (2008) Guided Field Observations: Variables Related to Preservice Teachers' Knowledgeabout Effective Primary Reading Instruction , Literacy Research and Instruction, 47:2, 76-98, DOI:10.1080/19388070801938247

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Literacy Research and Instruction, 47: 76–98, 2008Copyright © The College Reading AssociationISSN: 1938-8071 print / 1938-8063 onlineDOI: 10.1080/19388070801938247

Guided Field Observations: Variables Related toPreservice Teachers’ Knowledge aboutEffective Primary Reading Instruction

ALYSIA D. ROEHRIG

Florida State University and Florida Center for Reading Research,Tallahassee, Florida

LISA O. GUIDRY

University of Louisiana at Monroe, Monroe, Louisiana

YASAR BODUR

Georgia Southern University, Statesboro, Georgia

QUN GUAN, YING GUO, AND MARGARETA POP

Florida State University, Tallahassee, Florida

Relations between preservice teachers’ guided field observations of primary literacy instruction andknowledge about effective beginning reading practices were explored. Preservice teachers (n=48)participated in a Directed Field Experience course including instruction on and observations ofexemplary teaching practices promoting student engagement and literacy achievement. Correla-tions, calculated between the quantity of exemplary reading instruction practices observed bypreservice teachers and the accuracy of observations with their knowledge about effective beginningliteracy instruction, suggest guided field observations of exemplary practices may positively impactpreservice teachers’ knowledge of effective early literacy instruction. Observing more exemplarypractices was associated with preservice teachers’ knowledge acquisition represented in conceptmaps (r = .368; p = .015). Practices promoting a generally motivating classroom atmosphere weremore readily understood by preservice teachers than intricate subtleties of motivating literacyinstruction.

Keywords preservice teachers, field experience programs, primary education, beginning reading,teacher knowledge

Teacher education is now being scrutinized in an effort to improve literacy instruction forour nation’s students. Based on findings from two lines of research, one which demonstratedthe effect of teachers’ knowledge on students’ literacy outcomes (McCutchen et al., 2002)and another that revealed that future reading teachers do learn what they are taught (Anders,

Earlier versions of this article were presented in November 2005 at the annual meeting of the NationalReading Conference, Miami, FL.

Address correspondence to Alysia D. Roehrig, Florida Center for Reading Research, 227 N. Bronough St.,Suite 7250, Tallahassee, FL 32301. E-mail: [email protected]

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Knowledge of Effective Reading Instruction 77

Hoffman, & Duffy, 2000), we agree that the role of reading teacher preparation programsshould be taken very seriously. In order for reading teacher educators to produce teacherswith the knowledge, both content and pedagogical, necessary to positively impact students’literacy skills, we must understand the intricacies of this multifaceted knowledge base.

Such an understanding should include information on what effective literacy teachersdo in their classrooms. Hoffman (1991) contended that a breakthrough related toknowledge of teacher effects on learning will come when researchers “move into schoolsto observe [italics added] and systematically study reading instruction and learning toread in classrooms” (p. 948). Two seminal studies (Pressley, Wharton-McDonald et al.,2001; Wharton-McDonald, Pressley, & Hampston, 1998) seem to have been in answer toHoffman’s (1991) call for systematic observational research. These studies, which usedrigorous qualitative methodologies to study educational environments that were producinghigh literacy achievement, were based on the belief that much could be learned abouteffective beginning reading instruction by observing and interviewing excellent readingteachers (Pressley, Wharton-McDonald et al., 2001).

In Pressley, Wharton-McDonald et al.’s (2001) study, they selected to observeexemplary first-grade reading teachers, as well as teachers who were less effective inpromoting first-grade students’ literacy outcomes. Exemplary first-grade reading teachersfrom multiple school districts across several states were selected to participate if they metboth of the following two criteria: (a) if they were identified by school administratorsbased on a variety of indicators, “including standardized test performances, knowledge ofstudent performance in writing, student enthusiasm in the classroom, the extent to whichteaching was representative of best practices as conceived in their district, involvementin professional development, and teacher creativity” (Pressley, Wharton-McDonald et al.,2001, p. 39), and (b) if their recommendations were confirmed by researchers based onobservations of student engagement, defined as the proportion of time spent by studentsdoing reading and writing in the class, and evaluations of the quality of reading andwriting observed. School administrators were also asked to identify first-grade teacherswhom they considered to be representative of typical teachers in their effectiveness inpromoting student literacy achievement. Rather than blindly accepting these recommen-dations, researchers conducted observations of student engagement as described earlier inorder to come to conclusions about the effectiveness of each reading teacher. Researchersobserved the 30 teachers identified from the above-described process, and selected onemost-effective-for-locale teacher and one least-effective-for-locale teacher at each of 5sites. The reading instruction provided by these 10 teachers was analyzed in detail.

These 10 classrooms differed substantially in their degree of student engagement. Inthe most effective literacy classrooms, 90% of the students were engaged 90% of the time(Pressley, Wharton-McDonald et al., 2001). This finding replicated what was discoveredin the preceding 1998 study (Wharton-McDonald et al., 1998). Furthermore, subsequentstudies have found similar findings in fourth-grade (Allington & Johnson, 2002) andthird-grade (Dolezal, Welsh, Pressley, & Vincent, 2003) classrooms. In the classrooms ofexemplary literacy teachers, students exhibited evidence of reading achievement greaterthan that displayed by students of less effective teachers. Reading achievement wasmeasured in several different ways, including level of books read, quality of writing, and,in some studies, standardized test performance (Allington & Johnson, 2002; Pressley,Allington et al., 2001), with variation in reading achievement positively associated withthe observed differences in student engagement.

One overarching theme has emerged from these research studies and others (e.g.,Taylor, Pearson, Clark, & Walpole, 2000; for a review see Hall & Harding, 2003): more

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78 A. D. Roehrig et al.

engaging teachers, those educators who are most effective at promoting student literacyachievement, teach differently than less effective teachers. Notably, motivating studentsis an important component of effective teaching; exemplary teachers motivate theirstudents by creating comfortable, stimulating, cooperative, effort-focused atmospheres,and they challenge and engage their students by doing interesting, authentic activitieswhile they teach strategies and scaffold students. Pressley, Wharton-McDonald et al.(2001) listed teaching behaviors and characteristics typifying the five most effectivefirst-grade teachers, those teachers whose motivating practices produced high studentengagement and subsequent positive student literacy outcomes. These attributes andpractices can be categorized as those exemplifying positive classroom management,positive classroom atmosphere, and motivating instructional strategies. In the followingdescriptions of motivating literacy instruction (i.e., practices specific to the creation ofa positive atmosphere conducive to literacy learning), we discuss theoretical informationon academic motivation.

One convergent finding that has emerged from studies of student motivation is thatstudents’ attributions, the way they view their successes and failures, have a powerfuleffect on their academic motivation. Of the different explanations for success or failure,effort, ability, task difficulty, and luck, effort is the only one students can control(Pressley, 2006). When students believe they succeeded on a task because of their higheffort, they are encouraged to exert effort in the future. Also, if they feel that theirfailure reflected insufficient effort, they recognize that they can do more and try harderwhen performing subsequent tasks. Alternatively, when students contribute academicresults to natural abilities, or lack thereof, task difficulty, or just luck, good or bad,their motivation may decline. In fact, the attribution of academic failure to lack ofability, task difficulty or bad luck, all of which are beyond their control, contributes to asyndrome referred to as “learned helplessness” (Graves, Juel, & Graves, 2007). Studentswho exhibit learned helplessness are not likely to be actively engaged in reading. Theymay be “nervous, withdrawn, and discouraged when they are faced with reading tasks”(Graves et al., p. 68).

Although teachers can be persuasive in convincing students of the importance of effortby providing students with the repeated message that effort matters, for low-functioningstudents, attributing success to effort alone will probably be ineffective. Students shouldbe taught skills and strategies to use to accomplish assignments at the same time thatteachers persuade them that their successes and failures on academic tasks are due to theirown efforts. Such motivating instruction practices were described in detail by Pressley,Wharton-McDonald et al. (2001) and categorized as “Skills Explicitly Taught” (p. 54)and “� � � Monitoring and Scaffolding” (p. 55). The most effective primary-grade literacyteachers teach many skills, including word recognition skills with an emphasis on thesounds of words and common word patterns, as well as explicit teaching of vocabularyand comprehension skills. They monitor the class as a whole and individual students todetermine what help is needed and who needs help when, and they provide opportunisticone-to-one reading instruction and extensive scaffolding of reading (especially wordrecognition), encouraging the use of decoding strategies.

Exemplary teachers also match task demands to student competencies. Assignmentsshould be appropriately challenging. For struggling readers, task difficulty should be suchthat student effort can produce the successful completion of an assignment. However,this should not be interpreted as promoting the practice of giving students only easytasks, which does not increase their motivation. “Effective teachers monitor what childrenare capable of doing and then nudge them to try something slightly more challenging,”

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while providing needed scaffolding (Pressley, 2006, p. 387). Appropriately challengingtasks cause students to work hard and feel good about what they are doing. Brophy(1987) depicted four student reactions to tasks, based on combined perceived level ofchallenge and skill level. When assignments with perceived high levels of challenge arepresented to students whose skills do not match the task demands, they react with anxiety;whereas, students that possess appropriate skills experience what can be described asflow. Assignments that are not perceived as challenging produce apathy when students’skills are low and boredom for students whose skills are high.

Reading class should not be boring. As Pressley (2006) explained, much time labeledreading instruction is concentrated on low-level skills rather than reading and respondingto interesting texts. For almost a century it has been recognized that interest playsan important role in student engagement and learning from text. Pressley summarizedresearch on reading instruction and student interest conducted throughout the twentiethcentury, going back to John Dewey. It seems that exemplary first-grade literacy teachersrecognize both the importance of challenge and interest. Pressley, Wharton-McDonaldet al. (2001) found that effective teachers often read aloud outstanding literature that wastoo challenging for students to read on their own. As evidenced by the positive classroomatmospheres that effective first-grade literacy teachers create by providing their studentswith choice and control, they may also be aware that one way to increase student interestis to allow them to choose their own reading material. They created classroom libraries,reading centers, filled with books that are of interest to their students.

Prior experiences with texts, as well as interesting content, can motivate students towant to read and to choose to read particular books. In their 2001 study, Pressley, Wharton-McDonald et al. discovered the five exemplary teachers made “Strong Connections Acrossthe Curriculum” (p. 57). Their students’ reading and writing often related to and werein the context of social studies and science themes, and vocabulary taught related tothe thematic unit and was driven by what students were reading. These teachers oftenmade across-time connections, reminding students that what they were reading related toprevious content covered.

Effective teachers motivate students and promote their engagement in literacy activ-ities by creating noncompetitive classrooms. Possibly they are aware of the decliningmotivation of students who perceive they are not doing as well as their classmates(Pressley, 2006). In classrooms with positive atmospheres, students are rewarded fordoing better than they did previously, rather than competing with another student. Theimportance of cooperating with one another is emphasized and students are taught howto cooperate. Students are encouraged to work cooperatively with one another as part ofreading and writing, and do so (e.g., buddy reading, buddy writing). Finally, they areencouraged to recognize the accomplishments of other students.

Because the goal of reading teacher preparation programs is to provide prospectiveteachers with the content and pedagogical knowledge they will need to become exemplaryliteracy teachers, teacher educators are obligated to provide preservice teachers withknowledge of the relations between motivation, engagement, and academic outcomes, aswell as concepts of literacy instruction and positive literary atmospheres found to motivatestudents to achieve. This information should be prominently included in primary readingcoursework and practicums. A critical dimension of effective college reading methodscourses is accompanying fieldwork. Anders and colleagues (2000) found that preserviceteachers reported that fieldwork was as important as coursework in shaping their subjectmatter. In fact, field experiences have long been viewed as playing an important role in

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enculturating preservice teachers into knowledge of reading practice (Brown, Collins, &Duguid, 1989).

One consensus held by many educators regarding the positive role of field experi-ences is that observing in classrooms provides preservice teachers with opportunities toalign theory with practice. This notion, however, seems to discount what practices ourprospective teachers might actually be focusing on when they are observing. McDiarmid(1999) recognized this possible downside to classroom observations. Preservice teachersdo not enter their professional literacy preparation empty-handed. They bring with thempreconceived notions about literacy instruction gleened from an apprenticeship of obser-vation (Lortie, 1975). They recall how they were taught in school and relate to instructionthat matches their best personal learning styles. These preconceptions are formed basedon limited experiences and understandings of literacy instruction. Unfortunately, whatstudents see during classroom observations “serves largely to confirm their faith in thefolkways of teaching” (McDiarmid, 1999, p. 3), possibly molding their future teachingpractices if left unexamined (Cole & Knowles, 1993).

Field observations should be guided by reading teacher educators so that preserviceteachers are provided with sufficient scaffolding, allowing them to make connectionsbetween classroom reading instruction and findings from exemplary teacher researchregarding effective beginning reading instruction. Sabers, Cushing, and Berliner (1991)discovered that expert teachers organized their knowledge into schemas or patterns,enabling them to make connections between what appeared to novice teachers to beisolated or disjointed activities. In their study, all participants viewed the same videotapedlesson. The researchers used a talk-aloud methodology to collect data about the teachers’understanding of what happened in the videotaped lesson: the teachers talked aloud asthey watched the video, with the researchers further probing their understanding withquestions about classroom routines, content covered, motivational mechanisms used, andstudent–teacher interactions. The result was that expert teachers interpreted the contentsof the same video very differently than the novice teachers. The interpretations of theexperts were better in that they were more likely to distinguish classroom routines andstructures as well as notice student engagement. The experts were able to take in moreof what happened in the room, in contrast with the novices who tended to over-focus onsome aspect to the exclusion of another. For example, the experts listened to the studentsmore, whereas the novices tended to get caught up only in the visual cues. This findingsuggests that increased knowledge and familiarity with schema of exemplary teachingmay intensify preservice teachers’ observational prowess.

In our study, we examined what happened when preservice teachers were (a) providedwith knowledge of findings from exemplary literacy teacher research and descriptionsof effective beginning reading instruction that motivates children and (b) then askedto critically observe classroom reading instruction in light of this knowledge. Table 1provides a listing of the effective reading instruction practices for motivating childrenthat guided their observations, and the Appendix is a copy of the preservice teachers’scaffolded Literacy Observation Checklist. The purpose of this study was to explorepossible relations between preservice teachers’ guided field observations of motivatingprimary literacy instruction and their knowledge about effective beginning readingpractices.

Our research questions addressed two levels, group and individual. We initiallyfocused on the relation between the literacy teaching practices for motivating childrenobserved during guided field observations and those represented in the concept maps ofpreservice teachers as a group. We examined first which exemplary teaching practices

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Table 1Literacy Observation Practices Specific to Effective Beginning Literacy Instruction for

Motivating Children

Category Subcategory Practices

MotivatingAtmosphere

Fostering a Sense ofCommunity

Variety of group structures (whole, small,cooperative, etc.)

Room arrangement to support differentactivity groupings

Cooperative work encouraged (buddyreading, etc.)

Centers work is a regular occurrenceFostering a Sense of

Choice/ControlReading corner/center with a wide variety of

booksOpportunities to read material of interestTaught to self-regulate with respect to what

they read (at least some of the booksstudents read are ones they choose)

MotivatingInstruction

AppropriateChallenge Level

Students spend much more time onacademically demanding subtasks ratherthan nondemanding ones

Teacher often reads material that is toochallenging for students to read on theirown (reads outstanding literature to theclass)

Students encouraged to try challenging tasks,but ones that are not too challenging (tasksstructured to assure student success)

AcademicMonitoringScaffolding

Teacher monitors class to determine whoneeds help and what help is needed

Extensive scaffolding of reading, esp. wordrecognition (encourages use of decodingstrategies)

Opportunistic one-to-one reading instruction,occurring when student needs some help

Teaching andModeling ofThinking Processes

Explicit teaching and salient modeling ofword recognition skills

Emphasis on sounds of words and commonword patterns, in explicit instruction andapplication during reading and writing

Explicit teaching of vocabulary, includingopportunistic teaching (as words come up)and reteaching (as words are reexperienced)

Explicit teaching of comprehension skills(predicting, summarizing, story grammar)

(Continued)

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Table 1(Continued)

Category Subcategory Practices

InstructionalDensity

Many skills (10–20) covered during acombination of explicit and opportunisticteaching

Across-time connections (reminders abouthow what they are doing today relates toprevious content covered)

Across-curriculum connections (reading andwriting often relate to science and socialstudies themes)

Much reading and writing (choral, DEAR,buddy, author’s chair, etc.)

Writing in response to literature (there is aclear integration of reading and writinginstruction)

for motivating children were reported most often by preservice teachers from their obser-vations of classroom language arts/reading instruction and which exemplary teachingpractices appeared most prominently on preservice teachers’ maps of their concepts ofeffective beginning reading instruction, in order to answer the following question:

1. How are the types of effective beginning reading instruction practices for motivatingchildren recorded during observations related to the motivational practices representedon preservice teachers’ concept maps?

We also investigated the relations between individual preservice teachers’ overallscores on observations and concept maps collapsing across types of instructional practices(representing the quantity and accuracy of their observations as well as the breadth anddepth of their knowledge of effective beginning reading practices for motivating children).At this level our research questions included the following:

2. How is the quantity of effective reading instruction practices for motivating childrenobserved by preservice teachers related to their knowledge about effective beginningliteracy instruction?

3. How is the accuracy of their observations related to their knowledge about effectivebeginning literacy instruction?

Method

Participants

Forty-eight preservice teachers majoring in elementary education at a large university ina southeastern state participated. Participants (n=48) included 47 females and 1 male,aged 19–24 years. Their demographics were representative of the elementary education

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students enrolled at this state university. Two were African American, six were HispanicAmerican, one was Asian American, and thirty-nine were Anglo. They were enrolled ina Directed Field Experience (DFE) course during the spring of 2005, the second semesterof their junior year (block II). The requirements for the block II DFE course included 1hour per week of coursework, as well as 36 field hours throughout the semester and 1full week toward the end of the semester in public elementary schools.

Course Context

One author was the primary instructor for the block II DFE course, and two other authorsserved as co-instructors. Course topics pertained to teaching as a profession, effectiveteacher characteristics, classroom management, instructional planning and individual-ization, teacher expectations, student motivation, and classroom atmosphere. One authoralso had been the instructor for the block I Early Literacy Learning course and had taughtthis cohort of preservice teachers the previous semester.

The DFE course included instruction on the model of effective teaching for motivatingchildren based on the exemplary teacher studies described earlier. This instruction includedexamples of specific teacher practices in the areas of classroom atmosphere, instruction,and management that support or undermine student engagement. The instruction wasprovided over the course of four separate one-hour course meetings, with an overviewof how classroom atmosphere, classroom management, and classroom instruction wereinterrelated, followed by classroom atmosphere, classroom management, and, finally,classroom instruction. During each of the last three instructional segments, preserviceteachers were provided with case studies of exemplary teaching (Pressley et al., 2003)and asked to identify examples of effective practice for motivating children and codethem using the categories of effective teaching practices outlined in the work of Pressleyand his colleagues.

Following each effective teaching instructional segment, preservice teachers weregiven directions on how to conduct ethnographic observations and collect fieldnotes onteacher practices and student outcomes (Frank, 1999). They were given two weeks aftereach instructional segment to collect fieldnotes during classroom observations of teacherpractices and student outcomes, focusing on the category last covered. Examples ofpractices were identified as either aligned (supporting student motivation) or not aligned(undermining student motivation) with exemplary teaching practices. They then coded andtransferred the examples from their fieldnotes to structured observation sheets, organizingthem into the subcategories of the research-based model of exemplary teaching practices.

The instruction that is the topic of this study occurred after the above-described proce-dures related to effective classrooms, in general. Prior to their full week of apprenticeshipin elementary schools, preservice teachers received specific instruction on how motivatingclassroom atmosphere and instruction interact to support primary-level literacy teaching.Examples of effective first-grade literacy teaching embedded in case studies sparked classdiscussions and helped to solidify what exemplary teaching in primary literacy class-rooms “looks like.” They then were asked to observe a 90-minute reading/language artsinstructional period in a K-3 classroom and complete an observation checklist.

Data Collection

Literacy Observation Sheets. The observation instruments designed for this DFE coursewere based on the Classroom AIMS Instrument: A Checklist of Effective Classroom

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Practices (Atmosphere, Instruction/Content, Management and Student Engagement) forthe Early-Primary Grades (K–4) (Roehrig, Dolezal, Mohan-Welsh, Bohn, & Pressley,2003). The AIMS Checklist provides a basis for rating observations of teachers’ class-rooms by evaluating their use of exemplary classroom practices, particularly in relationto establishing motivating literacy instruction. In the preparation of the AIMS Instrument,the practices of effective teachers described in the exemplary teacher studies (e.g.,Allington & Johnston, 2002; Bogner, Raphael, & Pressley, 2002; Pressley, Rankin, &Yokoi, 1996) were synthesized and inductively coded to develop a schema of effectiveteaching practices for motivating children. The practices fell into three main categories,including classroom atmosphere, classroom instruction, and classroom management.

The literacy observation checklist was simplified for use by novice observers,preservice teachers, and limited to two dimensions of teaching practices, those thatpromote motivating atmosphere and instruction. This checklist concentrated on specificexemplary literacy teaching practices (see descriptions of practices in Table 1, and theobservation sheet used by the preservice teachers in the Appendix). In the directionsprovided to preservice teachers with the checklist, they were asked to check off thepractices they observed during a primary reading/language arts instructional block and tobriefly describe the activity or record their impression of its effect on students.

Concept Maps. A concept mapping activity was used to identify preservice teachers’knowledge regarding effective beginning literacy instruction after their guided field obser-vations of language arts/reading instruction in K–3 classrooms. A concept map is a“diagram that depicts one’s understanding of a term, including key components and relatedor supporting concepts” (VanLeuvan, 1997, p. 262) and provides a way of organizingideas about a topic so that relationships among various sub-topics are displayed visually.To facilitate their concept mapping, a sample concept map on an unrelated topic (modesof transportation) was provided. Preservice teachers then completed their concept mapsindependently as an in-class activity.

Data Coding

The coding of both the Literacy Observation Sheets and concept maps was based on theoutline of effective primary literacy/reading instruction provided to students and coveredduring course instruction. The organization of categories and subcategories related tothe 22 literacy-specific motivation items covered by the outline formed the basis of ourcoding categories (see Table 1). The coders’ initial independent ratings were used tocalculate interrater reliability between coders, which is reported in the results. The authorsdiscussed all of their disagreements until coming to 100% agreement.

Literacy Observation Sheets. The first three authors, two with expertise in literacyinstruction, and one with expertise in elementary education, independently coded thecompleted Literacy Observation Sheets. After reading the completed observation sheetsand examining participants’ entries, the authors decided to code for four types ofresponses: Correct Examples of Exemplary Teaching Practices, Incorrect Examples ofExemplary Teaching Practices, Correct Examples of Ineffective Teaching Practices, andNo Response. A response was coded as a Correct Example of an Exemplary TeachingPractice if the preservice teacher described a classroom practice that matched thedescription of the effective literacy teaching practices provided in the course instruction.Alternatively, a response was coded as an Incorrect Example of an Exemplary Teaching

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Practice if the preservice teacher described a classroom activity that contradicted thedescription of the effective literacy teaching practice. Finally, a response was coded as aCorrect Example of an Ineffective Teaching Practice if the preservice teacher describeda classroom practice or activity that contradicted the description of an effective literacyteaching practice that was provided in the course instruction but made it clear that she orhe were aware this was not an exemplary practice.

Concept Maps. The Concept Maps were independently coded by the second author, whotaught the preservice teacher participants in a section of Early Literacy Learning theprevious semester, and two graduate students (the fourth and fifth authors) of Learningand Cognition with an emphasis on reading. After skimming the concept maps providedby participants and reading their responses, the authors decided to code for two typesof responses: nodes that represented Correct Representations of Exemplary (Motivating)Teaching Practices, and No Representation (i.e., no node representing a motivatingexemplary teaching practice was evident). Coders recorded the presence of any of themajor categories, subcategories or the 22 literacy specific motivation items (see Table 1),as “examples” (Jones & Vesiland, 1996, p. 96) of the concept of effective beginningliteracy instruction. Point values were awarded to examples based on their centralityto this concept. Superordinate examples, those connected directly to the title “EffectiveBeginning Literacy Instruction” and considered to be concepts “highest in a hierarchy”(Jones & Vesiland, 2005, p. 96), were designated as level 1 examples and given 3 points.Subordinate examples, those items that branched off from level 1 were assigned a levelof 2 (2 points), and item branches from level 2 were identified as level 3 (1 point). Level4 items, those branching off from level 3 were assigned .5 point (VanLeuvan, 1997).

Data Analyses

Group Level Analyses. The major units of data analysis included the number of correctobservations of exemplary teaching practices recorded by the preservice teachers andthe points awarded to examples of these effective literacy teaching practices representedon their concept maps (see Tables 2 and 3). As described in the previous paragraph,points were determined by counting both the number of examples and the level atwhich they were noted. This information was synthesized to determine the promi-nence with which types of exemplary motivating teaching practices (and their associatedcategories) appeared on the preservice teachers’ concept maps of effective beginningliteracy instruction and those that were most frequently represented on their LiteracyObservation Sheets. This information was examined both quantitatively and qualita-tively. To determine if a relation existed between the number of times each literacyspecific practice was accurately observed and the prominence of that specific item or itscorresponding subcategory on preservice teachers’ concept maps, a Pearson correlationcoefficient was calculated. Researchers also scrutinized this data to look for any emergingtrends or patterns.

Individual Level Analyses. In addition to the total number of correct observations ofeffective teaching practices for motivating children recorded by each preservice teacher,the major units of analysis on the individual level also included the accuracy of the obser-vations each preservice teacher recorded and their total concept map scores. Accuracy ofobservations differed from the number of exemplary teaching practices observed in twoways. First, the calculation of a percentage of accurate observations took into consider-ation the number of correct examples of exemplary teaching practices and the number of

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Table 2Prevalence of Observed Correct and Incorrect Examples of Exemplary Literacy

Teaching Practices for Motivating Children

Categories SubcategoriesLiteracy Specific

PracticeNumberCorrect

NumberIncorrect Total

Total Observations Recorded 337 190 407Motivating Atmosphere 129 48 177

Sense ofCommunity

80 37 117

Variety of groupstructures

21 13 34

Room arrangement 27 10 37Cooperative work

(Buddy/Partner)14 8 22

Centers work 18 6 24Sense of

Choice/Control49 11 60

Reading corner 21 5 26Opportunity to read

material of interest28 6 34

Motivating Instruction 208 142 350Appropriate

Challenge Level32 39 71

Academicallydemanding subtasks

7 17 24

Teacher readschallenging literature

13 14 27

Tasks are structured forstudent success,encouraged to trychallenging tasks

12 8 20

AcademicMonitoring

30 3 33

Teacher monitors todetermine who needshelp

30 3 33

Scaffolding 26 26 52Extensive scaffolding

of word recognition16 14 30

Opportunisticone-on-one readinginstruction

10 12 22

Teaching andModeling ofThinkingProcesses

61 40 101

(Continued)

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Table 2(Continued)

Categories SubcategoriesLiteracy Specific

PracticeNumberCorrect

NumberIncorrect Total

Extensive teaching of wordrecognition skills

9 12 21

Emphasis on the sounds ofwords

20 6 26

Explicit teaching of vocabulary 18 11 29Extensive teaching of

comprehension skills14 11 25

InstructionalDensity

59 34 93

Many skills (10–20) covered 11 4 15Across-time connections 10 6 16Across-curriculum connections 15 4 19Much reading and writing 13 16 29Writing in Response to

Literature10 4 14

correct examples of ineffective teaching practices for motivating children (non-examples)represented on their Literacy Observation Sheets. Second, that number was divided by thetotal number of observational responses recorded on their Literacy Observation Sheets,so that the number of incorrect examples reduces the accuracy of a preservice teacher’sobservations. Next, total points were calculated for each preservice teacher’s conceptmap. Scores representing their knowledge of effective literacy instruction practices werebased on the total number of points awarded to each preservice teacher’s concept map.Scores were calculated by first multiplying examples at level 1 by 3, level 2 by 2, level 3by 1, and level 4 by .5, and then adding all points earned at each level.

To answer our second and third research questions, we examined relations betweenpreservice teachers’ knowledge of effective beginning reading instruction and twovariables, the number of exemplary teaching practices for motivating children theywitnessed, equated with the quality of their observations, and the accuracy of their obser-vations, a measure of their understanding. Spearman rank correlation coefficients werecomputed to measure the strength of the relations between both the number of preserviceteachers’ correct observations of exemplary teaching practice and the accuracy of theirobservations with the general breadth and depth of their knowledge about effective literacyteaching (i.e., their concept map scores). These nonparametric correlations were calculatedbecause the data did not meet the assumption of normality due to the disproportionatenumber of scores of 0 earned on the concept maps.

Results

Interrater Reliability

Interrater reliability for all data coding was high. For Literacy Observation Sheet coding,a two-way mixed model with measures of absolute agreement was used and an intraclass

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Table 3Prevalence of Concept Map Examples at Levels 1, 2, 3, and 4

Category SubcategoryLiteracy Specific Practice for

Motivating Children 1 2 3 4 Pts.

Motivating Atmosphere 1 1 126Sense of Community 103

Whole-Class (Large Group) 8 1 17Small-Group 8 1 17Individual 5 1 11Variety of Group Structures 4 1 14Cooperative Work

(Buddy/Partner)6 1 13

Rug/Teacher Chair forWhole-Group

1

Room Arrangement 2 1 8Centers Work 1 7 2 19Encouragement/Praise 2 4

Sense of Choice/Control 18Reading Corner 5 10Book Choice 4 8

Motivating Instruction 2 1 70Appropriate Challenge Level 3�5

Challenging Tasks 1 �5Structured for Student

Success1 3

Academic Monitoring 4Individual Help 1 3Teacher went to each station 1 1

Scaffolding 4 5 1 29�5One-on-One with Teacher 3 1 7

Teaching and Modeling of Thinking Processes 1 7 21Teacher models how to

pronounce a word1 1

Word Recognition 1 1Vocabulary—Explicit and as

they come up1 2

Instructional Density 4Writing in Response to

Literature2 4

Note. Superordinate/level 1examples = 3 points, subordinate/level of 2 examples (items thatbranch off from level 1) = 2 points, level 3 examples (items that branch off from level 2) = 1 point,and level 4 examples = .5 point (VanLeuvan, 1997).

correlation coefficient (ICC) of .856 (p < .001) was obtained. An interrater reliabilitycoefficient above .75 is regarded as high reliability (McGraw & Wong, 1996). For ConceptMap coding, Cohen’s kappa among the three coder pairs were .920, .811, and .828.

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A kappa greater than .70 is considered satisfactory (Cohen, 1960). The group level resultswill be described first, followed by the individual level results.

Group Level Results

Practices Reported in Observations. The most frequently observed effective literacyspecific practices included two Motivating Atmosphere practices and one MotivatingInstruction practice (see Table 2). At least 50% of the preservice teachers recorded acorrect example representing an effective literacy instruction practice related to roomarrangement (73% correct), opportunity to read material of interest (82% correct), andteacher monitors to determine who needs help (91% correct). In terms of effective RoomArrangement, preservice teachers typically noted the arrangement of desks into smallgroups and a carpet area for gathering. The following is an example of the exemplaryteaching practice Opportunity to Read Material of Interest: “The students are given theopportunity to read � � � books for points in the classroom. The books read are chosen bythe students and are of interest to each of them.” Although reading books for points maynot be considered an exemplary motivational tactic, this response was coded as correct inthe context of allowing students to read things of interest to them. Commonly, a scenariodescribed in which students had an opportunity to select what they wanted to read, withthe preservice teachers making the inference that what was self-selected would be ofinterest. As for the exemplary practice of Teacher Monitors to Determine Who NeedsHelp, preservice teachers often focused on the movement of the teacher in the room.The following, for example, is a representative description from one preservice teacher:“Constantly monitoring classroom by walking from table to table and observing studentprogress.”

The practices that were infrequently correctly observed were all in the category ofMotivating Instruction, including two practices related to Appropriate Challenge Level,one Scaffolding practice, one Teaching and Modeling Thinking Processes practice, andone Instructional Density practice. Furthermore, ineffective practices for motivatingchildren (Incorrect Examples) were more frequently observed and incorrectly recorded asexamples of these effective Motivating Instruction practices than were correct examples.In fact, more than half of the time an observation was recorded for these teaching practicesthey were incorrectly described. The two frequently incorrectly identified practices relatedto Appropriate Challenge Level were academically demanding subtasks (71% incorrect)and teacher reads challenging literature (52% incorrect). The Scaffolding practice that wasfrequently misidentified was opportunistic one-on-one reading instruction (55% incorrect).Preservice teachers also often inaccurately described the Teaching and Modeling ofThinking Processes practice of extensive teaching of word recognition (57% incorrect)and the Instructional Density practice of much reading and writing (55% incorrect).

For example, the following was coded as an incorrect example of the exemplaryteaching practice Teacher Reads Challenging Literature: “The teacher uses decodablebooks with students to help them with decoding difficult words. Also, the [basal]reading text provides the teacher with challenging stories to read with her students.”Decodable texts and selections from basals are not considered challenging literature.Instead, challenging literature would include chapter books and other texts much abovethe independent reading levels of the entire class. In terms of the misidentification ofInstructional Density, preservice teachers’ standards for what exemplified much readingand writing tended to be rather low. Much reading and writing was often describedscenarios during which many students seem to be engaged at once, as during choral

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reading or practicing of sound and word recognition. Much reading was even representedas the choral reading of more than one word off of an overhead slide. Although a numberof preservice teachers did provide correct examples of effective practices for motivatingchildren in which students read multiple texts in multiple formats during the day, veryfew mentioned writing occurring at all during their observations. How were the preserviceteachers’ observations of motivating literacy practices as described earlier reflected, if atall, in their knowledge about what makes effective beginning literacy instruction?

Practices Represented in Concept Maps. The preservice teachers’ observations did tendto be reflected in their concept maps of effective beginning literacy instruction. A similarpattern to the one found in the observation data was revealed from analyses of theconcept maps. As outlined in Table 3, the majority of points awarded to concept mapswere for examples of exemplary teaching practices that promote Motivating ClassroomAtmosphere (64%). Of 196 total earned points, 53% could be attributed to practices thatpromote a Sense of Community, and 9% to practices related to fostering a Sense ofChoice/Control.

About half as many points were earned by examples of Motivating Instruction (36%).Although the subcategories of Scaffolding and Teaching and Modeling of ThinkingPractices were the second and third most highly represented, earning 15% and 11% ofthe total points, respectively, the number of points earned for specific examples of suchpractices were somewhat limited. For example, only 7 of Scaffolding’s 29.5 points (24%)were awarded for specific examples of scaffolding, such as “one-on-one with teacher.”The remaining points were earned for nodes containing the term “scaffolding,” primarilyat level 2, branching from such terms as “instruction” or “teacher.” A similar pattern wasevident for examples of Modeling. Only 19% of the points in this category were attributedto specifics, such as “teacher models how to pronounce a word” and “modeling of wordrecognition skills.” Examples of Appropriate Challenge Level, Academic Monitoring,and Instructional Density represented only 2% of the total points each. While all of thesubcategories of effective Motivating Atmosphere and Motivating Instruction appearedat least once on a concept map, several of the specific Motivating Instruction practicesdescribed on Table 1 were never represented by the preservice teachers on their maps:Specifically, their maps made no reference to Appropriate Challenge Level’s teacher readschallenging literature, Scaffolding’s extensive scaffolding of word recognition, Teachingand Modeling of Thinking Processes’ extensive teaching of comprehension skills, or anyof the Instruction Density practices besides writing in response to literature. While therewere some descriptive similarities in the types of practices preservice teachers tended tomost readily record during their observations and report in their concept maps, was therelation between the observed and mapped practices statistically significant?

Relation between Observed and Mapped Practices. The Pearson correlation coefficient(–.273) calculated to determine the strength of the association between the numberof times preservice teachers observed an exemplary teaching practice for motivatingchildren and the number of times and prominence with which that practice appeared onconcept maps (total points) was not significant ( p= .419). An examination of Tables 2and 3 suggests that the most disparity between the number of correct observations ofeffective teaching practices for motivating children and their incorporation into conceptsmaps of effective beginning literacy instruction exists for items describing practices thatprovide Appropriate Challenge Level, Academic Monitoring, and Instructional Density,all examples of Motivating Instruction. It seems that although some preservice teachers

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were able to correctly observe such motivating instructional practices when promptedby their Literacy Observation Sheet, these practices were subsequently underrepresentedin their independent renderings of their understandings about what effective beginningliteracy instruction includes. How, then, were individual differences in observations andknowledge related?

Individual Level Results

Preservice Teachers’ Scores. Both the number of effective teaching practices formotivating children preservice teachers observed and the accuracy with which they catego-rized their observations varied. They recorded on average only 9.1 examples of exemplaryteaching practices (SD=4.08). Almost all preservice teachers described only one exampleper practice. The mean accuracy score for the 38 participants who submitted observationsheets was 67.1% (SD=18.77).

There also was substantial variance within the group of preservice teachers’ conceptmap scores. Twenty of the 42, or about half of the participants who submittedconcept maps, revealed at least some knowledge of exemplary teaching practices formotivating children in their representations following the guided field observations.Because 22 participants did not include any examples of exemplary teaching practicesfor motivating children in the maps of their concepts of effective beginning literacyinstruction, the distribution of total point scores was positively skewed (1.51), dimin-ishing the descriptive power of the mean score of 4.8 points (SD=6.92). Figures1 and 2 depict two extremes along the continuum of preservice teachers’ concepts.Figure 2 reveals one future reading teacher’s knowledge of exemplary teaching practicesthat support effective beginning literacy instruction (the nodes representing exemplary

Effective Beginning LiteracyInstruction

Writing

PhonemicAwareness

Syllablication[sic]

Phonics

Clapping

Sounding out

Syllables

Morphemes

Word walls

Sight words High frequencywords

Phonemes

Blending

SpellingGrammar

FIGURE 1 Concept map example revealing no knowledge of exemplary teachingpractices that support effective beginning literacy instruction.

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Effective BeginningLiteracy Instruction

MotivatingClassroom

Atmosphere

PhonemicAwareness

MotivatingInstruction

Letter/soundcorrespondence

Sight words

Chunkmemorization

Decoding

Blending

Centers

Writing Reading

Listening

GroupStructure

Individual

Buddygroup

Smallgroup

Wholegroup

RoomArrangement

Tables

4 to adesk

Individual

Scaffolding

Encouragement

TeacherModeling

Wordrecognition

Decoding

Explicitteaching

Blending

Reading

AR readingStory time

FIGURE 2 Concept map example revealing knowledge of exemplary teaching practices that support effective beginning literacy instruction.

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practices for motivating children are shaded); whereas, the preservice teachers’ maprepresented in Figure 1 is absent of any indicators of such understanding. Althoughthere was a great amount of variability between preservice teachers on the numberof motivating practices they observed, the accuracy with which they identified thosepractices, and the representation of such practices on their concept maps, were the relationsbetween the mapped practices and the number or accuracy of observations statisticallysignificant?

Relation between Number of Observations and Concepts. We first questioned how thequantity of effective reading instruction practices for motivation children (i.e., correctexamples) observed by preservice teachers was related to their knowledge about effectivebeginning literacy instruction. The Spearman rank correlation coefficient (.368) calcu-lated as a measure of the strength of the association between the total number ofeffective teaching practices for motivating children observed by preservice teachers andthe general breadth and depth of their knowledge about effective beginning literacyinstruction (their concept map total point scores) was significant ( p= .015). The moreeffective motivating practices a preservice teacher observed, the more likely he or shewas to reflect these practices in a concept map representing effective beginning literacyinstruction.

Relation between Accuracy of Observations and Concepts. We also wondered howthe accuracy of preservice teachers’ observations of reading instruction practices, thepercentage of all observations that were correctly identified as effective or ineffectivepractices for motivating children, related to their knowledge about effective beginningliteracy instruction. The Spearman rank correlation coefficient (.186) calculated as ameasure of the strength of the association between preservice teachers’ accuracy ofobservation and their total concept map points was not significant (p= .142). Even asa preservice teacher more often observed and correctly identified both examples andnon-examples of effective motivating practices, there was not it seems a tendency for heror him to represent those practices in a concept map.

After further analysis of the relation between the accuracy of preservice teachers’observations and the total number of exemplary teaching practices for motivating childrenthey observed, however, we theorized that perhaps accuracy should not be consideredas a separate variable. This proposition was based on the significant covariance existingbetween accuracy and number of observed effective teaching practices for motivatingchildren. The Pearson correlation coefficient (.633) calculated to determine the strength ofthe association between accurate observations and positive observations was significant( p < .001).

Discussion

Taken together, these findings indicate that guided field observations have the potentialto expand preservice teachers’ content and pedagogical knowledge of effective beginningliteracy instruction to include understandings of exemplary teaching practices foundto positively affect students’ literacy outcomes by promoting motivating classroomatmosphere and providing motivating instruction. Results from our examination of twopossible sources of variance to which we could attribute the differential effects ofguided field observations on preservice teachers’ concepts of effective beginning readinginstruction suggest two conclusions:

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1. Preservice teachers’ ability to observe effective motivating literacy instruction practicesand their knowledge of how these practices relate to effective beginning literacyinstruction seem to be related and

2. Opportunities to observe teachers who use effective motivating literacy instructionmay be more important than opportunities for preservice teachers to observe (and evencorrectly identify) ineffective practices.

On one hand, the number of examples of exemplary teaching practices they observedduring 90 minutes of reading/language arts instruction did positively relate to theirbeliefs regarding effective beginning reading instruction. On the other hand, their under-standing of exemplary teaching practices, revealed by the accuracy of their obser-vations, did not significantly impact their concepts of effective beginning readinginstruction.

It may be that the quality of the motivating instructional practices of cooperatingteachers is important, but it may also be that some preservice teachers were unable todiscern effective practices even when they saw them (Sabers, Cushing, & Berliner, 1991).Because we did not directly observe the cooperating teachers observed by the preserviceteachers, this study is unable to disentangle these two explanations. Future research onthe impacts of experimentally manipulating the quality of motivating literacy practicespreservice teachers observe is needed. It is also possible that the preservice teachersrequired more instruction on the categories of motivating literacy practices that we askedthem to observe for.

The concept maps of approximately half of the 42 participants did, however, revealexamples of exemplary teaching practices either in superordinate or subordinate positions.Although we do not dismiss the 22 preservice teachers who did not demonstrate anyconceptual understanding of exemplary teaching practices, we are encouraged by theresults of this study. After just four hours of instruction on exemplary teaching practices ingeneral, along with three hours of classroom observations of atmosphere, instruction, andmanagement, and a one-hour instructional session describing how motivating atmosphereand instruction look during primary literacy instruction, and an accompanying 90-minuteclassroom observation, 20 students included this information in their diagrams depictingtheir concepts of effective beginning literacy instruction.

Additionally, we discovered a significant covariance between accuracy and positiveobservations. The preservice teachers who were most accurate in their observations werethose who observed many examples of effective teaching practices for motivating children.It may be that preservice teachers were able to recognize exemplary teaching practicesfor motivating children when they observed positive examples; however, their seedlingunderstandings of motivating classroom atmosphere and instruction developed throughpresentations and discussions were not sufficient to allow them to completely discriminatebetween effective and ineffective teaching practices for motivating children.

Many preservice teachers inaccurately described ineffective teaching practices asexamples of effective teaching practices for motivating children. We are particularlyconcerned by three exemplary teaching practices that were infrequently or inaccuratelydescribed because of their potential impact on struggling readers.

The first is “teacher reads outstanding literature.” Only 13 preservice teachers actuallyobserved this practice, which has been found to contribute to students’ vocabulary devel-opment. Students can acquire new vocabulary from listening to stories and books readaloud when the teacher stops to quickly define an unfamiliar word and then proceedswith the reading (Honig, Diamond, & Gutlohn, 2000). This is true for both older and

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younger students. In fact, Stahl, Richeck, and Vandevier (1991) found that sixth-gradestudents were able to learn almost as many word meanings from listening to a story onceas they learned from reading a story once. Fourteen participants noted teachers readingaloud stories from the core reading program, however, as examples of reading outstandingliterature. Although some core programs are more literature based than others, the reasonthey considered this type of read-aloud to be challenging is more disconcerting thanthe lack of quality read-alouds observed. Many of these 14 preservice teachers justifiedtheir observations by the fact that students could not read their basal stories, which weresupposed to be at their instructional level, independently.

Two reading instructional strategies, whose effectiveness with struggling readershave been supported by convergent research findings (National Reading Panel, 2000),also seem to have been misunderstood. Preservice participants inaccurately describedexamples of teaching word recognition skills, as well as scaffolding students’ wordrecognition skills. It seems the importance of explicitly teaching word recognition skillsmay not be understood by mentor teachers either. Only nine preservice teachers observedsuch instruction. Additionally, observations of scaffolding were either of reading coacheshelping struggling readers or, occasionally, the teacher working with small-groups. Onlyone preservice teacher actually witnessed opportunistic one-on-one reading instructionoccurring when students needed help. One-on-one scaffolding need not take the formof scheduled blocks with the teacher working individually with every child let aloneonly the most struggling children. That would be time prohibitive. Rather, opportunisticone-on-one reading instruction or scaffolding can happen in just a few seconds, with theteacher focusing on the issue of one child in a small group, whole group, or while thewhole class works independently on activities and the teacher walks around.

Another interesting pattern emerged from our analyses of preservice teachers’concepts of effective beginning literacy instruction. The majority of exemplary teachingpractices represented on preservice teachers’ concept maps were examples of those thatpromote motivating classroom atmosphere (see Table 2). Although preservice teachersincluded the terms “modeling” and “scaffolding,” two motivating instructional strategies,on their concept maps, they infrequently provided specific examples of scaffolding (e.g.,“one-on-one with teacher”) and modeling (e.g., “teacher models how to pronounce aword”). It appears that the intricacies of primary literacy instruction that motivates andengages students are difficult for preservice teachers understand and describe.

Future Research

There is a need for experimental studies of the effects of reading teacher educationprograms that provide teacher candidates with information on exemplary literacy teachingpractices, those that promote student engagement by providing motivating classroomatmosphere, instruction and management along with guided field observations. Findingsfrom this study suggest that when preservice teachers are provided with information onexemplary literacy teaching practices in college courses and opportunities to witness suchpractices during guided field observations, they may incorporate this knowledge into theirexisting schema of effective beginning reading instruction. We agree with Pressley (2001)that a true experiment is needed to provide evidence of a causal relation.

These experimental studies should be longitudinal, following participants throughstudent teaching and their first year of teaching. Although there exist correlational resultssuggesting a significant relation between teaching competencies and concept mappingrepresentations of effective teaching (VanLeuvan, 1997), future studies should actually

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observe teachers and measure their students’ literacy outcomes. Due to the amountof variance we discovered among preservice teachers, we also recognize a need fordetailed analyses of variables that exist among teacher candidates. Jones and Vesiland’s(1996) interviews and multidimensional scalings for card sorting tasks revealed howstudent teachers changed their knowledge organization while student teaching. Futurelongitudinal studies designed as true experiments should include interviewing as onemethod for examining how coursework and guided field observations influence preserviceteachers’ acquisition and organization of knowledge of exemplary literacy teachingpractices.

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Appendix

Literacy Observation Checklist

Directions: Please indicate (using check marks) the exemplary teachingpractices you observe during a primary reading/language arts instructional

block. In the space provided, you may briefly describe the activity or recordyour impression of its affect on students.

Teaching Practices√

Comments

Variety of group structures (whole, small, etc.)Room arrangement (activity groupings)Cooperative work (buddy reading, etc.)Centers workReading corner/centerOpportunity to read material of interestSelf-regulate—book choiceAcademically demanding subtasksTeacher reads challenging literatureEncouraged to try challenging tasks. Tasks are structured to

assure student successTeacher monitors class to determine who needs help and

what help is neededExtensive scaffolding of reading, especially word

recognition. Encourages decoding strategiesOpportunistic one-to-one reading instruction, occurring

when student needs some helpExplicit teaching of word recognition skillsEmphasis on the sounds of words, including activities on

common word patternsExplicit teaching of vocabulary, including opportunistic

teaching (as words come up) and reteaching (as words arere-experienced)

Explicit teaching of comprehension skills (predicting,summarizing, story grammar)

Many skills (10–20) covered during a combination ofexplicit and opportunistic teaching

Across-time connectionsAcross-curriculum connectionsMuch reading and writing (note types— choral, small-group,

buddy, etc.)Writing in response to literature

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guided field observations: variables related to preservice teachers' knowledge about effective...

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