old habits die hard: literacy practices of pre-service teachers

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This article was downloaded by: [The UC Irvine Libraries] On: 07 November 2014, At: 16:56 Publisher: Routledge Informa Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954 Registered office: Mortimer House, 37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH, UK Journal of Education for Teaching: International research and pedagogy Publication details, including instructions for authors and subscription information: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/cjet20 Old habits die hard: literacy practices of pre-service teachers Renu Gupta a NUS Business School, 1 Business Link, BIZ2 Building , National University of Singapore, Singapore, 117592 Published online: 22 Jan 2007. To cite this article: Renu Gupta (2004) Old habits die hard: literacy practices of pre-service teachers, Journal of Education for Teaching: International research and pedagogy, 30:1, 67-78 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/0260747032000162325 PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE Taylor & Francis makes every effort to ensure the accuracy of all the information (the “Content”) contained in the publications on our platform. However, Taylor & Francis, our agents, and our licensors make no representations or warranties whatsoever as to the accuracy, completeness, or suitability for any purpose of the Content. Any opinions and views expressed in this publication are the opinions and views of the authors, and are not the views of or endorsed by Taylor & Francis. The accuracy of the Content should not be relied upon and should be independently verified with primary sources of information. Taylor and Francis shall not be liable for any losses, actions, claims, proceedings, demands, costs, expenses, damages, and other liabilities whatsoever or howsoever caused arising directly or indirectly in connection with, in relation to or arising out of the use of the Content. This article may be used for research, teaching, and private study purposes. Any substantial or systematic reproduction, redistribution, reselling, loan, sub-licensing, systematic supply, or distribution in any form to anyone is expressly forbidden. Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at http://www.tandfonline.com/page/terms- and-conditions

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This article was downloaded by: [The UC Irvine Libraries]On: 07 November 2014, At: 16:56Publisher: RoutledgeInforma Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954 Registeredoffice: Mortimer House, 37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH, UK

Journal of Education for Teaching:International research and pedagogyPublication details, including instructions for authors andsubscription information:http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/cjet20

Old habits die hard: literacy practicesof pre-service teachersRenu Guptaa NUS Business School, 1 Business Link, BIZ2 Building , NationalUniversity of Singapore, Singapore, 117592Published online: 22 Jan 2007.

To cite this article: Renu Gupta (2004) Old habits die hard: literacy practices of pre-serviceteachers, Journal of Education for Teaching: International research and pedagogy, 30:1, 67-78

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/0260747032000162325

PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE

Taylor & Francis makes every effort to ensure the accuracy of all the information (the“Content”) contained in the publications on our platform. However, Taylor & Francis,our agents, and our licensors make no representations or warranties whatsoever as tothe accuracy, completeness, or suitability for any purpose of the Content. Any opinionsand views expressed in this publication are the opinions and views of the authors,and are not the views of or endorsed by Taylor & Francis. The accuracy of the Contentshould not be relied upon and should be independently verified with primary sourcesof information. Taylor and Francis shall not be liable for any losses, actions, claims,proceedings, demands, costs, expenses, damages, and other liabilities whatsoeveror howsoever caused arising directly or indirectly in connection with, in relation to orarising out of the use of the Content.

This article may be used for research, teaching, and private study purposes. Anysubstantial or systematic reproduction, redistribution, reselling, loan, sub-licensing,systematic supply, or distribution in any form to anyone is expressly forbidden. Terms &Conditions of access and use can be found at http://www.tandfonline.com/page/terms-and-conditions

Journal of Education for TeachingVol. 30, No. 1, April 2004

Old Habits Die Hard: literacypractices of pre-service teachersR.GuptaNUS Business SchoolNational University of Singapore1 Business Link, BIZ2 BuildingSingapore [email protected]

RENU GUPTANUS Business School, 1 Business Link, BIZ2 Building, National University ofSingapore, Singapore 117592

ABSTRACT Reading methodology in pre-service teacher training may not be effectivebecause of the literacy beliefs and practices of the trainees. This paper examines thereading practices of a group of pre-service teachers (n � 29) in Singapore. Their personalapproach to reading revealed that the majority split reading into two domains: leisurereading and academic reading. Trainees use multiple strategies in reading but these areconfined to their leisure reading; for academic reading, they adopt a different set ofstrategies that are geared to remembering rather than comprehension or evaluation. Theserepresentations of reading and the associated strategies are developed and reinforcedduring their schooling. Due to the lack of congruence between the training and trainees’own representations, trainees fall back on remembered routines during their teaching.

INTRODUCTION

As instructors in teacher education programmes, we often assume that our students shareour beliefs about teaching and learning. However, studies find that pre-service teachershave well-developed beliefs about teaching and learning that are resistant to change(Kagan, 1992; Pajares, 1992; Richardson, 1996).

In the area of language education, trainee beliefs can be particularly strong. In alongitudinal study over three years, Peacock (2001) found that pre-service teachers inHong Kong held very different views about effective teaching and learning from theirinstructors and some of the trainee beliefs remained unchanged over the course of theprogramme.

There are two possible reasons why trainee beliefs in language education are resistant tochange. First, there is no clearly defined subject matter knowledge for language. Unlikesubjects such as history and science, language education deals with the development ofskills rather than content knowledge. In the absence of specific subject matter knowledge,trainees fall back on routines they observed during their school days. Second, language isan integral part of everyday life. By the time pre-service teachers reach the university, theyhave spent at least 12 years using language and practising literacy. These practices become

ISSN 0260-7476 print; ISSN 1360-0540 online/04/010067-12 2004 Journal of Education for TeachingDOI: 10.1080/0260747032000162325

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ingrained and may be difficult to change as a large number of studies in the area of teacherbeliefs and reading/literacy have shown (Fang, 1996).

Research studies point to a link between teachers’ beliefs and their actions in theclassroom. Richardson, Anders, Tidwell, and Lloyd (1991) found that teachers’ beliefsabout reading instruction and literacy practices were translated into practice in theirclassrooms. Zancanella (1991) followed five teachers of literature and found connectionsbetween their own reading of literature, their thoughts about literature teaching, and theiractions in the literature classroom. It would seem that in language education, teachers’ ownpractices, their beliefs about teaching and learning, and what they do in the classroom areclosely linked.

Similarly, the beliefs of trainee teachers in Singapore about reading instruction remainedlargely unaltered by the end of their education course (Farrell, 2001; Gupta & Saravanan,1995); the trainees continued to view reading instruction as reading aloud and explainingtext content as they had observed their own teachers doing. In fact, Fisher, Fox, and Paille(1996) mention the difficulty of preparing reading teachers to use strategies that they havenever seen, either because these were not taught when they were in school, or because thecooperating teachers do not use them. It also raises the question: ‘do the trainees actuallypractise the strategies they are being asked to teach?’ This question is examined in the lightof the practices of preservice teachers in Singapore to see how closely they match theprecepts of their education course.

COURSE DESCRIPTION

The study was conducted at the teacher training institute in Singapore. In the schools andat the university in Singapore, English is used as the medium of instruction; however, thestudent’s home language may be different (i.e. Malay, Tamil or a Chinese ‘dialect’).

Twenty-nine pre-service teachers in their third and fourth years at the university on afour-year programme for a combined BA/B.Ed degree participated All had chosen tospecialise in English language. They had all taken courses in reading methods for theprimary school level and completed two to three terms of teaching practice in the localschools. Hence, this group already had some formal background in both the theory andpractice of reading instruction.

The data were collected during an elective course in reading research. The courseconsisted of 13 lectures and weekly tutorials. As the instructor, I assumed that traineeswere fluent readers because they had been reading in English for more than 14 years. Thecourse was designed to make their automatised reading processes transparent so thattrainees could understand the rationale behind the techniques used in reading instruction.Accordingly, the course covered two areas, cognitive processes and strategic reading.Under cognitive processes, the students read articles on schema theory, the role of priorknowledge, and the use of text structure. The second component, strategic reading,emphasised that fluent readers use strategies such as summarisation, prediction, story

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Literacy Practices of Pre-service Teachers 69

grammar and text structure, prior knowledge, and self-questioning (for research reviews,see Goldman & Rakestraw, 2000; Pressley, 2000).

Data Collection and Analysis

In the end-of-term assignment, participants were asked to reflect on their own readingbehaviours and evaluate their strengths and weaknesses as readers. Such personal literaciesare frequently used in reading instruction research to tap trainee beliefs and attitudestoward reading (Bean, 1994; Blachowicz & Wimett, 1995; Many et al., 1998). Throughsuch personal histories or personal literacies, trainees can explore their own beliefs andattitudes towards literacy; these accounts can also help make trainee assumptions explicit,alerting instructors to potential problems (Knowles & Holt-Reynolds, 1991).

For the assignment, trainees were asked to limit their assignment to five pages, whichforced them to marshall their ideas and express them succinctly. Although these self-re-ports may not be reliable indicators of actual behaviour, they indicate either beliefs that thetrainees hold or at least a recognition that the instructor considers certain behavioursimportant.

These assignments were then analysed according to the strategies mentioned in theirassignments and categorised, using the students’ own phrases. In the analysis that follows,the numbers in parentheses indicate how many trainees discussed each strategy in theirassignments.

Differences among Readers

From a preliminary analysis of the self-reports, two reader profiles emerged that corre-spond to the categories created by Manna and Misheff (1987). The two categories—Trans-actional Readers and Reduced Readers—are based on how trainees perceive the act ofreading rather than their proficiency in reading. The Transactional Readers interact withthe text to create meaning and enjoy reading; the Reduced Readers, on the other hand,perceive reading as painful and are reluctant readers. In this study, only three participantscan be considered Transactional Readers; the majority of the participants were ReducedReaders (n � 26).

The Transactional Readers

The three participants who fall in this group represented the task of reading as strategyselection and use, based on purpose and text difficulty. They discussed the differentreading strategies they used for fiction, car/computer manuals, and texts in differentlanguages (Chinese versus English), where task requirements and prior knowledge madethem vary the goals they set. One student drew a distinction between his approaches to acar manual (where he had prior knowledge) and computer manuals (of which he knewlittle).

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During their reading, this group used an active meaning-making strategy that was basedon context and prior knowledge. They did not use a linear approach to articles butoverviewed the text, using the title, illustrations, and sub-headings to pick up informationbefore they even began reading the text. One student scribbled notes in the margin of thetexts that were in the nature of reactions (such as ‘I see!’) rather than memory aids. Shecalled it ‘having a conversation with the writer and giving my point of view’.

These three trainees had a wide repertoire of strategies. More important, their conditionalknowledge of when to apply certain strategies was defined by their purposes, textdifficulty, and prior knowledge.

The Reduced Readers

The second group of trainees, who formed the majority, represented reading in a verydifferent way. In their self-reports, all 26 trainees drew a sharp distinction between readingfor leisure and academic reading. Under leisure reading, the trainees included novels,newspapers, and local magazines. Academic readings, on the other hand, are done at theuniversity for examinations and assignments, and consist of assigned journal articles andtextbooks. Trainees who are doing English Literature included their course novels andpoetry under academic reading.

This distinction between leisure-time reading and academic reading has also been noted byHsui, Vanniarajan and Poedjosoedarmo (1994) in their survey of the reading habits of thesame population (n � 163). Although their respondents had a positive attitude to reading,90% preferred to read leisure-time books and some indicated that academic books were‘deterrents to the love of reading’.

Strategies in Leisure Reading

In leisure reading (i.e. for newspapers, novels, etc.) the trainees adopt a non-linearapproach, reading selective portions of the text and using strategies that help them readrapidly. They do not read word-by-word (9); some explicitly stated that they adopt anon-linear strategy (3), in which they do not read sections in the order they are laid outbut move back and forth in the text depending on interest. When they encounter anunfamiliar word, they either skip it (10) or use the surrounding context to deduce itsmeaning (5). Thus, the trainees do not expend more effort than is necessary to obtain thegist of the material.

This strategy of selectively reading portions of the text may not be very efficient and attimes could mislead the reader. For example, one student in discussing the book PoliticallyCorrect Bedtime Stories by James Finn Garner wrote that ‘the title of the book has alreadygeared me towards reading predictable fairy tales’. Clearly, she did not know the meaningof the phrase ‘politically correct’ and had skipped it while reading the title. Even when shefinished the book, she did not realise that the ‘twist in all the tales’ was intentional. Despite

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Literacy Practices of Pre-service Teachers 71

TABLE I. Strategies used for leisure reading

Skip unknown words 10Do not read word-by-word, read selected sections 9Use context to deduce meaning 5Skip sections that are not understood 3Non-linear strategy 3Read for pleasure 1Read blurb to form a schema 1

the fact that sometimes these strategies are used inefficiently, they exist in the trainees’repertoire in the domain of leisure reading.

Strategies in Academic Reading

The strategies used for leisure reading disappear entirely in trainees’ academic reading. Intheir academic reading, trainees’ over-riding concern is with a need to remember thematerial (9). This drives a need to understand the text fully (2). Academic texts should be‘comprehended fully’ (in the words of one student). Another student contrasted newspa-pers, magazines, and light reading with reading academic texts: ‘My purpose of readingacademic text is to gather new information and to understand it fully. The ultimate aim isto answer assignment and examination questions’.

This desire to ‘comprehend the material fully’ drives the strategies that the trainees use.First, trainees feel that if they read slowly, they will comprehend the text (10). One studentsaid that she takes four to six hours to read a single article and another student said: ‘I haveto try to get a firm understanding of the text that I read. Thus I tend to plod on instead ofbreezing through.’ A third student wrote: ‘When I am given a text and told that the textis important or abstract, I tend to automatically read as slowly as possible trying to makesense of every sentence and even words at times as I go on’.

Second, trainees consider it necessary to read carefully. One student said that she neverskims (1) and another said that ‘skimming is a waste of time’ because she misses importantinformation. This strategy is not unusual among college trainees; Snyder and Pressley(1990) found that college trainees have a single strategy for reading academic articles—they read the text from beginning to end.

Seven trainees said that they read the text at least twice, slowly the first time and slightlyfaster the second time. Rereading also seems to serve the purpose of a memory aid (1).

Because of this slow and careful approach, trainees have developed a specific set ofstrategies for academic reading that are qualitatively different from those they use forleisure reading. To provide focus for their reading, some rely on class lectures as a guide(3). Trainees paraphrase or summarise while they read (15). Some read every word in the

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TABLE II. Strategies used for academic reading

Pre-Reading StrategiesUse lectures to focus reading 3Look for topic sentences 3Look for overall text structure 3Read summary/abstract for overview 2Examine table of contents 2Examine sub-headings 2Use title to predict or focus 1Skim text for overview 1Look for keywords 1Examine illustrations 1During ReadingParaphrase or summarise while reading 15Read every word, line by line 10Look up unfamiliar word in the dictionary 9Skip figures and numbers 4Deduce meanings of unknown words 4Never skim 2Stop at unknown words 1Read out loud for concentration 1Comprehension FailureReread on comprehension failure 17Abandon reading on comprehension failure 4Read out loud on comprehension failure 3Examine main points or signalling devices 1Beliefs about ReadingReading slowly helps comprehension 10Poor concept of self, views self as a slow reader 9Need to remember information 9Need to read entire text at least twice 7Need to understand it fully 2Rereading helps remembering 1

text, line by line (10), stop at every unknown word (1) and look up the unfamiliar wordin the dictionary (9).

As one approach to academic reading, this set of strategies could help trainees attain theirgoals. Unfortunately, this approach is the only one that trainees have and when it fails,trainees lack the flexibility to switch to another approach. This comes thorough when theydiscuss their approach to comprehension failures. Only one student mentioned that shechanges her strategy and begins to examine main points or signalling devices. Themajority handle comprehension failure by either rereading the relevant section (17) orreading the relevant section out loud (3).

When the comprehension failure persists, a number of trainees abandon the text (4).Besides rereading or reading out loud, they do not seem to have any alternatives at hand,which one student described as follows:

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Literacy Practices of Pre-service Teachers 73

My major weakness is my limited repertoire of reading strategies. I notice thatI often employ the same strategies to combat comprehension failures. Forexample, when I fail to understand, I either re-read or continue reading thesubsequent material for clarification ... Sometimes when these strategies fail tosolve a problem, I am at my wit’s end. Since I do not know of any otherstrategies, I have no choice but to skip that problematic part in the text.

This slow and careful approach to academic texts differs from the non-linear selectiveapproach trainees use with leisure reading. A few trainees carry over strategies from theirleisure reading; some examined the table of contents (2), used the title to predict or focus(1), looked for topic sentences (3) or keywords (1), or skimmed the text for an overview(1). But the number who do so is surprisingly low.

The reason for this lack of transfer is that they undervalue these strategies. In commentingon skimming, one student wrote, ‘On one hand, it is good to skim through the text to geta “rough” idea of what the text is about but on the other hand, it takes up too much timein reading’. Another student said that she reads the topic sentences in each paragraph—butonly when she is short of time. These remarks indicate that trainees are aware of strategiessuch as skimming and text organisation devices, but undervalue them in the academiccontext.

The result is a plodding approach geared to memorisation, which has two effects. First, itleads to a dislike of reading and loss of confidence. For a number of trainees, academicreading is not interesting, and for some it is downright ‘painful’. One student bluntly said,‘I hate reading such work’. It also leads to lack of confidence; a number of trainees ratedthemselves as poor readers or as slow readers (9).

Second, since so much effort is expended on comprehension and memorisation, fewresources are left for responding to the text, with the result that the reading becomesuncritical. Instead of questioning the material, trainees question their own understandingof the material. One student said: ‘I seem to have the notion that theory and critics havenothing to do with myself’. In such reading, there is far more self-questioning thanquestioning of the text. Trainees are unaware that they could (and should) question theauthor’s point-of-view.

In short, this group (i.e. the reduced readers) sees academic reading as involving a differentset of strategies from those they would employ when reading for leisure. They representreading in the academic domain as the task of remembering and adjust their strategiesaccordingly. Thus, the representation that they have formed of the task defines the kindsof strategies they use.

How did trainees acquire such a representation of reading? From the remarks of onestudent, these strategies were acquired during school days when they were expected toread each text three to four times:

I suppose I formed this habit after continuous drilling from my teachers that we

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must always read through the material first, familiarize ourselves with it and thenread slowly and carefully. But whether this is a good strategy or not, I am notsure.

The self-reports indicate that for the majority of trainees the skill of reading is sharply splitbetween what they do for leisure and what they do for academic tasks. Because thepurposes are so different, they adopt different strategies for the two domains; for theirleisure reading they use a wide range of strategies that are qualitatively different fromthose adopted for their academic reading. Their approach to academic reading wasacquired and reinforced during their formal school instruction, and from the trainees’self-reports, they persist even at the university.

Impact of the Course

The course in reading research was designed to make the reading processes and strategiestransparent to the teacher trainees so that they could better understand their readingmethods courses. During the course, all the trainees were able to link the readings tonarrative texts; for example, in their class presentation, six trainees used narratives toillustrate strategies such as the use of prior knowledge in comprehension and guessingmeaning from context.

However, their personal literacies revealed that the majority confined these strategies tonarratives/leisure reading and did not transfer them to expository texts/academic reading.In the domain of academic texts, trainees fell back on their beliefs that: (a) the purpose ofreading was memorisation, and (b) the strategies had to be geared to careful reading withno questioning of the ‘facts’. In the examination, when they were asked to analyse thestructure of an expository text from a school textbook, 11 trainees used the terms‘understanding’ and ‘remembering’ interchangeably.

None of this would be important if we were merely discussing the reading practices ofuniversity students. However, these reading practices become critical in the case of teachertrainees because they are translated into classroom practice. This carry-over was observedwhen the trainees entered classrooms during teaching practice. In their reading lessons,they were observed doing the following:

• Trainees make their pupils read the given text carefully and underline all the words theydo not understand. Trainees then provide pupils with definitions or synonyms for thesewords.

• Trainees treat all text information as equally important; they expect pupils to read textscarefully and then recall minor details from the text. Since trainees cannot distinguishbetween levels of information in texts, they face problems teaching summary writing,which requires the ability to distinguish between main points and minor details.

• Trainees treat the information in the text as ‘true’; they do not ask their pupils tocritically evaluate the truth value of textual information.

In sum, trainees have a fairly wide repertoire of reading strategies but they restrict them

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Literacy Practices of Pre-service Teachers 75

FIG. 1. Pre-service teacher beliefs about reading.

to the domain of leisure reading. Since school texts are predominantly expository, traineesteach only a small subset of reading strategies and school students are thus not exposedto the full range of reading strategies.

DISCUSSION

This study was conducted to identify the prior beliefs held by trainee teachers aboutlanguage education, particularly reading instruction. Since teachers who teach reading arealso practising readers, their own reading behaviours and beliefs work as lenses throughwhich they absorb, engage with, or dismiss what they encounter in their reading methodscourses.

The results of this exploratory study with trainee teachers in Singapore show a lack ofcongruence between their own literacy practices and what they are taught in their methodscourses. The majority of the trainees use reading strategies that are significantly differentif not contrary to what they are taught to do when they teach. These trainees distinguishedbetween leisure reading and academic reading, using radically different reading strategiesfor the two domains. Their courses in education mapped onto their literacy practices in theleisure domain but there was practically no match with their practices in the academicdomain. For example, trainees skip difficult words in their leisure reading which is therecommended practice in their methods and theory courses; however, in their academicreading, they stop to look up the meanings of unknown words.

Although the sample used in the study is small, the findings raise some important issues.First, the mismatch between the course content and trainee beliefs may remain hidden. In

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the present study, trainees appeared to be in complete agreement with content that stressedstrategy instruction; the fact that they had mapped the course content solely to the leisuredomain and ignored the academic context was not obvious to anyone until one readsthrough their personal histories. The instructor needs to probe to uncover mismatchesbetween the course and trainees’ mental models. Unless these underlying beliefs areexamined, the instructor will not realise that trainees have filtered out a large part of thetraining programme.

The second issue is what gets transferred to the classroom when trainee teachers beginteaching. Observation during the practicum showed that trainees were not using any of thetechniques taught in their methods courses. One reason could be that they fall back on the‘apprenticeship of observation’ (Lortie, 1975), but it is equally likely that they weretransmitting their own practices and beliefs about how academic reading (as opposed toleisure reading) should be taught.

Finally, these beliefs about literacy are deeply ingrained because they have been reinforcedthrough years of practice. Before trainees can be expected to learn new techniques ofteaching reading, they may have to modify their own literacy practices. This is not easyto do. These literacy practices have served the trainees well—they enabled trainees tosucceed in the examination system and enter universities—and trainees are understandablyreluctant to switch to radically different ways of reading.

It is difficult to change trainee beliefs in language education. Trainee teachers spend severalyears observing teachers and practising language; they have well-developed theories aboutteaching and learning that are difficult to alter. However, researchers have found effectiveways to help trainees align their practices, beliefs, and teaching with the goals of aneducation programme. In the area of writing instruction, Shrofel (1991) asks trainees to actas writing tutors and discuss issues with their classmates at a writing workshop; thistechnique forces trainees to articulate their beliefs and compare them with the readings intheir methods class. Similarly, Grossman (1991) describes a class on writing where traineeteachers perform a task and the instructor then asks them to switch roles and critique theactivity from ‘the other side of the desk’. Through such techniques, trainee teachers beginto question their usual practices so that they can adopt less traditional modes of teaching.

Sometimes, trainee teachers are asked to teach techniques and strategies that they neverlearned or mastered. This was clearly the case with the trainees in this study; their ownliteracy practices left them ill-equipped to teach students strategic reading. This is acommon problem in the area of reading instruction. In such cases, trainees need practiceand experience using the strategies they have to teach. Mosenthal, Schwartz, and MacIsaac(1992) trained pre-service teachers to use a new reading strategy and gave them amplepractice in using it; the results showed that the pre-service teachers developed a betterunderstanding of what reading involved and how to teach it.

Clearly, trainee teachers’ misconceptions about reading and reading instruction can bechanged. However, first we need to recognise that they bring their own literacy practices

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Literacy Practices of Pre-service Teachers 77

to the classroom and that these may be incorrect or inadequate for teaching. When weknow more about trainees’ own literacy practices, we can begin to address their miscon-ceptions about reading and reading instruction.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

I would like to thank Viniti Basu for her helpful comments on this paper.

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