What is the problem?
- When she was a teacher herself, Dr. Washburn and many of her peers struggled to teach reading effectively. They noticed that many of their students were failing state exams, which she later learned stemmed from a lack of knowledge on how to decode.
What are Dr. Washburn’s biggest findings?
- Dr. Washburn conducted several survey studies to assess teacher knowledge at three different points: during preservice, inservice, and post-graduate studies.
- In her surveys, Dr. Washburn found that no matter at what point teachers are in their education, teachers tend to do well at teaching implicit skills, such as being able to count syllables in words. However, they struggle with teaching the more explicit skills, such as phonics. This is likely due to the technical knowledge required.
- She also found that it does not matter how many literacy courses teachers have taken when deciding a teacher’s effectiveness.
- However, preservice teachers who were taught by teacher educators who had strong content knowledge tended to do better than those who were not. Additionally, these teachers tended to also be involved in professional development, specifically in literacy.
What can teachers do to improve their effectiveness in teaching reading?
- For all students, especially older students, using structural analysis to decode and understand what words mean is very important.
- Teaching morphology, the study of word formation, supports increased word recognition and vocabulary. Also, teaching morphology that is most relevant to a particular content area can be crucial to unlocking the words’ codes and meanings.
- Learning more technical words and skills, such as phonology and morphology, could also increase a teacher’s effectiveness. In their formal education, many teachers were not afforded the opportunity of explicit instruction in these areas.
Dr. Washburn suggests a few resources for teachers to boost their knowledge of effective literacy instruction:
- Multisensory Teaching of Basic Language Skills by Judith Birsh - understanding of basic language constructs
- WordWorks by Peter Bowers - how to teach and investigate morphology, etymology, and phonology
- LETRS with Louisa Moats - build teachers’ understandings of the structure of the English language
- What Works ClearingHouse, the new IES Practice Guides - summary of research on foundational skills and recommendations for practice
- Reading 101 from Reading Rockets
- Florida Center for Reading
To learn more about Dr. Washburn’s studies, listen to the podcast listed below in Original Source.
