are colleges teaching how to teach reading?

I am in California and one of the biggest credential programs at the college I attend is the Reading Specialist Credential. A Masters is also available for being a reading specialist. Of course the bulk of the teachers getting a multiple subjects credentail only have to take several classes in reading for their credential so that explains why some of them are so unprepared to teach reading in the real classroom.

In an article entitled “Ensuring tomorrow’s literacy: A shared responsibility,” Nolen et at reported that only 29 states required elementary teachers in training to have course-work specific to reading instruction, and even in those states only about 12 hours of graduate training was mandated. This article was published the Journal of Teacher Education in 1990, vol. 41. Nothing has changed since then, I assure you.

There are exceptions, but for the most part teachers are rather ill-prepared for teaching reading. Anecdotally lots of them have said as much to me — even more feel okay about “teaching reading” in a general way but feel completely out of their element if a kid seems to be having trouble. Somehow that whole bunch of kids who don’t easily pick it up become “special needs”… when they wouldn’t have to be.

My experience getting a Master’s in LD was, I believe, with 2 or 3 reading classes… a generic overview of different reading methods and strategies, a course in helping secondary kids with content reading, and a summer course actually working with kids who were way behind in reading. Absolutely none of them taught me the structure of the language — that happened when I started teaching and my middle schoolers were reading at a third grade level so I tried different things, researched different things. Regular elementary teachers get less. Then there are the schools out there that teach stuff that doesn’t work for lots of kids, but they spend their time and money defending their right to do it and crying about being persecuted. An elementary curriculum course I took was taught by a wonderful whole-language supporter, and he taught us lots of really neat ways to promote language skills. I did my paper for him questioning whole language. He had a few defenses that made sense but most of them were “well, it doesn’t *have* to be taught that way, a teacher *can* include more phonics” which doesn’t help the thousands of kids who *are* taught that way. And a lot of serious questions he simply ignored. (And I got an A in the course… but he didn’t give a grade on the paper at all, just said “I think you know how I feel about this” — gee, his feelings are keeping kids illiterate, but I wouldn’t want to hurt his poor feelings… how about thinking?)

Just how much of a national reading problem we have BECAUSE teachers are doing a lousy job is actually debatable. Yes, things can improve. Some of the kinds of improvements that may need to be made really call for more $$$ to be poured into early intevention programs for experientially “deprived” youngsters who begin school already 2 or more years BEHIND. In other words, the problems the press and the president are squawking about were there from the get go and throwing temper tantrums at teachers will make a small difference, but there is a long way to go for a large segment of children.

Excuse my tirade here. Thanks.

Personally, I think that colleges teach reading rather generally. This works for most kids but while handling reading when a kid is having problems requires very specific knowledge and skills which aren’t always taught in college.

I spoke at length this week to the new resource teacher at my son’s school. She has a master’s degree from a top ranked university. We were discussing the programs she uses—PG, LIPs, among others. Her comment to me was, of course, they don’t teach you any of this in school. She was fortunate to have a master teacher who mentored her in her first job and helped her get trained when she started.

Interestingly enough, she is getting pressure from district people here to use the same old programs they have been using, rather ineffectively in my opinion. The classroom teachers are unnerved by the change from what they knew as remedial programs.

Guess I think there is an element of preserving what we’ve been doing no matter what, low expectations for LD kids, and a lack of
specific skills training.

I think many colleges/degrees do not teach you the practical skills that you will actually need to use in your career. My husband went to 3 years law school, none of which taught you how to actually practice law, just theories and reading case law. I received my Master’s degree in Elementary Education 3 years ago, so hopefully the program has changed since then. But 3 years ago, they were teaching Whole Language as the only way to go; if you immerse a child in books and more books everything will work out. (My dyslexic child has proved this wrong!). They did not mention phonics (alright maybe they spent 10 minutes at some point and I can’t remember) or reading comprehension, or phonemic awareness. When I asked my Teaching Reading professor about educational testing for students that could not learn to read despite positive learning and home environments, she said NO as it could “label” the child. I don’t think my degree actually taught me much, unfortunately.

Yes-I’m in the Masters Special Ed program at SJSU and I’m happy to report whole language is merely an adjunct-just a part in a diversified, systematic program that stressess phonemic awareness, comprehension and different critical strategies for reading. All students in the K-8 education programs need to take this 6 credit class. It also goes into different types of record keeping and assessment vehicles to use. My kids “went through” whole language and suffered-its a relief having it as a small piece. My six yr old is learning to read in first grade-his teacher does weekly records to see where all her students are and recommends any that seem to struggle for more specialized help-way before a two yr gap has occured. FYI-The California Dept. of Education has a bulletin titled “Teaching Reading-A Balanced Comrehensive Approach” On pg 3 it states as one its second bullet—Must have an organized, explicit skills program that includes phonemic awareness, phonics, and decoding skills

First, you are ABSOLUTELY correct about district pressure and perspective. I am a SpEd prof at a large local university. My students are delighted when I tell them they can return their ‘required texts’ for the quality materials they will need to actually teach kids how to read (and be effective sped teachers)! On the flip side, I am also a part time resource teacher (primary). My district knows that I teach at the collegiate level and that I practice what I preach (i.e. RR, LIPS, etc.). Nothing gives me greater joy than to sit in an IEP and tell a parent that I can help their child, and not just ‘accomodate’ or ‘modify’. Nothing irks a school district more than having a teacher who is qualified in such methods, and heaven forbid, teach others about them!!!

Hi Olivia, I know exactly what you are talking about! I was hired by my new school district to tutor two MR students in Phono-Graphix and when it worked, the administrator was furious!! Can you imagine that? They sent a Reading ‘specialist’ to my class to observe me teaching reading and she hasn’t got back to me on training other teachers in the county. I don’t really care any more. I just do my thing and remediate my students and then they go either teamed classes or out of sped entirely. There are way too many kids in sped because of their lack of being taught, thanks whole language. I don’t accommodate my kids, I remediate them.

Student teaching under an excellent reading teacher is the best teacher. 2nd is a good basel with a good skill scope and sequence and an administration that believes in spending more time on teaching reading than any other subject in the elementary grades. Anyone who has good teacher’s manual can teach. I have seen too many new teachers begin teaching thinking tht they know much better than any of the expeienced teachers. No administrator monitors watches to see that they are teaching the curriclum. After about about 5 years of failure they come around and begin to ask experienced teachers for suggestions. Teachers have to be held responsible for teaching the curriculum. The problem is that there are not many administrators out there who understand how to teach reading and the administration gets caught up in the latest trends and buzz words of the day. Administrators, knowing nothing about how to teach reading, tend to go along with the latest fad so that they look as though they are current. It would be better to teach old fashion reading with readers rather than some of the new fads. I went to a large University and never learned anything about teaching reading. I became an excellent reading teacher because I have a great interest in reading and have read everything that I can find on the latest RESEARCH, not the latest FADS on reading.

We all took reading methods classes, but it is all theory and woouldn’t prepare anyone to go out on their own with no help from some experienced teachers. The only difference is that when I began teaching we respected a teacher with experience. We had rules to follow. We couldn’t just decide to do our own thing. The difference between teachers beginning now and he experienced teacher is that the teachers who began teaching over 25 years ago came into the school district with rules. Now the teachers come in with rights. They believe that they have rights to do whatever they think is important, regardless what reasearch has proven.

Right on Sue

People are so busy defending their rights, that kids don’t learn. I learned how to teach reading because I had a strong interest in it and constantly read everything that I could get my hands on about different methods and programs.

A master teacher is the best help for a beginning teacher. Years ago our Superintendent always paired an excellent master teacher with every new teacher. We had an excellent district then. After he left and many followed him things just kept falling apart and the new administrators, hired from outside the district don’t have a clue as to how great our district was and how high our scores were. They stopped giving standardized tests so we have no data so the taxpayers don’t know how bad off the district is. We have a reading crisis in our district and the people who determine our curriculum and purchase our books don’t even know it. and they won’t listen to teachers who do know.

Happy to see that you are teaching at a college. We need more of your kind.