How preservice teachers teach literacy, for real

This study examined the field experiences, literacy experiences and reflections of preservice teachers (PSTs) in relationship to development of their instructional literacy practice. The objective was to establish a better understanding how PSTs develop their instructional literacy practices. This is a qualitative study using PSTs reflective journals, lesson-sharing feedback, transcripts from a focus group and a series of personal interviews as well as in-classroom observations of literacy related instruction as primary sources. Data was analyzed using sociocultural theory guided by Rogoff’s (2003) three planes of learning and development: the personal, the social and the community-institutional. The author found the PST’s developing literacy practices were primarily influenced by their early literacy experiences, their early field experiences, the literacy practices observed from the cooperating teacher (CT) and, to a much lesser extent, coursework.