Section archive - Instruction in Teacher Training

The authors discuss the 19 individual studies included in chapter 4 of the report of the National Early Literacy Panel (NELP). The authors offer more nuanced conclusions than the report’s authors do. The authors also emphasize the need for more comprehensive approaches to shared story reading in preschool than those found in the studies available to the NELP for its meta-analysis.

The authors argue that although the National Early Literacy Panel report provides an important distillation of research, the manner in which the data are reported underrepresents the importance of language. Unlike code-related skills that develop rapidly during the years studied, language develops over an extended time span. Because it is relatively difficult to devise interventions that dramatically alter children’s language abilities, the authors of this response are concerned that schools will target the more malleable code-based skills.

The current paper discusses the potential positive and problematic influences of the National Early Literacy Panel report on prekindergarten and kindergarten classroom instructional practice. The authors support the instructional importance of the majority of the foundational skills identified in the NELP report. However, the authors argue that the NELP report is both insufficiently clear and overly narrow with respect to what preschool teachers should be focusing on instructionally in early literacy.

The purpose of this study was to examine how social studies is being taught in 21st-century social studies classrooms. 281 secondary social studies teachers from across the United States completed the online survey regarding their teaching practices. The data indicate that teachers clearly utilize passive methods more frequently than they do methods considered to be active and engaging. The actual classroom teaching practices of social studies teachers do not align with relevant literature supporting more authentic learning strategies, further expanding the gap between theory and research.