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Article Excerpt
Nationally, stakeholders have been concerned about the reading proficiency levels of their elementary students (Canney, 1998, 1999; National Reading Panel, 2000; No Child Left Behind Act, 2001; Snow, Burns & Griffin, 1998). They understand that highly qualified teachers are a vital factor in student reading achievement (Anders, Hoffman, & Duffy, 2000; Darling-Hammond, 1996; Duffy & Hoffman, 1999). As of August 2002, all Idaho preservice K-8 teachers have been required by law to pass the Idaho Comprehensive Literacy Assessment (ICLA) as one of several conditions for certification. (For a more complete description of the rationale, development, and performance of the ICLA, see Squires, Canney, & Trevisan, 2004). This article examines data from nine statewide administrations of the ICLA during a period of 3 years to identify areas of literacy content knowledge and research-based pedagogical practices for which preservice teacher candidates did and did not evidence good understanding.
Brief History of the ICLA
In 1997, a committee of more than 30 teachers, legislators, business representatives, the State Board of Education, and two higher education personnel was given the task of collecting information about how well Idaho students were doing in reading. In their teacher survey of reading practices and concerns, distributed statewide to all elementary and special education K-8 teachers, more than 5,000 elementary and special education teachers (83%) identified which reading practices they preferred, as well as areas in which they needed more information and assistance. They reported helping struggling readers as their number one concern; they also requested information on how to teach reading comprehension and how to assess students having difficulty in reading (Idaho Comprehensive Literacy Committee, 1998).
Canney (1998, 1999) conducted a statewide study of 938 Idaho fourth-grade students, finding that between 21% and 62% tested below grade level in reading, depending on which of six measures of reading performance were consulted: Iowa Test of Basic Skills (Hoover et al., 1993), Qualitative Reading Inventory II (Leslie & Caldwell, 1995), Stanford Diagnostic Reading Tests (Karlsen & Gardner, 1995), and classroom teachers' ratings of the overall reading proficiency of each student in their classrooms. Shortly after the results of this survey were presented, a report on reading from the National Institute of Child and Human Development (Snow et al., 1998) concluded that struggling readers typically lacked adequate direct instruction in phonological and phonemic awareness, phonics, word recognition, and fluency.
The Idaho legislature then commissioned a private reading clinic in Idaho and several legislators to craft the Idaho Comprehensive Literacy Plan K-3 (Glaser, 1998), using information provided by the Idaho Literacy Committee and the research literature. This led to three laws being enacted: Reading instruction must follow research-based best practices leading to every Idaho student reading on grade level by the end of third grade (Idaho Statute 33-1615; Extended Year Reading Intervention Program, 1999); K-3 students not reading near grade level were to be afforded a 40-hr summer reading intervention program (Idaho Statute 33-1616; Evaluations and Interventions, 1999); a test of K-8 preservice candidates' knowledge of research-based content and pedagogy related to reading instruction and assessment would be developed (the ICLA) and candidates required to pass the test to receive elementary or special education certification (Idaho Statute 33-1207A; Teacher Preparation, 1999). To recertify, in-service K-8 teachers and school principals would have to pass either the ICLA or a specific three-credit course (Idaho Comprehensive Literacy Course [ICLC]) about literacy theory and research-based best practices.
Passage of 33-1207A prompted an examination of teacher preparation in reading at Idaho's seven teacher preparation institutions. Some institutions had been offering the minimum six semester credits in developmental reading stipulated for elementary certification without any course work in reading diagnosis and intervention. Other institutions offered more credit hours in reading but as elective hours for those seeking a reading minor. Depending on the institution, candidates might or might not have access to instruction in phonological and phonemic awareness, phonics, or fluency. Direct instruction as a pedagogical option, especially for at-risk readers, might not be addressed if the professors were proponents of a holistic approach to reading instruction. All this changed, suddenly, with the passage of the three Idaho laws on literacy.
Almost immediately, a group of Idaho educators, including classroom reading teachers and literacy professors, began framing what would eventually be known as the Idaho Comprehensive Literacy Plan K-8. Using a normative disciplinary approach (Shulman & Quinlan, 1996), this committee identified the essential knowledge, performance, and disposition skills required of preservice teachers of reading, divided by grade levels K-3, Grades 4 to 6, and Grades 7 to 8, and presented their work to a group of more than 125 Idaho educators for final consideration. Unlike the original Idaho Comprehensive Literacy Plan K-3 adopted by the Idaho legislature, the scope for the content of literacy programs was expanded to include a more in-depth focus on building vocabulary, reading comprehension, critical thinking, reading both narrative and expository genres, and the writing process for Grades K-8. This became the framework that the higher education literacy faculty would employ to devise Standards I, II, and III for the ICLA and the ICLC three-credit course for in-service teachers and principals seeking recertification.
In November of 1999, one or two literacy faculty members from each institution of higher education, a dean from one of the colleges of education, and two external (to Idaho) literacy consultants met to begin framing the ICLA. The initial model of reading adopted by the ICLA committee favored early, direct, and systematic decoding instruction with attention to the automatic, that is, the fluent exercise of decoding to comprehend text. This view of the reading process reflected a strong focus on phonological and phonemic awareness, phonics, and fluent word recognition used by the private clinic to remediate its clients' reading difficulties. The ICLA committee expanded the model of reading, however, to include a heavy emphasis on vocabulary development and reading comprehension instruction--which became Standard II of the ICLA. Finally, recognizing that teacher candidates needed to know how to assess students' reading performance, identify areas of strength and need, and intervene effectively, the ICLA committee developed Standard III with its focus on reading assessment and intervention. The content of Standards II and III were both areas that many Idaho elementary teachers had identified as requiring more attention in their preparation programs.
Where conflict arose between faculty supportive of direct-instruction models for reading and faculty holding to whole-language principles, lengthy discussions led to compromise decisions about what content to include. A fundamental point of agreement was that candidates could not teach what they did not know; therefore, the committee agreed that it was appropriate to assess candidates' knowledge of the content of reading skills and strategies as well as their ability to correctly cite relevant research to support their essay responses about various pedagogical practices. Although the Idaho law called for a measure of candidates' ability to use their content and pedagogical knowledge to teach children to read, without any state funding for this project, it was concluded that candidates' written responses to classroom vignettes would have to suffice. Later the argument would be made that each institution used more than a candidate's passage of the three ICLA standards to determine that candidate's readiness to be certified to...
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