Teaching Reading Methods: How do Pre-Service Teachers Understand the Experience of Learning to Read?

Abstract

It is common in teacher education programs to require a course in language arts (including reading) methods, at least for students preparing to be elementary teachers. Not all students approach such a course enthusiastically, but generally they acknowledge its importance and so are there fairly willingly. The question, obviously, for those of us who teach these methods courses, is how we can best prepare students to be teachers of reading. I would like first to sketch two approaches to the study of reading, one a traditional approach and the other, a more experience-based stance toward reading. That is followed by a discussion of the possible contributions which the insights of reading experience can give to methods teaching.