Literacy Leadership

Empowering Teacher
CANDIDATES
Using the lessons I learned to help preservice teachers
support readers in the primary grades

By Jennifer Green

a S A PROFESSOR of literacy and elementary education, I have the privilege of preparing

future educators to teach students who are experiencing difficulty with reading and
writing. Our class meets in a “laboratory” setting—an elementary school—where teacher
candidates learn how to conduct and analyze literacy screeners. Most important, the
teacher candidates learn how to use assessment data to plan intervention lessons for
their case study with a struggling reader in second or third grade.
In the majority of the cases, we discover the road to proficient reading is blocked by
the student’s difficulties with reading words. That is, the child struggles to make meaning
in large part due to a lack of phonemic awareness and/or knowledge of phonics.

The importance of creating efficacious teachers

Building teacher efficacy is one of the primary goals of the course. Efficacy is the level
of confidence that teachers have regarding their ability to influence student learning.

16 literacyworldwide.org | January/February/March 2024 | LITERACY TODAY

 Literacy Leadership
The teacher candidates’ professional by most struggling readers, I also readers in the primary grades, the
growth and confidence are fostered struggled. I was woefully unprepared assessments usually point us toward
through intensive clinical work with to help her, and I was extremely phonemic awareness and phonics.
their case study students. Gathering frustrated with myself. We focus on research-based
assessment data and delivering hours I cared and I tried, but it was practices for building students’
of instruction allows them to learn a busy, chaotic year for me as a visual-orthographic memories and
from the challenges faced by the new teacher. I admit that Monica improving decoding of words and
student. did not make much progress that connected text. These effective
By the end of the semester, year and went on to middle school practices represent big ideas in the
observational and survey data from at a great disadvantage. Though I class that resonate with teacher
the class demonstrate an increased did not influence her trajectory, I candidates, according to end-of-
sense of efficacy and empowerment vowed to change my own. I enrolled course reflections. They are as
regarding how to meet readers at in a graduate program for special follows:
their point of need. This perceived education, participated in a reading
competence for helping students who clinic that focused on evidence-based ■ Using the gradual release of
struggle to read was not something practices, and spent the next decades responsibility (I do, we do, you
that I possessed when I began learning and growing as a classroom do) to explicitly teach phonemic
teaching in the 1990s. teacher, reading interventionist, and awareness and phonics
literacy coach. ■ I ntegrating graphemes (letters)
I have met many other “Monicas” and the alphabetic principle
Leaning into experiences through the years, but her story into the phonemic awareness
with struggling readers is etched in my memory. My year segment along with intentional
with her paved the way for me connections with the phonics
During the first week of class, I
to help hundreds of students in objective
share a personal story about how the
the years to come. Currently, in
struggle endured by one particular ■ I ntertwining decoding
my role as a teacher educator,
student in my early years of teaching (reading) and encoding
I continue this journey in the
continues to drive me 30 years (spelling) experiences
hopes that teacher candidates will
later. I began teaching in the era of throughout the lesson to build
enter the field armed with better
whole language and my teaching sight vocabulary
knowledge and skills for helping all
program espoused the creation of a ■ Using high-quality decodable
students learn to read and write.
literacy-rich classroom and joyful, books to practice reading
immersive learning experiences. connected text with the taught
There was no talk of data-driven
Translating big ideas phonics skill(s)
instruction or explicit, systematic
lessons on phonemic awareness into practice ■ P roviding immediate,
corrective, and supportive
and phonics. Rather, I was led to Our course is framed by what the
feedback throughout the lesson
believe that reading would come National Reading Panel concluded to
naturally to all students as long be the pillars of reading: phonemic
as I created ample opportunities awareness, phonics, vocabulary, As teacher candidates
for them to interact with language fluency, and comprehension. incorporate the big ideas into lessons
and the world around them. Within this framework, I also week after week, they not only help
I soon discovered that reading include extensive discussion and their striving readers to grow, but
and writing were not natural consideration of the important roles also to become experienced and
processes for many of my students, of spelling in learning to decode and comfortable with these practices.
the majority of whom were English writing to express comprehension. It is my hope that they will carry
learners who had not received direct The lesson plan template includes these skills forward as part of their
instruction in phonics in the primary the five pillars with the expectation professional tool chest, which will
years. And for Monica, a fifth grader that the teacher candidates plan empower them to help countless
who was reading like a first grader, individualized instruction according students learn to read and write well
the language arts block was anything to data. Again, with struggling in the years to come. ■
but joyful. It was stressful. She did
her best to fly under the radar. She
mumbled along during choral reading
and excused herself to use the
restroom to avoid being called upon to
read. She strategically placed herself
near others who would allow her to Jennifer Green ([email protected]), an ILA member since 2019,
copy. She hid under tables during is an assistant professor of elementary education at Georgia
writing workshop, scribbling pages Gwinnett College.
of gibberish. As Monica wrestled
with the daily anxieties experienced

LITERACY TODAY | January/February/March 2024 | literacyworldwide.org  17