Elementary Teacher Preparation in Reading
Instruction: Alabama
Delivering Well Prepared Teachers Policy
Analysis of Alabama's policies
As a condition of initial licensure, Alabama requires all elementary teacher candidates to pass the Praxis Teaching Reading (5204) test, which addresses the five instructional components of scientifically based reading instruction: phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary and comprehension.
Alabama's Quality Teaching Standards also address the science of reading instruction.
Elementary teacher candidates must be prepared for the key instructional shifts related to literacy that
differentiate college- and career-readiness standards from their predecessors. Elementary teachers in
Alabama are also required to pass the revised Praxis II Elementary
Education: Multiple Subjects (5001) test. The reading and language arts
subtest includes some of the instructional shifts toward building
content knowledge and vocabulary through careful reading of
informational and literary texts associated with these standards.
However, although the framework now addresses complex texts, it does so
only in the context of measuring text complexity and does not
address how to also incorporate increasingly complex texts into
instruction.
The Teaching Reading test framework includes only a vague reference
to "recognizing the differences in kinds of texts and their various
uses."
The Alabama Quality Teacher Standards
state that "effective teachers...model and actively teach their students the fundamentals of reading, writing, and oral communications across all content areas." The standards require that teachers must have the "ability to integrate reading
instruction into all content areas that one teaches."
Alabama's Teaching Reading assessment indirectly
addresses struggling readers by requiring that a teacher "understands a
variety of strategies to differentiate instruction" and "uses assessment
data to inform instruction."
Alabama's teacher standards require "knowledge of assessment tools to
monitor the acquisition of reading strategies, to improve reading
instruction, and to identify students who require additional
instruction."
Recommendations for Alabama
Ensure that new elementary teachers are prepared to incorporate informational text of increasing complexity into classroom instruction.
Alabama's adoption
of the new Multiple Subjects test is a step in the right direction.
However, neither the Multiple Subjects framework nor the framework for
the state's Teaching Reading test adequately captures all the major
instructional shifts of college- and career-readiness standards.
Alabama is therefore encouraged to strengthen its teacher preparation
requirements and ensure that all candidates who teach the elementary
grades have the ability to address the use of informational texts as
well as incorporate complex informational texts into classroom
instruction.
Ensure that new elementary teachers are prepared to incorporate literacy skills as an integral part of every subject.
To ensure that elementary students are capable of accessing varied information about the world around them, Alabama should also—either through testing frameworks or teacher standards—more specifically include literacy skills and using text to build content knowledge in history/social studies, science, technical subjects and the arts.
Support struggling readers.
Alabama should articulate more specific
requirements ensuring that elementary teachers are prepared to
intervene and support students who are struggling. The early elementary
grades are an especially important time to address reading deficiencies
before students fall behind.
Monitor new reading assessment to ensure adequacy and rigor.
Although it is commendable that Alabama now requires elementary teacher candidates to demonstrate knowledge of reading instruction, the test selected by the state is actually intended for reading specialists and accordingly spans the entire K-12 spectrum. The state should monitor this assessment to make sure it really is rigorous and an appropriate measure of teachers' knowledge of and skill in scientifically based early reading instruction. The track record of Praxis assessments in this regard is mixed at best, and the K-12 span might make it possible for candidates to achieve the passing score without sufficient knowledge and skills for the elementary classroom.
State response to our analysis
Alabama was helpful in providing NCTQ with facts necessary for this analysis.
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Alabama
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Delivering Well Prepared Teachers
- Admission into Teacher Preparation
- Elementary Teacher Preparation
- Elementary Teacher Preparation in Reading Instruction
- Elementary Teacher Preparation in Mathematics
- Early Childhood
- Middle School Teacher Preparation
- Secondary Teacher Preparation
- Secondary Teacher Preparation in Science and Social Studies
- Special Education Teacher Preparation
- Special Education Preparation in Reading
- Assessing Professional Knowledge
- Student Teaching
- Teacher Preparation Program Accountability
Expanding the Pool of Teachers
Identifying Effective Teachers
- State Data Systems
- Evaluation of Effectiveness
- Frequency of Evaluations
- Tenure
- Licensure Advancement
- Equitable Distribution
Retaining Effective Teachers
Exiting Ineffective Teachers
Pensions
Research rationale
Reading science has
identified five components of effective instruction.
Teaching children to read is the most important task
teachers undertake. Over the past 60 years, scientists from many fields have
worked to determine how people learn to read and why some struggle. This science
of reading has led to breakthroughs that can dramatically reduce the number of
children destined to become functionally illiterate or barely literate adults.
By routinely applying in the classroom the lessons learned from the scientific
findings, most reading failure can be avoided. Estimates indicate that the
current failure rate of 20 to 30 percent could be reduced to 2 to 10 percent.
Scientific research has shown that there are five essential
components of effective reading instruction: explicit and systematic
instruction in phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary and
comprehension. Many states' policies still do not reflect the strong research
consensus in reading instruction that has emerged over the last few decades.
Many teacher preparation programs resist
teaching scientifically based reading instruction. NCTQ's reports on teacher
preparation, beginning with What
Education Schools Aren't Teaching about Reading and What Elementary Teachers
Aren't Learning in 2006 and continuing through the Teacher Prep Review in 2013 and 2014, have consistently found the
overwhelming majority of teacher preparation programs across the country do not
train teachers in the science of reading. Whether through standards or coursework
requirements, states must direct programs to provide this critical training. But relying on programs alone is insufficient; states must only grant a license to new elementary teachers who can demonstrate they have the knowledge and skills to teach children to read.
Most current reading
tests do not offer assurance that teachers know the science of reading.
A growing number of states, such as Massachusetts,
Connecticut and Virginia, require strong, stand-alone assessments entirely
focused on the science of reading. Other states rely on either pedagogy tests
or content tests that include items on reading instruction. However, since
reading instruction is addressed only in one small part of most of these tests,
it is often not necessary to know the science of reading to pass. States need
to make sure that a teacher candidate cannot pass a test that purportedly
covers reading instruction without knowing the critical material.
College- and career-readiness standards require significant shifts in literacy instruction.
College- and career-readiness standards for K-12 students adopted by nearly all states require from a teachers a different focus on literacy integrated into all subject areas. The standards demand that teachers are prepared to bring complex text and academic language into regular use, emphasize the use of evidence from informational and literary texts and build knowledge and vocabulary through content-rich text. While most states have not ignored teachers' need for training and professional development related to these instructional shifts, few states have attended to the parallel need to align teacher competencies and requirements for teacher preparation so that new teachers will enter the classroom ready to help students meet the expectations of these standards.
Elementary Teacher Preparation in Reading Instruction: Supporting Research
For
evidence on what new teachers are not learning about reading instruction, see NCTQ,
"What Education Schools Aren't Teaching About Reading and What Elementary
Teachers Aren't Learning" 2006) at:http://www.nctq.org/nctq/images/nctq_reading_study_app.pdf.
For
problems with existing reading tests, see S. Stotsky, "Why American Students Do Not Learn to Read Very Well: The Unintended Consequences of Title II and Teacher Testing," Third Education Group Review, Vol. 2, No. 2, 2006; and
D. W. Rigden, Report on Licensure Alignment with the Essential Components of Effective Reading Instruction (Washington, D.C.: Reading First Teacher
Education Network, 2006).
For
information on where states set passing scores on elementary level content
tests for teacher licensing across the U.S., see chart on p. 13 of NCTQ "Recommendations for the Reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, Removing the Roadblocks: How Federal Policy Can Cultivate Effective Teachers," (2011).
For an extensive summary of the research base supporting the instructional shifts associated with college- and career-readiness standards, see "Research Supporting the Common Core ELA Literacy Shifts and Standards" available from Student Achievement Partners.