Delivering Well Prepared Teachers Policy
West Virginia requires all elementary teacher candidates to pass the Praxis Teaching Reading: Elementary Education (5203) test as a condition of initial licensure. This test addresses all five instructional components of scientifically based reading instruction: phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary and comprehension.
In its coursework requirements for elementary teacher preparation programs, West Virginia also requires programs to address the science of reading. Elementary teacher candidates must take nine credit hours of reading, which include a focus on the components of scientifically based reading, as well as how to assess students' reading ability and how to identify and correct reading difficulties.
Elementary teacher candidates must be prepared for the key instructional shifts related to literacy that differentiate college- and career-readiness standards from their predecessors. The Teaching Reading test—under the heading "reading comprehension strategies across
text types"—requires teachers to know "how to select and use a variety
of informational, descriptive, and persuasive materials at appropriate
reading levels to promote students' comprehension of nonfiction,
including content-area texts."
Neither teacher standards nor certification assessments address incorporating literacy into all academic subjects.
The state's Teaching Reading:
Elementary Education test addresses the needs of struggling readers by
requiring candidates to know "how diagnostic reading data are used to
differentiate instruction to address the needs of students with
difficulties."
Incorporate informational text of increasing complexity into classroom instruction.
West Virginia is on the right track with its Teaching Reading: Elementary Education test, which addresses knowledge of informational texts. However, the framework does not appear to adequately capture the major instructional shifts of college- and career-readiness standards. The state is therefore encouraged to strengthen its teacher preparation requirements and ensure that all elementary candidates have the ability to adequately incorporate complex informational text 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, West Virginia should also—either through testing frameworks or teacher standards—include literacy skills and using text to build content knowledge in history/social studies, science, technical subjects and the arts.
West Virginia reiterated that the state currently requires reading instruction/course hours. The state added that most institutes of higher education do require 36 plus hours for Elementary Education Programs, and requiring a content specialization in an academic area in addition to elementary education exceeds the state's Higher Education Policy Commission (HEPC) policy that establishes 120 hours as the maximum. West Virginia added that the state has the same (or higher) cut-scores than most states in the nation.
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.