The last 30 years have provided a wealth of research that helps us better understand the complexity of learning to read and write. And while most reading professionals agree that the extensive body of research on reading provides helpful direction to teachers, they caution that it does not point to any one method of reading instruction that is superior and effective for all learners.
So, what do effective teachers of reading know and do? Using the Knowledge Base in Reading: Teachers at Work seeks answers to this complex question using a collection of classroom vignettes that illustrate how 10 Northwest teachers are providing children with opportunities and support for becoming better readers and writers. In primary classrooms, teachers are shown helping students attend to the alphabetic principle and learning how print carries a message. In the intermediate and upper grades, teachers are shown helping students expand the range and control of their reading strategies.
“We hope that readers will enjoy visiting these classrooms and learning from the knowledgeable—and diverse—teachers they will meet there,” say authors Dr. Jane Braunger and Dr. Jan Patricia Lewis. “These teachers represent rural, suburban, and urban settings, various student demographics, a range of teaching experience, and various teaching styles. While we chose these teachers to illustrate good teaching practice, they are anything but uniform in their literacy instruction.”
| "The teachers have a passion for learning and for books, which they model for children." |
Teachers featured in the publication include: Karl Wolf, a kindergarten teacher at Central Elementary School in Helena, Montana; Christy Holtman, who teaches first grade at Whitson Elementary in White Salmon, Washington; Mary Loughlin, who has taught at Sabin Elementary in Portland for 21 years; Cindy Martindale, a kindergarten teacher at Williwaw Elementary in Anchorage; Jacquie Whitmore, who teaches a first- and second-grade multiage class at Polaris K-12 Optional School in Anchorage; Marty Pellman and Elva Cerda, both of whom teach Spanish immersion at Government Hill Elementary in Anchorage; Joanne Johnson, who works with intermediate readers and writers in the Springfield, Oregon, public schools; Donna Mikkelson, a teacher at Meridian Middle School in Meridian, Idaho; and Barry Hoonan, who teaches in a fourth-, fifth-, and sixth-grade multiage classroom on Bainbridge Island, Washington.
While particular issues may predominate at certain stages of literacy learning, the reading process in the classrooms highlighted in Using the Knowledge Base in Reading always focuses on meaning, helping children expand what they know about the world, about language, and about print to become engaged and independent readers.
The vignettes illuminate research-based principles, or “core understandings,” about reading in action—for example, reading as a constructive, meaning-making activity; the variety of ways that children develop phonemic awareness and a knowledge of phonics; and the importance of opportunities to read. These 13 core understandings were introduced in Building a Knowledge Base in Reading, a previous publication by Braunger and Lewis.
The teachers featured in Using the Knowledge Base in Reading have a passion for learning and for books, which they model for children. They are confident that their students will learn to read, and that they will find personal and social uses for literacy that will keep the process going, helping them to become effective, reflective readers.
“I think teachers need to remember what it’s like to be learners,” kindergarten teacher Cindy Martindale explains in the book. “If you’re not a learner yourself, I don’t think you can be as effective with kids.”
Braunger and Lewis underscore the importance of a teacher’s approach to reading instruction. “In visiting these classrooms, we’ve been impressed—often dazzled—by the skill with which these teachers make reading accessible and enjoyable for children,” note the authors. “This is not to say that reading comes easily for all the children we observed, but in these classrooms, children are learning how to solve reading problems and monitor their growth as readers.”
For Braunger and Lewis, the starting place for the vignettes—the teachers’ knowledge in action, turns out to be a fine conclusion as well.
“Our journey has shown us that while there is no one best method of teaching reading,” they say, “there is something we can and should bank on for children’s success in reading: teachers’ knowledge about the learners in their classroom and the process of learning to read.”
Using the Knowledge Base in Reading: Teachers at Work can be purchased for $12.95 from the International Reading Association. The book is also available as a set, along with Building A Knowledge Base in Reading, for $23.25. For ordering information, contact IRA by phone at 1-800-336-7323, extension 266, or by mail at 800 Barksdale Road, Box 8139, Newark, DE 15714-8139.
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Date of Last Update: 9/28/01 
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