Involving Student Teachers in Teaching Children with Reading Problems

ABSTRACT

This article discusses a research project in which student teachers were paired with a child with reading difficulties and asked to teach that child regularly over a period of two terms (about eight months). The students were arranged into three groups, each being asked to carry out a different approach to the teaching of their assigned children. The project attempted to evaluate the effects of these arrangements on both the children and the students. Evaluation was largely subjective, but it appeared that the children involved did benefit from the teaching they received. More significant benefits were noted however for the students involved. Because of these benefits, it is argued that such long‐term, one‐to‐one teaching of children with reading difficulties might usefully form a part of initial teacher education programmes.