Teachers’ conceptions of reading comprehension and motivation to read

Abstract

Given the increasing number of immigrant students in the USA initially schooled in Mexico, Central America, and South America, and the dearth of investigations examining the beliefs of teachers from Mexico, Central America, or South America, an exploration of Latin American teachers’ conceptions may inform policy-makers and researchers about teachers in different cultural contexts and provide insight into the types of instruction Latin American immigrants may have experienced before coming to the USA. Teachers’ conceptions of reading comprehension and motivation to read across two cultural contexts (i.e. the USA and Argentina) were examined by analyzing responses from 21 US teachers and 23 Argentinean teachers. Both groups of teachers held views of reading comprehension in partial agreement with cognitive views of reading comprehension but differed in their views of instructional practices for supporting reading comprehension. Differences also emerged for conceptions of motivation and practices to support motivation to read. Knowledge of teacher views can be used by teacher educators to target misconceptions and further develop teachers’ knowledge and skills related to reading comprehension and motivation to read.

Keywords:

• comprehension strategies
• reading comprehension
• motivation
• reading comprehension practices