Pre-Service Teachers are Competent in Phonological Processing Skills: How to Teach the Science of Reading

Abstract

Approximately 20% of students experience reading failure each year. One of the difficulties associated with this large percentage is that it has been documented that pre-service teachers may not be receiving the most appropriate training regarding reading acquisition. The present study sought to determine if pre-service teachers were proficient in phonological processing skills and thus capable of learning concepts for which these skills are prerequisite. One-hundred sixty-four participants (85 pre-service teachers and 79 non-education majors) were administered the Comprehensive Test of Phonological Processing (CTOPP). The results indicated that pre-service teachers’ phonological processing skills were sufficiently developed and not significantly different from non-education majors or from the CTOPP's normative sample. These students have the ability to learn the concepts related to the science of reading. Components of an appropriate curriculum for pre-service teachers such that they can acquire this knowledge are discussed.

Notes

¹The term the “science of reading” refers to the corpus of knowledge that includes what science has determined to be relevant to reading, reading acquisition, assessment of poor reading, and the interventions available for poor readers. The science of reading involves precisely what science has discovered to be relevant not only to reading, its subskills, and reading acquisition but how to modify experiences such that poor readers can become competent readers. This knowledge includes phonology, phonics, orthography, fluency, vocabulary, comprehension, neuro-processing as it relates to reading and its genetic basis, visual, perceptual and memorial processing, the various writing systems, the alphabetic principle, and letter-sound correspondences, among other areas.

²The data were also evaluated with multivariate analysis of variance with the same results.