Pull Up a Chair and Listen to Them Write: Preservice Teachers Learn From Beginning Writers

Abstract

This qualitative study was conducted in the context of a preservice teacher education program with a focus on early literacy. The study focused on the insights preservice teachers gained from working closely beside one emergent writer. The authors report on six focus cases and identify five cross-case themes—describing preservice teachers who (a) approached young children’s efforts to compose texts with deep appreciation regardless of the child’s level of development; (b) deeply valued the time spent near a young writer and described their own learning as emanating both from the writer and the writing; (c) gained an understanding of how literacy emerges/develops, and made efforts to take up the discourse of literacy teachers; (d) talked sensitively about the importance of their teaching moves—the “just right” invitations or steps that enabled children to take risks; and (e) valued the purposeful writing that emanated from children’s interests and lives and motivated them to write. The findings are interpreted within Grossman’s (2011) framework for reenvisioning teacher education as “practice” supported by representations, deconstructions, and approximations.