“Sometimes I do this thing”: Exploring preservice teachers’ knowledge and beliefs about reading instruction

Prior research has established preservice literacy teachers’ beliefs about teaching and learning are often misguided and/or overly-simplistic, yet limited work has examined in what ways their in-the-moment teaching decisions align or misalign with what they believe. This qualitative study used deductive analysis methods to: (1) Identify three preservice teachers’ knowledge/beliefs about reading, reading instruction, and learning, as evidenced by their planning, reflecting, and in-the-moment teaching decisions, and (2) investigate if/how participants’ knowledge/beliefs manifested across multiple teaching experiences. Findings indicate that while participants made attempts to act on professional ideas they explored/practiced with the support of a university-based mentor, they taught most consistently in strong alignment with their deepest-seated beliefs. Those beliefs frequently represented (mis)understandings (Gelfuso, 2018) about teaching, learning, and reading, and mirrored the procedures/priorities of participants’ internship contexts. Findings also indicate participants’ most salient (mis)understandings were in relation to: (a) The purpose of elementary reading instruction, (b) what it looks like/sounds like to model and guide children, and (c) what it means to learn. Implications/recommendations for preservice literacy teacher educators are discussed, as well as possible future research directions