Blanche Podhajski, Ph.D., Dana Osowiecki, Ph.D., and Maureen Burke, M.S.Ed.

Professional development is a way for teachers to keep up-to-date with the most current and effective teaching strategies in order to extend, improve, and renew practice. All too often, professional development takes the form of a one or two day workshop with no additional follow-up. Contrast that experience with an intensive 35-hour workshop followed by 10 mentoring sessions with a master teacher, who collaborates with you to identify opportunities in your unique classroom setting and to integrate new ideas with existing practices. Master teachers and researchers at the Stern Center for Language and Learning have worked together to develop such a program for primary educators.

A Model Professional Development Program for Educators: T•I•M•E® for Teachers

When the National Research Council published their decisive report "Preventing Reading Difficulties in Young Children", they emphasized both the importance of the research foundations of reading and ongoing, supportive, professional development for teachers. Equipping teachers with research validated skills to teach reading promotes efforts to increase literacy (Snow, Burns, & Griffin, 1998). Reading is a fundamental skill that provides the foundation for further learning, with the future academic success of students dependent on the ability to read. Primary teachers are expected to teach reading effectively, often with little explicit education in this area. Many of the most popular teacher education programs in use today focus on literature, illustrations, cross-disciplinary thematic units, and motivational strategies for children. While all of these are important features, teachers often receive little training on the actual structure of our language and how children learn to read the words on the page (Stein, 1993).

Our program, T•I•M•E® for Teachers, is designed to provide teachers with research based best practices in reading instruction. T•I•M•E® is an acronym for Training in Instructional Methods of Efficacy. Initiated in 1995 to address the dual concerns of incomplete reading instruction and teacher preparation, T•I•M•E® offers classroom teachers of students in the primary grades an opportunity to extend their knowledge about how children learn to read and what they can do to tailor reading instruction to meet the needs of different kinds of learners. Receipt of a six-year grant from a private Vermont foundation has allowed us to provide public school teachers in Vermont with a robust professional development program at no cost to participants. T•I•M•E® contains two important elements: 1) an intensive, 35-hour course of didactic study in how the language works and how it supports extracting meaning from text, and 2) a year-long mentorship whereby teacher participants have access to mentor colleagues to facilitate application of new learning in the classroom.

T•I•M•E® concepts can augment any type of reading program that may be used by individual classroom teachers, schools, or school districts. The program builds on existing teacher strengths, with each teacher’s individual knowledge and skills being incorporated into the mentoring process. For example, newer teachers may need additional time to learn skills, with the mentor modeling strategies in the classroom. More experienced teachers may choose to develop their own lesson plans and have the mentor provide constructive suggestions.

Mentoring: Teachers teaching Teachers

To provide students with quality learning experiences teachers welcome opportunities to keep abreast of current research and teaching practices in order. However, when considering time constraints and the fact that primary school teachers are often responsible for teaching all of the content areas (science, mathematics, social studies, etc.), choosing the most appropriate reading instruction can be a daunting task. In addition, teachers often attend professional development workshops, courses, and symposiums regarding new reading approaches, only to find that although the course might have been interesting, they were not provided the tools to incorporate the new information into their existing programs. Providing a teacher with supportive mentoring helps that teacher to implement the new knowledge within the classroom, and offers that teacher immediate feedback. A mentor is available to answer a teacher’s specific questions about reading throughout the school year and can help a teacher explore and understand how different students may need different instructional approaches to learn to read successfully. As part of the mentoring experiencing, T•I•M•E® mentors assured accomplishment of the following objectives:

•assessing students levels of phonological awareness
•formulating a lesson plan based on information gleaned through assessment which might include rhyming, segmentation, sound manipulation, blending, and letter-sound awareness
•analyzing children’s spelling to better understand their phonological development
•developing activities based on word patterns and syllable types
•generalizing phonological awareness and word pattern knowledge to different types of text

As one teacher stated, "Due to the fact that the sessions took place during the school day, and that they were only one month apart, I could gain information and strategies for teaching as I needed it. I faced many challenges throughout the school year, but I always knew my mentor was only a phone call away." In addition, mentors met as a group on an ongoing basis to share teaching strategies and discuss the effectiveness of course materials.

Primary teachers need the knowledge and skills in order to implement a myriad of reading strategies that will be compatible with the diverse learning styles of students. T•I•M•E® teaches teachers to understand the basic relationships between speech and print, with the goal of integrating knowledge of structured language with classroom practice regardless of individual reading philosophies. Access to highly skilled teachers will be the key to whether all children learn to read. What we have found at the Stern Center is that the best way to ensure that teachers retain and use new knowledge in their classrooms is to provide them with their own mentor colleague to demonstrate and assist them in putting this knowledge into practice.

Evaluation of teacher knowledge before the course, after the course, and after the year of mentorship indicates that, in our program, levels of knowledge increased and were sustained throughout the school year. The next step will be to contact teachers who participated in the first three years of the course to evaluate long-term effects of the program. We feel that mentoring is a crucial component with regard to implementation and sustainability because information is best learned when it is modeled, questioned, and applied.

Teacher Perspectives on T•I•M•E®

Teachers participating in the course had an average of fifteen years of teaching experience, with a range from first year teachers to those with 32 years of experience. Participation in T•I•M•E®, for both new and experienced teachers, keeps teaching fresh in addition to developing new skills.

The most frequently reported reactions to training, received via course evaluations, have been queries from participants as to why this information about how the language works had not been made available to them in their undergraduate and graduate teacher preparation programs. In addition, few had been exposed to mentoring relationships. This is consistent with research indicating that teachers rarely have the experience of watching various experts at work, or receiving regular on-site supervision (Lyon, Vassey & Toomey, 1989). Teacher participants appreciate that this new information is designed to augment rather than replace existing classroom reading instructional programs. As teachers noted:

"[This course] helped me to fine tune and be more explicit with my teaching."

"I learned many concepts and strategies that were not discussed in my undergraduate courses that will help me serve and meet my students’ needs."

"What was most helpful about this course [T•I•M•E®] was that it exposed teachers to the research on reading and writing development and linked it to instructional practice. Also, for many of us who are not Speech/Language Pathologists, this basic knowledge about the structure of our language was missing in our teacher preparation."

Teachers report feeling empowered to use this knowledge in their regular classrooms as well as to collaborate more effectively with reading specialists, special educators, and speech/language pathologists working with their students. Greater understanding of the basics of language may reduce the number of students referred to special education due to reading difficulties, and special education resources can be more appropriately targeted towards students in need of more intensive services.

Teachers reported overall high levels of satisfaction with T•I•M•E®:

"It was great having someone to bounce ideas off of, having someone to talk to, to be sure that I’m ‘on the right track.’ Encouragement!"

" My mentor always had quick answers to my many questions along with resources which she could list. She helped me clarify my thinking and her demonstration lessons were invaluable."

" Regular monthly review kept what I learned during the summer[course] in the forefront of my practice."

" Through the mentoring, I was able to ask questions and get answers as they came up. It was great to receive modeling and support to try new things. I had to apply what I learned because my mentor would be checking in."

Literacy demands that both teachers and students know how language works. Mentoring can provide the link between that knowledge and implementation in the classroom. Empowering teachers with both information and in-classroom demonstration and modeling fosters the crucial connection between knowledge and practice.

References

Lyon, G.R., Vassey, M., & Toomey, F. (1989). "Teachers’ perceptions of their undergraduate and graduate preparation." Teacher Education and Special Education, 12, 164-169.

Snow, C. Burns, S, and Griffin, P. (1998). Preventing Reading Difficulties in Young Children. Washington, DC: National Academy Press.

Stein, M.L. (1993). The Beginning Reading Instruction Study, Washington, DC: US Government Printing Office.