Being able to read plays an important part in a person’s success in society (Snow, Burns & Griffin, 1998) and therefore it is critical that reading is taught in the most effective manner to ensure that all children become proficient readers. The teaching of reading has been widely researched, debated and commented on by researchers, politicians, educators and journalists for many years worldwide. Carnine et al. (2010) suggests that there are often four different perspectives which teachers hold when it comes to teaching reading. An overview of each follows as the writers’ characterisation of reading depicts the different ways the Pre-Primary teachers in this study may perceive their role and the difficulties their students may experience learning to read.
Carnine et al. (2010) suggest that the first perspective to teaching reading is a pessimist perspective because it is characterised by schools and teachers blaming factors, such as socio-economic status, low IQ, unstable family situations, class sizes, resources for reasons why children aren’t acquiring adequate reading skills. If teachers hold this perspective of teaching reading then they are unlikely to reflect on their own instructional practices when
55 teaching reading for reasons why their students aren’t reading at age appropriate levels. In 1955 Flesch reflected on these teachers by asking:
How do the educators explain all the thousands and thousands of remedial reading cases? This is what really got me mad. To them, reading failure is never caused by poor teaching....Reading failure is due to poor eyesight, or a nervous stomach, or poor posture, or wicked heredity, or a broken home...The teacher or the school are never at fault (p.18).
The second perspective is the generalist’s perspective which is where the school has the philosophy that they can improve their students’ reading skills by providing a whole school literacy approach with many different teaching strategies which supposedly underpin successful reading skills. This philosophy about providing students with a whole range of different literacy tasks places emphasis on the fact that students will learn how to read regardless of the instruction or tasks (Carnine et al., 2010).
The third perspective is based on the constructivist theory which means that the major emphasis is placed on the role of the individual students with regards to their reading success and understanding (Carnine et al., 2010; DEST, 2005). Teachers that hold this viewpoint are more concerned with the ‘meaning making’ rather than teaching phonics and phonological awareness. In Australia, this is referred to a ‘whole language’ approach where the school adopts the policy of students progressing at their own rate and learning to read is considered to be as natural as learning to speak (which the research states is not true). It is therefore interesting that the NITL report (2005) found that many new graduates in Australia were beginning teaching with this Constructivist philosophy and had little content knowledge about how to teach and what to teach when it came to the foundational skills of reading (DEST, 2005). A constructivist approach to teaching reading is based upon the premise that learning to read is a natural process and that it should be ‘taught’ implicitly as the need arises and through reading experiences. In the constructivist approach the teacher addresses children’s errors in their reading at the time of reading, or asks them to use visual clues (picture clues) or have a guess at the word from the context of the sentence or story.
The whole language approach to teaching reading in New Zealand was the approach taken from 2003-2007 as recommended by the Ministry of Education’s document in 2003 titled,
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Effective Literacy Practice in Years 1-4 (Ryder, Tunmer & Greaney, 2007). This document states that phonological awareness is important but that it should be taught in the context of real reading and not in isolation through explicit instruction. Donnelly, (2012) was quoted in ‘The Australian’ national newspaper, claiming that the whole language approach to teaching reading was the preferred and promoted method of teaching reading in Western Australian universities and primary schools during the 1990’s and the First Steps resources (Western Australian Ministry of Education, 1992) used in the 1990’s in Western Australia are reflective of the whole language approach to teaching reading and literacy. Further media reports have quoted Devine (2012), Donnelly (2012) and Hiatt (2012b) as claiming that some Australian universities and schools still remain aligned with the whole language approach to teaching reading even though there is overwhelming evidence to support the fact that it is not effective in teaching beginning reading.
The fourth perspective to teaching reading is where teachers take full responsibility for the reading abilities and achievements of their students. Carnine et al. (2010) described the fourth perspective as a:
Direct instruction viewpoint, which assumes that if teachers analyse tasks to be learned thoroughly, sequence instruction carefully, construct clear instructional presentations, and provide systematic practice, review, and application, they will be able to provide children with success in school, regardless of the outside conditions that may put the children at risk (p.4).
This fourth perspective is the premise for this study as the approach to teaching phonological awareness, phoneme awareness and phonics and improving the teachers’ efficacy and understanding are at the core of this research. Direct instruction is about teaching phonological awareness and phonics in an explicit and efficient manner. An important difference to this perspective is the responsibility that the teacher takes for the reading success of their students (Carnine et al., 2010). Proponents of Direct instruction state that with their instruction all students can succeed at reading. If students are having difficulties with reading then the teacher feels that they must change their instruction, not blame the child or accept that they are experiencing reading difficulties. Direct instruction is based on sound and current research on reading and literacy (Carnine et al., 2010).
57 Lyon and Weiser (2009) suggest that teachers, educators and administrators stop blaming factors such as race, socioeconomic factors, and parental involvement for reading failure of young children and instead start looking at the type of instruction used and teacher knowledge and understanding. They also emphasised that teachers should not be caught up in the debate about whole language instruction verses phonics/explicit instruction but rather focus on providing a good reading program which should include many elements of reading including; phonological awareness, phonics, comprehension, fluency and vocabulary.
Shelton (2010) cited research by Hoffman, Duffy-Hester and Ro (2000) who surveyed 1,207 teachers in American schools and reported that teachers were not “polarised in their ideology or instruction” and that they were more likely to “adopt a balanced, eclectic perspective” (p.315). Fielding-Barnsley and Purdie (2005) also found that teachers were positive about both approaches to teaching reading. However the research in this area emphasise that systematic phonics instruction is necessary in order to provide emergent readers with the building blocks required to become a successful reader (DEST, 2005). Rose (2006) encourages this view, noting that “it is implementing the principles which define high quality phonic work that should engage settings and schools, rather than debating entrenched views about less importance aspects of phonics teaching” (p.4). He is not alone in articulating this viewpoint:
Over the past three decades, researchers have made substantial progress in understanding how children learn to read and what types of scientifically based reading instruction (SBRI) are most likely to ensure that the greatest number of children will be successful in learning how to read. Current legislation requires the use of SBRI practices that explicitly and systematically provide instruction on the big ideas of beginning reading (i.e., phonemic awareness, phonics...) and provides a drive for school systems to select comprehensive and evidence-based core reading and supplementary programs” (Lyon & Weiser, 2009, p.475).