Abstract
There is a push within literacy education for strengthening explicit phonics instruction. State- level training and legislation have been implemented to provide teachers with professional development to deepen their understanding of phonics and expand effective instructional practices for explicit phonics instruction. This same training is needed within university programs training pre-service teachers. Within the early literacy methods course, undergraduate teaching majors learn about phonics skills as one component of effective literacy instruction. Pre-assessment data collected on phonics skills provided insight for teaching needs. After teaching lessons on phonics skills and explicit phonics instruction for multiple weeks, students were assessed on their ability to identify and label syllable types. Multiple data sources showed an alarming deficit in students' individual abilities to segment words into syllables and identify syllable types. Based on student work during class, the average score for correctly dividing words into syllables and labeling each syllable type was 44%. A graded multiple-choice phonics assignment after continued instruction on phonics patterns and syllable types resulted in 67% of phonics pattern questions answered correctly and 56% of syllable type questions answered correctly. This data highlights the need for devoting much time to deepening individual growth of phonics understandings as well as instructional practices for teaching phonics. This instruction for preservice teachers should include explicit phonics instruction to assist with understanding how the brain encodes words as well as using phonics pattern knowledge to decode words through processes such as splitting words into predictable syllable patterns to correctly sound out unknown words.
Recommended Citation
Sigmon, Miranda
(2023)
"Proficiency and Pedagogy: Preparing Preservice Teachers of Early Literacy By Uncovering Knowledge Gaps while Developing Effective Teacher Practices,"
Teacher Education Journal of South Carolina: Vol. 16:
No.
2, Article 3.
Available at:
https://digitalcommons.coastal.edu/tejsc/vol16/iss2/3