Teacher Knowledge of Literacy Content: Evaluation of Delaware Reading First
Date
2008-04
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Delaware Education Research & Development Center
Abstract
In 2003, to improve the reading achievement of its kindergarten to third grade children, Delaware launched a five year, federally funded initiative called Delaware Reading First (DERF). A central component of the multi-faceted project was teacher training and professional development in Scientifically Based Reading Research (SBRR) practices. Program resources were directed each year toward teacher improvement goals, beginning with mandatory summer training institutes prior to Years 1 and 2 for all kindergarten to third grade general education, special education, and instructional support teachers in schools receiving DERF funding.
As part of a five-year DERF program evaluation, this technical report examines teachers’ changes in literacy-related content knowledge, their sense of self-efficacy as reading teachers, and their perceptions and beliefs about early literacy instruction.
Findings presented here are based on the analysis of two data sets. The first is a baseline set of 175 surveys from summer 2003 and the second includes 202 surveys of DERF k-3 grade teachers from fall 2007. In addition, a subset of 48 teachers’ with both baseline (summer 2003) surveys and year 5 (2007) responses was used for pre-post analysis.
Description
Keywords
Reading First, Literacy