THE MISSING FOUNDATION IN TEACHER-EDUCATION - KNOWLEDGE OF THE STRUCTURE OF SPOKEN AND WRITTEN LANGUAGE

Reading research supports the necessity for directly teaching concepts about linguistic structure to beginning readers and to students with reading and spelling difficulties. In this study, experienced teachers of reading, language arts, and special education were tested to deter mine if they have the requisite awareness of language elements (e.g., phonemes, morphemes) and of how these elements are represented in writ ing (e.g., knowledge of sound-symbol correspondences). The results wer e surprisingly poor, indicating that even motivated and experienced te achers typically understand too little about spoken and written langua ge structure to be able to provide sufficient instruction in these are as. The utility of language structure knowledge for instructional plan ning, for assessment of student progress, and for remediation of liter acy problems is discussed. The teachers participating in the study sub sequently took a course focusing on phonemic awareness training, spoke n-written language relationships, and careful analysis of spelling and reading behavior in children. At the end of the course, the teachers judged this information to be essential for teaching and advised that it become a prerequisite for certification. Recommendations for requir ements and content of teacher education programs are presented.