First grade teachers’ knowledge of phonological awareness and code concepts: Examining gains from an intensive form of professional development and corresponding teacher attitudes

By S. Brady, Margie Gillis, Tara Smith, MaryEllen Lavalette, Linda Liss-Bronstein, E. Lowe, Wendy North, Evelyn Russo, T. Wilder. 2009

136 citations recorded by the source corpus.

The study examined the efficacy of an intensive form of professional development (PD) for building the knowledge of first-grade teachers in the areas of phonological awareness and phonics. The PD featured frequent in-class support from highly knowledgeable mentors for one school year, in addition to an introductory two-day summer institute and monthly workshops. Pre- and post-assessment of participants on a Teacher Knowledge Survey (TKS) indicated weak knowledge of phonological awareness and phonics concepts prior to PD and large, significant gains in each area by year-end. In addition, to investigate factors potentially associated with teachers’ responses to training, a Teacher Attitude Survey (TAS) was administered before and after the PD. The TAS measured teachers’ attitudes regarding PD, external and internal motivation to participate, intentions to actively engage in learning and implementing new instructional methods, sense of self-efficacy as reading instructors, and premises about reading instruction (e.g., about whole language). Attitudes on a subset of these factors, teachers’ initial knowledge scores on the TKS, and years of teaching experience (estimated by age) accounted for significant portions of the variance in performance on the TKS after training.

Subfields: Developmental and Educational Psychology, Education, Statistics and Probability

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/4d5df155ede67c2a3d10f359b6b81d2b4ec3197c

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In Developmental and Educational Psychology

In Education

In Statistics and Probability

Citations in the corpus

Single group, pre- and post-test research designs: Some methodological concerns (2012, background): “The notion of differential effectiveness as a function of pre-test score In three studies (Brady et al., 2009; Park et al., 2009; Wilhelm, 2009) the authors argued that the intervention had the greatest effect amongst those who achieved low scores on the pre-test (see Appendix).”
What teachers don't know and why they aren't learning it: addressing the need for content and pedagogy in teacher education (2014, background): “Absence of incentives for practicing teachers to change In a recent study of the impact of professional development on working first grade teachers, Brady et al. (2009) found that experienced teachers came into their study knowing no more about reading and language than novice teachers, as measured…”
Teacher Professional Development and Student Reading Achievement: A Meta-Analytic Review of the Effects (2019, background): “Factors like teachers’ willingness to participate influence the likelihood they engage with and benefit from training (Brady et al., 2009).”
Literacy coaching as a component of professional development (2011, result): “As has been found in other studies (e.g., Bos, Mather, Narr & Babur, 1999; Garet et al., 2008; McCutchen et al., 2009), teachers felt that the professional development improved their knowledge about reading.”