Young Children's Perceptions of Teacher Practices: Implications for the development of reading competence

Kathryn Perry

It has been well established that children who develop age-appropriate reading skills during their first three years of schooling are at a tremendous advantage (e.g., National Reading Panel Report, 2000). While many children experience success in learning to read, which also fosters a positive academic self-concept and greater motivation to read (e.g., Chapman & Tunmer, 1997), a significant number encounter difficulty and suffer multiple and compounding consequences that take an increasingly greater toll on their academic and socio-emotional development over time (Stanovich, 1986). To date, the vast majority of research on how children develop reading competence has focused primarily on child factors (e.g., cognitive processes), and to a lesser degree on the impact of contextual factors (e.g., instructional practices). While the later line of research has had an important impact on the field of reading education, it provides an incomplete picture of children’s learning environments. Recent theoretical paradigms and ideas about how classroom contexts affect development have emphasized that the ways that students perceive and interpret their teacher’s practices provide an important, yet largely uninvestigated lens through which to explore the effects of classroom experiences on student development (Perry & Weinstein, 1998; Weinstein & McKown, 1998; Vygotsky, 1987; Bransford, Brown, & Cocking, 1999; Lambert & McCombs, 1998; Turner & Meyer, 2000). A second limitation of reading research is the lack of empirical attention given to non-academic reading outcomes such as self-perceived competence, motivation, and attitude toward reading, despite the fact that children’s academic and socio-emotional functioning in the domain of reading appear to be inter-related (e.g., Chapman, Tunmer, and Prochnow, 2000; Baker & Wigfield, 1999). The goals of this research are to: 1) examine student perceptions of the type of practices their teacher uses during reading; 2) examine relations between student’s perceptions, teacher’s reading subject-matter knowledge, and teacher’s beliefs about reading development and pedagogy; and 3) examine the degree to which each of these dimensions of the classroom reading instructional environment plays a role in shaping children’s attitudes toward reading, self-perceived reading competence, and reading skill.

About Kathryn Perry

Kathryn Perry received her Ph.D. in Educational Psychology from the University of California at Berkeley in 1999. Since receiving her degree, she has worked as a lecturer in the School of Education at UC Berkeley, where she teaches graduate courses such as The Assessment of Children and Educational Interventions, and serves a clinical supervisor for School Psychology student interns in field placements in public schools. Kathryn has also worked part-time as a school psychologist for the past five years. Her research interests center on the social context of early schooling and young children’s school adjustment. More specifically, she has focused on examining whether the type of practices teachers use, and in particular how students perceive these practices, play a role in the development of academic, behavioral, and socio-emotional competencies.