The results of this survey indicate that teachers who are literate and experienced generally have an insufficient grasp of spoken and written language structure and would be unable to teach it explicitly to either beginning readers or those with reading/spelling disabilities. Teachers commonly are misinformed about the differences between speech and print and about how print represents speech.
State certification practices, preservice teacher training, and the social contexts of schools do not adequately prepare reading and writing teachers for the demands of classroom practice. More specifically, neither undergraduate nor graduate training of teachers typically requires the command of languge structure necessary to teach reading and spelling well.
This isn't teacher-bashing. It is an indictment of the curriculum--the matter to be mastered--in the schools of education. Teachers are doing a heroic job, but, like our soldiers who were sent to Iraq without body armor or hardened vehicles, they were sent without the tools to do the job.
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