A future teacher reflects on the power of strong literacy preparation
At the close of our first year of the Texas Early Literacy (TEL) Network, faculty from Angelo State University, Texas Southern University, Sul Ross State University, and the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley came together to share the work they’ve been doing to strengthen how future teachers are prepared to teach reading. Across the convening, faculty highlighted refinements to coursework, shifts in their own practice and new ways of building practice-based opportunities that give candidates authentic opportunities to analyze student data and make evidenced based instructional decisions. One of the most powerful moments came from a teacher-candidate.
Taylor Sublett, a teacher-candidate at Angelo State University, stood in front of the room and described what this work looks like from the other side of the lectern—from inside the classes faculty have been refining all year.
Reflecting on her experience in Associate Professor Leah Carruth’s “Reading Development in Elementary School” course, Sublett described an early field experience working with first-graders at a local charter school, assessing their reading levels, selecting texts, and planning lessons targeting phonemic awareness. She had encountered terms like segmenting, blending, encoding…..
