Running Head: LEARNING TO COPE
Learning to Cope: Pre-service Teachers
with Reading Aversions Navigate Education
Karen Kleppe Graham
Chelsey May Bahlmann
The University of Georgia
LRA 2014
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Learning to Cope: Pre-service Teachers with Reading Aversions Navigate Education
As teacher researchers, we are endlessly contemplating and exploring ways that we can
improve our instruction and the educational experience for our students. Both authors work with
elementary education undergraduate students in literacy education, and after conversations about
our courses and students through the semester, we began to notice that we were having similar
observations about them. What we were observing through some of our students’ writing, whole
class conversations, and small group discussions, was that many students either had a strong
dislike for or difficulty with reading. Since they were on their way to becoming literacy teachers
and would be the ones shaping the attitudes of future readers, we wanted to know more about
how these undergraduate students had gotten this far in their education with these aversions to
reading. It is important to note that the university these students attend has a 55% acceptance
rate and an average high school grade point average of 3.9 (The University of Georgia, 2014).
We wanted to know more about these students’ personal journeys through their K-12
education. We decided to focus on six students total, three from each of our courses, that stood
out to us either through their class writing assignments, conversations we had with these
students, and conversations we overheard by these students during our classes. In order find out
more about the educational backgrounds of these six students, we conducted a series of
interviews to examine the commonalities among their schooling experiences, the strategies they
employed to be academically successful, and the role models who encouraged their literacy
development. We wondered if this was a vicious cycle in our education system where students
disliked reading early in their education and never “recovered.”
We feel it is important to understand how we can prevent students from leaving our
educational settings without confidence in or enthusiasm for reading. We share the same
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sentiments as Gaiman in his (2013) speech to The Reading Agency, “Literacy is more important
than ever it was, in this world of text and email, a world of written information. We need to read
and write, we need global citizens who can read comfortably, comprehend what they are reading,
understand nuance, and make themselves understood.” It is our aim to explore the practices
preservice teachers remember from their schooling that may have been detrimental so that we
will be better able to understand how we can prevent future students from having these same
difficulties with reading. In the subsequent sections, we will explore the literature related to this
study, followed by how this study was designed and analyzed using Louise Rosenblatt’s
Transactional/Reader Response theory of reading, followed by a discussion of how the findings
may impact our engagement with elementary preservice teachers in courses such as children’s
literature and reading methods.
Literature Review
In the following review of the literature, we discuss our research into relevant published
studies on our topic of pre-service teachers and their navigation of their own reading aversions in
order to become academically successful. We will explore studies that detail both in-service and
pre-service teachers’ reading aversions, the influences of teacher attitudes towards reading,
teachers as struggling readers, and the development of reading strategies in the face of learning
difficulties. We will then detail our conclusions with respect to how our students can possibly
positively engage with their own future students, despite their reading avoidances.
Reading Aversions
There have been similar studies conducted around this topic, but none which are current,
concerning specifically reading, and based on pre-service teachers past experiences. Draper,
Barksdale-Ladd, and Radencich’s (2000) study is the most comparable to this study. Since
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Draper et al’s study, not only have the pre-service teachers in our study gone through grades K12, the No Child Left Behind Act (United States Department of Education, 2001) was approved
and also the Common Core State Standards Initiative was launched.
The most referenced study found dealing with a research problem similar to this one is
Applegate and Applegate’s (2004) study looking at the “Peter Effect” which is a title the authors
gave to the condition characterizing teachers who are excited about fostering love for reading in
their students that they do not yet have. The title “Peter Effect” was derived from the biblical
story of Peter who, when asked for money by a beggar, replied that he could not give what he did
not have. Their participants were pre-service teachers in an elementary education program.
Applegate and Applegate (2004) found that teacher’s attitudes were very apparent to their
students and that teachers have an effect on the aesthetic stance of students’ reading experience
based on their own experience with reading aesthetically. According to Louise Rosenblatt
(1994) readers are on a continuum of either reading aesthetically, for enjoyment, or efferently
where readers are solely reading to seek meaning.
Also in the current literature related to pre-service teacher who dislike reading, is a case
study by Gerla (1992). This case study focuses on one teacher who hated to read, but ended up
loving to read at the end of the semester through her experiences with literature circles and
writing workshop. Other studies focusing on the reading attitudes of pre-service teachers
including Sulentic-Dowell, Beal, and Capraro’s (2006) study focused on the reading attitudes of
pre-service teachers and how this affected their ability to assist students with reading math world
problems. The findings of this study indicated that preservice teachers can undoubtedly read and
are capable readers as adults, but are choosing not to read. These teachers are less likely than
active readers to use reading strategies with students when solving math problems. Powell-
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Brown (2004) posed the question: “Can you be a teacher of literacy if you don’t love to read?”
(p.284). In her study she found that many of her pre-service teachers were reluctant readers and
she provided the reader with tips for not only how to motivate elementary school and middle
school students to read, but she also provided insight on how to encourage college students, also.
Several other studies explored relationships between current in-service teachers and their
own reading. Cardarelli (1992) began a program with middle-grade teachers to help increase
teachers’ personal reading. Over half of these teachers found this program helpful in bringing
enthusiasm into the classroom about the importance of reading. Another interesting story by
Brassell (2003), who is a current professor and a former second grade teacher, described how
during his first year teaching, he hated to read, but found his students’ enthusiasm about reading
to be contagious. Lastly, Dreher (2002) detailed the story of a reading specialist who began a
new job at a school where many of the teachers were non-readers. She worked to increase their
motivation by engaging them in teacher book clubs, book talks during faculty meetings, and
creating a teachers’ section in the school media center. The reading specialist believed, “teachers
who are engaged readers are motivated to read, are both strategic and knowledgeable readers,
and are socially interactive about what they read. These qualities show up in their classroom
interactions and help create students who are, in turn, engaged readers “(p. 338).
However, Brooks (2007) had a different perspective. He looked at teachers who were
deemed to be “exemplary reading and writing instructors” and found their personal experiences
with reading and writing had little or no role on their effectiveness as reading and writing
teachers. He found “although teachers’ reading and writing competence and experience, both
past and present, may play a role in their teaching reading and writing, they identified other
factors as having greater influence on what and how they taught these subjects” (p. 189).
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Reading Difficulties
There are numerous research studies that highlight struggling learners and coping
strategies that can be successful. These studies mainly focus on motivations to read (Melekoglu
& Wilkerson, 2013; Schiller et al., 2012), effective remediation strategies (Frijters, Lovett,
Sevcik, & Morris, 2012; Gilbert et al., 2013; Lee, Gable, & Klassen, 2012; Slavin, Lake, Davis,
& Madden, 2011), and governing policies affecting struggling readers (Franzak, 2008; Spencer,
2012). However, studies on preservice teachers with reading aversions were limited.
According to Glazzard and Deal’s (2013) recent look at pre-service teachers struggling
with learning disabilities, each of the trainee teachers reported having academic “self doubts”
(p.28) due to low expectations from childhood educators, leading to a sense of “learned
helplessness” (p.35). It was only after receiving positive academic support that both of the focus
teachers felt empowered to succeed. Glazzard and Deal concluded, “Creating a ‘can do’ culture
of high expectations and a positive, supportive classroom climate is vital for facilitating a
positive sense of self” (p.36). These two pre-service teachers felt they internalized the positive
support they received and would be able to support their own future students who might struggle.
In another study, Ferri, et al (2011), spoke with teachers who had experienced learning
difficulties and could speak both to being a special needs student and a teacher of students with
special needs. Each participant “described [their LD] as a tool that helped them relate to their
students” (p.28) differently than their own learning experiences where they felt embarrassed and
silenced. They went on to write that “all three participants believed that their learning disabilities
made them more successful in the classroom, demonstrating a shift from considering their
disability as a flaw to discovering that it was actually an asset” (p.29). The participants felt called
to this career so they could support struggling students differently than they had been supported.
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In order to learn the necessary material and function successfully in an academic setting,
students who struggle must develop coping strategies that allow them to participate in class
lessons and engage with their own learning. In Ferri, et al’s, 2001 multicase study, the authors
stated that they kept “their expectations high but…offered supports to students in reaching those
expectations. [They] stressed the need to teach students strategies to help them be successful and
to regard all students as intelligent and capable, and to prepare them for college” (p.28). Teachers
must understand that there is no “one” way to teach or learn. It is most important for teachers
and students to work together to realize their strengths and work together for academic success
(Nam & Oxford, 1998). Galguera (2011) proposed that pre-service teachers needed not to learn
to teach a specific type of student, but rather they should be “teachers capable of effecting
specific learning outcomes” (p.86) that reflect purposeful, deliberate instruction.
Academically successful pre-service teachers will have coping strategies they effectively
use in their own learning. In order to translate that success into classroom achievement, these
teachers need to support struggling students and general students in ways that allow them to
participate in their knowledge acquisition using either their own strategies or ones learned from
their instructor. Pre-service teachers should be flexible in their own learning and planning so that
they can be fully engaged with their students in their learning. They must strive to be caring
educators who teach, but also learn with their students.
Theoretical Framework
“Books do not simply happen to people.
People also happen to books” (Rosenblatt, 2005, p.62).
Transactional/Reader Response theory of reading, conceptualized by Louise Rosenblatt,
an American professor and “influential scholar of reading” (Holley, 2005, para.1), emphasized
the idea that readers are not simply “passive recipients” (Rosenblatt, 1994, p.4) of a text, but
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instead, they bring their personal experiences, backgrounds and situational contexts with them
into each reading and learning experience (Connell, 2008; Kern, 2010; Rosenblatt, 1995, 2005;
US Department of Education, 1983). Rosenblatt (1994) believed that readers transact meaning
with text – defined as not merely “inked marks on the page” or “uttered vibrations in the air,” but
beyond these to “printed signs in the capacity to serve as symbols” (p.12). She believed that
meaning depended on the person, the text, the situation, and background experiences, and that
meaning was not found in texts, but rather, in a transaction between a reader and the text.
Rosenblatt’s Transactional/Reader Response Theory built on the concepts behind Schema
Theory, developed in the earlier 1900s by psychologists, Jean Piaget and Sir Frederic Bartlett,
who “proposed that people have schemata, or unconscious mental structures, that represent an
individual's generic knowledge about the world. It is through schemata that old knowledge
influences new information” (Markel, 2014, para.2). Bartlett believed a person maintained
his/his knowledge about the environment around them and built on that knowledge for future
learning. Later, in the 1970s, American educational psychologist, Richard Anderson, introduced
“schema theory to the educational community” (Markel, 2014, para.10). In a conference paper
presented in 1978, Anderson developed his idea that the “knowledge a person already possesses
has a potent influence on what he or she will learn and remember from exposure to discourse”
(p.2). His argument that not only does a person use the knowledge he/she already has to inform
their ideas about their current experiences, but also that this prior knowledge heavily influences
future acquisitions of new knowledge was further explained as a “knowledge ‘structure’ because
it indicates the typical relations among its components” (p.3). So, putting this all together,
researchers using Schema Theory identified prior knowledge as being housed in a person’s
subconscious, necessary to present understandings, and influential in future learning.
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According to Tracey and Morrow (2006), “Schema Theory has most influenced reading
instruction by highlighting the central role of existing knowledge…in processing new
knowledge….As they read and learn, students use their existing schemas for language and
content to assist with new reading and learning experiences” (p.53). In this way, students are able
to make sense of their academic experiences by building on their previously learning and using
these schemas to inform and influence new learning.
Taking the foundational ideas of Schema Theory, Rosenblatt used it to inform her
conceptions of Transactional/Reader Response Theory. Her extension of Schema Theory came
with the ideas that each person’s schemas were unique based on their personal experiences and
prior learning, therefore each person’s reading experiences were different based on his/her
schemas (Rosenblatt, 1994; Tracey & Morrow, 2006). Rosenblatt believed that the transactional
relationship between a text and a reader was non-linear. Instead, each transaction “is a situation,
an event at a particular time and place in which each element conditions the other” (p.16). For
students in a classroom setting, background experiences are the building blocks for new
knowledge, especially in reading and in learning to read.
In speaking about Rosenblatt’s reading theories, Probst (1987) wrote that “text [was]…
simply ink on paper until a reader comes along” (para.2; see also Rosenblatt, 1994). Rosenblatt
(1993) believed that readers a reading “stance” based on their perceptions of the purpose of their
interactions with the text. She argued that the “efferent stance…is involved primarily with
analyzing, abstracting, and accumulating what will be retained after the reading….In the
aesthetic stance, attention is focused primarily on experiencing what is being evoked, lived
through, during the reading” (pp.382-383). The efferent stance focuses on what the reader takes
with him/her when the transaction with the text is finished, and the aesthetic stance reflects the
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reader’s ongoing transaction with the text during the reading event (Rosenblatt, 1994). However,
she cautioned against clear divisory lines designed to separate efferent from aesthetic stances:
No hard-and-fast line separates efferent…reading on the one hand from aesthetic reading
on the other. It is more accurate to think of a continuum, a series of gradations between
the nonaesthetic and the aesthetic extremes. The reader’s stance toward the text – what he
focuses his attention on, what his “mental set” shuts out or permits to enter into the center
of awareness – may vary in a multiplicity of ways between the two poles. (p.35)
She argued that texts were neither inherently efferent or aesthetic, nor did the reader actively
choose his/her stance. Cues in the text signal which one should be adopted. Neither stance would
exclude or overshadow the other when a person’s overall reading experiences are viewed as a
whole (Rosenblatt, 1995), thus preventing unbalanced transactions.
Transactional/Reader Response Theory has been used to support literacy research, but
also as a way to theorize the influences texts and the practice of reading have on reluctant readers
(Gerla, 1992). It is important to envision reading as a relationship the reader establishes with the
text based on his/her own ideas that “stimulate further reflection” (Connell, 2008), not on the
author’s intended meaning, or the teacher’s instructions (Rosenblatt, 1995; Smith, 2012). It is
through our participants’ reluctance to engage with the reading “experience” that we theorize
they had an unbalanced transaction, depending more on the efferent stance.
Methods
In this interview study, the following questions guided our inquiry:
1. How do pre-service elementary education majors describe their K-12 reading experience?
2. Which role models were identified as playing a part in the development of their
motivation to succeed, despite their aversions to reading?
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3. What kinds of learning strategies were used to navigate their reading experiences?
Each of the participants was a female undergraduate student at a flagship university in the
southeastern United States in her junior year of college. Three Caucasians, one African
American, and two Hispanics were represented. Both of the authors teach required courses
included in the literacy block for elementary education majors at this university in the southeast.
At the time of data collection, Karen taught a Reading Instruction and Assessment class and
Chelsey was the instructor for a Children’s Literature course. All names of people and places are
pseudonyms to protect our participants’ privacy.
This project is derived from data secured from six elementary education pre-service
teacher participants who self-identified with reading aversions due to learning difficulties or
disinterest in reading. According to Roulston (2010), it is important to “make informed decisions
about how to use interviews as a method of data generation in ways that are commensurate with
[our] theoretical perspective” (p. 86). With this in mind, it was essential for the participants to
think about the reading struggles and the perceived reasons that led up to their dislike of reading.
Co-constructing these ideas together through the interviews is a way for us to theorize how their
past educational experiences may affect how they will teach reading in the future, as we
understand reading is a part of all academic and many social experiences.
Methodology
In the next section, we will discuss the research design, specify our roles in the study, and
detail research methods for generation and analysis of data. The idea for this paper was derived
through academic discussions and “teacher talk” between the two authors, and weaves its way
through to our experiences as elementary education instructors.
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Research Design
The research design was a multi-case study from one or two scheduled interviews, inclass writings, and classroom conversations with each of the six participants. Because we looked
to our data as “integrated views[s] of speech/texts” in order to “understand social reality in a
subjective, but scientific manner” (Zhang, 2009, p.1), we immersed ourselves in our data and
took it through the steps of content analysis. So that we might consider all texts equally, we used
transcribed interviews and in-class writings for our content analysis. According to Zhang and
Wildermuth (2009), “Qualitative content analysis involves a process designed to condense raw
data into categories or themes based on valid inference and interpretation” (p.2). They further
detailed that “this process uses inductive reasoning, by which themes and categories emerge
from the data through the researcher’s careful examination and constant comparison” (p.2).
Since we were working with participants from different cohorts and classes, we wanted to focus
our analysis on integrating their responses to our questions as well as their written texts.
Zhang and Wildermuth (2010) argued that qualitative content analysis may be more
“flexible or more standardized” (p.3), depending on the goals for the project, and that there are
eight steps through which the researcher must take the data for interpretation. The steps are:
1. Prepare the data
2. Define the unit of analysis
3. Develop categories and a coding scheme
4. Test your coding scheme on a sample of text
5. Code all the text
6. Assess your coding consistency
7. Draw conclusions from the coded data
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8. Report your methods and findings (p.3-5)
Throughout the steps in content analysis, it is important to maintain focus on the purpose for the
study since conclusions are based on analysis drawn from the textual data. Zhang and
Wildermuth (2009) caution researchers to develop coding schemes, test these schemes, code all
the text, and then re-assess the original coding schemes since, it is “not safe to assume that [it
was all] coded in a consistent and reliable manner” (p.5). The final steps are to draw conclusions
from the data and then to report findings based on analysis of the available and applicable texts.
In working with our collected data, we used the audio tapes of our interviews to create
transcriptions of our time with our participants. Both authors repeatedly read through our own
transcripts, being sure to code for responses that addressed our theoretical conceptions as we
read. Content analysis guidelines were followed in order to effectively identify themes within our
participants’ reading aversions, struggles to learn to read, ways that they coped with their
difficulties, and how they envisioned using these strategies in their own classrooms. We talked
about our initial codes and tweaked them a bit in order to align with our research questions. We
then exchanged transcripts and after repeated readings, we coded each other’s interviews. We
then compared our codes, reaffirmed that they were consistent across transcripts, and prepared a
three-column chart organizing our data along the aesthetic/efferent continuum, as explained in
Rosenblatt’s (1994) work in Transactional/Reader Response theory. It was at this point in the
process that we were able to draw conclusions from our data and interpret those conclusions in
light of teaching implications for our participants’ future teaching careers.
Research Agendas
We individually began each interview session with small talk in order to make the
interviewee feel more at ease. We let them know that we were attempting to understand how pre-
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service elementary education majors who have reading aversions due to learning struggles or
dislike for reading navigate their educational experiences. We told them that our research could
help other researchers and classroom teachers understand how to navigate their own reading
aversions. We let them know that while we would be taking notes during the interview, we
would also be audio taping our sessions so that our conversations were better remembered.
After our small talk and transition into the purpose of the interview, we began with one
open-ended question, “What do you remember about your earliest experiences with reading?”
from which the rest of the interview unfolded. Together, we co-constructed their narratives in
ways that made sense to us (Ferri, Connor, Solis, Valle, & Volpitta, 2005; Ferri, Keefe, & Gregg,
2001). With our theoretical perspective in mind, it was essential for my participants to think
about the perceived reasons that led up to their dislike of reading. Co-constructing these ideas
together through the interview is a way for us to understand how their past educational
experiences may affect how they will teach reading in the future.
Limitations of the Study
In the following sections both of us, the authors and researchers of this paper, will discuss
what we believe to be the subjectivities that are important for us and our readers to keep in mind
as we discuss the data we collected and the results we describe. Both of us are full-time students
in the same doctoral program and were previously teachers in a public school setting. However,
we have had different experiences that have impacted the way we view the world.
Karen
My own subjectivities played into my co-construction of my participant’s narrative. I am
currently a third year doctoral candidate in Education and an instructor of undergraduate
education major students at The University of Georgia. My students are either focused on middle
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school or elementary education, depending on the class and semester. I have taught in public
schools in both upper elementary and middle school. I have had inclusion students with special
needs ranging from Emotional & Behavioral Disorders (EBD) to Attention-Hyperactivity
Disorder (ADHD) to information processing disorders such as dyslexia and dysgraphia (NCLD,
2013). I have been trained in ways to engage struggling learners and modify instruction so that
students with learning difficulties can best be supported in their acquisition of information.
Secondly, I was familiar with my participants prior to this interview. I have been one of
their instructors in their undergraduate elementary education program in which I taught Reading
Instruction and Assessment. In class and through online discussion, my students and I had indepth conversations about differentiation strategies, planning for inclusion students, and working
with struggling learners. I am familiar with my participants’ ideas about the teaching of reading
and believe they will respond consistently with previously stated ideas. However, due to privacy
restrictions, unless a student chooses to share the nature of his/her disability, I am not provided
with, nor am I allowed to inquire about the identified disability. I am given paperwork which
outlines specific accommodations, but not the nature of the disability. For my three participants,
one had shared information about her disability and two had simply provided official paperwork
from the university disability center.
Thirdly, I am a middle-class, protestant, white female who is married, a mother of two,
and a full-time student. I was a K-12 classroom teacher for several years, but then stayed at home
to raise my children when they were young. I returned to school to complete my education so
that I could one day work in academia with young pre-service teachers. I am an older student
who is focused on learning so that I can then teach. It has been a long time since I was single and
in my undergraduate program. But while I was in college in my late teens and early 20s, I
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received very little monetary support from my parents, which meant that I worked at least 40
hours a week and was a full-time student. I vaguely remember my classes, but not in substantial
ways. My participants come from privileged backgrounds and have not been financially
responsible for their educations.
Finally, I enjoy reading and did not struggle to learn. I was an early reader and grew up
confident in my abilities. I was a high-achieving student, but not gifted with extraordinary
talents. I taught students who struggled with reading, but I was not responsible for their initial
forays into learning to read. My own children are exceptionally bright and also did not struggle
to learn. All of this to say, I am academically and peripherally familiar with struggling readers,
but I have not had personal experience in reading aversions or struggling to learn.
Chelsey
Before beginning my PhD program I was an elementary school teacher for six years. I
admittedly share the notion that prior to becoming a teacher; I too, was not a huge reading
enthusiast. As I think back about my reading experiences, I remember being excited about
learning to read on my first day as first grader. Then as I entered second grade we had a SRA
reading comprehension program that included cards with reading passages that were color coded.
After we read the passage, then we took a comprehension test and if we passed it we got to move
on to the next color. I remember that I was not a fast reader, so as a second grader I felt that I
was not a good reader because I was not moving along in the colors as fast as my classmates.
Reading became about speed instead of enjoyment and I believe that this was the moment where
reading was not fun for me anymore.
As I became an elementary school teacher and knew that I had to become the
‘cheerleader for reading’ for my students I found myself loving reading more and more. The
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population of students that I taught in four of the six years of my teaching were students from a
rural, low socioeconomic area and many who fell into the “struggling reader” category. I was
trained in Response to Intervention (RtI) because of my high population of students with learning
and behavior needs. The final two years of teaching elementary school was in a coastal town
with the majority of students coming from middle-class backgrounds. Very few of the students
in my class were labeled “struggling readers.” At this same school, I also taught gifted students
who loved to read and it seemed to come very easily to them.
I am a Christian, white female, who is single with no children of my own. I feel a strong
connection with my preservice teacher students because we are less than ten years apart in age
and have very similar interests. I believe that the teachers in my classroom need to feel confident
that they have many tools to engage their future students; because once they are engaged, then
learning comes easier. What really interests me is if there are others out there like me who did
not like reading before becoming teachers and how this influences the way they teach reading.
There is no doubt that my personal subjectivities affected how I interacted with my
participants. The fact that I was an elementary teacher and disliked reading may have helped
with recruiting my participants. However, since I was a former instructor to my participants, this
may have shaped how honestly they answered some of their questions about their attitude about
reading. Because students’ had an entire semester with me and got to know some of my opinions
and biases some of the students may have geared their responses based on what they thought I
wanted to hear even though I assured them that their anonymity would be protected .
Researcher Roles
We were co-participants with each of our participants in these semi-structured interviews.
We asked questions and they answered. We probed for more details and received more in-depth
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responses. We questioned their purposeful ideas about their future careers and offered
information in order to move the interviews forward. Finally, intermittently throughout the
interviews, we would summarize the participants’ responses and ask if we had understood their
language and intentions in order to check for our own understandings.
Data Collection
Three types of data were collected: digital audio recordings, field notes from interviews,
and writing samples. Following the interviews, the participants were given the transcripts to
check for accuracy. In the following section we will discuss these data sources in more detail.
During the interviews, audio recordings and field notes were taken by the interviewing
instructor. Writing samples from participant submissions were included as data sources. The
authors exchanged gathered data in order to share information and integrate findings. The paper
is an integration of two teacher-researchers’ work with similar student populations in order to
take a cross-curricular look at their literacy learning successes and motivations to interact with
texts, both in and out of their academic environments.
During the interviews, audio recordings and field notes were taken by the interviewing
instructor. Writing samples from participant submissions were included as data sources. The
authors exchanged gathered data in order to share information and integrate findings. The paper
is an integration of two teacher-researchers’ work with similar student populations in order to
take a cross-curricular look at their literacy learning successes and motivations to interact with
texts, both in and out of their academic environments.
We conducted over eight hours of in-depth, semi-structured interviews. We wrote field
notes as we spoke with each participant so that we had running records of our thoughts and ideas,
and the participants’ responses. The participants had granted permission to take field notes prior
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to the interviews. Then later in writing this paper, we used our handwritten field notes for details
about the atmosphere during the specific interview sessions. With our participants’ permission,
we collected information from texts written in class, reading autobiographies, longer writing
assignments, and weekly responses to assigned readings. All of the writing samples were
composed during the semester in which the participants were students in one of the authors’
classes and in response to required submissions.
Results
After analyzing the interview data through a content analysis we found similarities
among the six participant’s K-12 reading experiences. All of our participants had an unbalanced
transaction, depending more on the efferent stance. Upon further reflection we found their
reading memories seemed to take on more of an efferent stance including the repetition of
reading, taking reading tests, and reading to write book reports. Some common reading
memories among all participants that were more aesthetic, were listening to read alouds, books
on tape, or nighttime reading with their families. It is clear that when another person did the
“heavy lifting” of decoding the authors’ words, our participants were free to simply listen. They
were able to enjoy the reading experience as they transacted meaning from the text while
someone else narrated the storyline.
We also found that each participant had identified a strategy that they were taught either
in school, therapy, or counseling that was instrumental in their academic success. All of our
participants were goal driven and realized that reading was something they had to find a way to
get through in order to reach their particular goal, which according to Rosenblatt’s transactional
theory, would tend to situate the participant closer to an efferent stance on the efferent to
aesthetic continuum.
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Each one of the participants knew she would be a reading role model for her students,
which would mean that she had to move beyond reading just what was required and into
voluntarily reading, at least in front of her students, in order to “appear” to be a good reader. But,
one question lingers after speaking with all of these young, pre-service teachers: Will they ever
willingly read? Through speaking with our participants and each other, we do not believe these
pre-service undergraduates will move towards a more balanced approach in their reading stance.
They approach their own reading now with an eye towards finding out the needed information
only, not as a potentially enjoyable activity. Their reading aversions have not disappeared, the
participants have simply learned to work through them as needed.
Implications and Understandings
As educators of preservice teachers we are intensely impacted by their voices. It is our
hope that even though they show reading aversions, they follow through with their aspirations in
motivating their future students to become successful readers. There is no question that teachers
make the difference in shaping successful livelong readers. While we have high hopes for these
preservice teachers who have a strong impact in shaping the future generation of readers, we find
ourselves left with even more questions. We wonder if these preservice teachers will be inspired
by their eager students and willingly read in their free time. Also, we wonder how these
preservice teachers, who consider themselves nonreaders, will ultimately teach reading without
unconsciously passing along their true feelings about reading.
Despite obstacles that make learning difficult for each of them, they are all highachieving students with positive spirits who have determination to be successful in their chosen
careers. Although they are at differing stages in their academic lives, each one has the motivation
and support to overcome their difficulties and achieve their goals. It would be our hope that
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future research would follow up with participants like ours to see how reading instruction is
impacted.
Helping preservice teachers understand the significance of being a positive reading role
model is an important aspect that preservice teachers take away from their methods courses, as
well as helping them understand the importance of evaluating instructional practices on their
educational and motivational impact on students. We want preservice teachers who have
aversions to reading see that they can be inspirations to the readers in their future classrooms that
may struggle with reading. However, we want these future teachers to always be aware that as a
reading role model, students are always paying attention to how teachers do things, how teachers
feel about things, and what teachers say about things. It is up to the teacher to foster the
excitement and drive to learn new things and sometimes this might mean that we have to find a
way to overcome our own biases for the benefit our students.
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