Date of Conferral

2018

Degree

Doctor of Education (Ed.D.)

School

Education

Advisor

Linda Champney

Abstract

Education researchers have documented that first-year teachers are often less effective at reading instruction than their more experienced peers. Accordingly, this qualitative, comparative case study was designed to assess the instructional skills and strategies utilized by first-year and experienced teachers using Danielson's Framework for Teaching as the conceptual framework. The research questions were used to examine two groups of teachers using the framework and the Teacher's College Reading and Writing Project's defined levels of performance for effective reading instruction. The goal was to identify the instructional differences between the two groups of teachers. Purposeful sampling was used to select 3 first-year and 3 experienced teachers at the 4th or 5th grade levels from 3 different schools across 3 districts in a midwestern state. Data from lesson plans, observations, and interviews were analyzed using an open coding process, followed by axial coding using the Danielson framework to determine the themes of the study. The results indicated that the novice teachers had not developed automaticity in any of the domains of the Danielson Framework. The most challenging domain for novice teachers was instruction, especially communicating with students and using assessment during instruction to meet students' needs. A curriculum plan project consisting of a reading methods course and clinical component was constructed for a local college using the identified underdeveloped skills of novice teachers as actionable data that shaped the development of the plan. Positive social change might be realized as the goal of the plan is to improve teacher quality upon program completion, develop automaticity in reading instruction, and increase K-12 literacy achievement.

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