Seeing It Their Way: What Children's Definitions of Reading Tell Us About Improving Teacher Education

Abstract

The purposes of this article are to describe the results of an investigation of first-grade students' definitions of reading and to suggest implications of the study for teacher educators. A 4-month long naturalistic study was conducted in one first-grade classroom. Analysis of observations, interviews, and documents revealed that students in the low- and high-reading groups constructed different understandings about the nature and purpose of reading. Students' definitions of reading were the result of interaction between their prior knowledge about reading and the reading experiences they had in the classroom. The study's implications for teacher educators are discussed.