Literacy and literacy instruction : interns' perceptions

The purpose of this naturalistic study was to better understand the experiences of interns as they engaged in literacy instruction during the second semester of the year-long internship. Through increased understanding about how interns experience teaching literacy during the year-long field experience, those in positions of educating new teachers may gain insight into how to structure teacher education in literacy in ways that may be more meaningful and relevant.

Qualitative methods of data collection included classroom observations, interviews, and document examination. Data were collected from three elementary school interns over a five month period which spanned the Spring semester of their internship year. One intern was teaching first grade; two interns were teaching fourth grade. Qualitative analysis of the data was used to answer the following research questions: l)What does literacy mean to interns? 2) How do interns construct their perceptions of literacy? 3) What does literacy instruction mean to interns? 4) How do interns experience literacy instruction in the classroom context? 5) How do interns construct their perceptions of literacy instruction?

Findings from data analysis revealed the following similarities across interns: 1) Literacy means reading and writing in ways that communicate meaning for enjoyment, for learning, and to accomplish one's goals in life. 2) Interns construct their perceptions of literacy in literate environments, with literate role models, and expectations for literate behavior. 3) By the end of the internship year, interns articulated clearly that literacy instruction meant the teaching of reading and writing as integrated processes, in both student-directed and teacher-directed ways. 4) Interns experienced literacy instruction as the application of social strategies that enabled them to assert autonomy in stressful situations. Interns used conformity, compromise, and change to actively adapt to perceived contextual constraints. 5) Interns constructed their perceptions of literacy instruction through school biographies, teacher education course work, field experiences, and professional development activities.

Implications for teacher education in literacy were based on the findings that interns saw themselves as learners throughout the internship experience. Interns completed the year-long internship with the perception that they were still learning to teach literacy.