Primary Teachers' Perceptions, Knowledge, and Attitudes Regarding Teaching Early Literacy Skills Incorporating the Science of Reading (SoR)

Abstract

Reading instruction in primary schools has been at the center of attention for decades. Teachers are expected to be qualified and capable literacy teachers in order to produce proficient readers who are able to identify letters, understand the relationship between letters and sounds, decode the words on the page with automaticity and fluently read the text while simultaneously comprehending. In order for students to be successful, proficient and confident readers, teachers must understand the science of teaching beginning reading. The science of reading (SoR)  is a collection of objective and reliable evidence about how humans learn to read, and ultimately, includes evidence-based instructional approaches that provide learning opportunities for all readers. The purpose of this research was to explore primary grade US teachers' perceptions, attitudes, and knowledge regarding early literacy skills incorporating the Science of Reading (SoR). The researchers employed a QUAN descriptive design and analyzed the data using SPSS. A sample of 126 kindergarten through second grade teachers' teaching self-efficacy and early literacy knowledge were analyzed with descriptive statistics and revealed that the majority of participants believed in their ability to teach reading effectively, yet possessed low early literacy knowledge (M=60%) but had average self-efficacy beliefs. Of significance, respondents may believe they can teach reading effectively yet do not have the knowledge to do so.

Received: 19 December 2023  | Revised: 23 January 2024 | Accepted: 30 January 2024 

Conflicts of Interest

The authors declare that they have no conflicts of interest to this work.

Data Availability Statement

The data that support the findings of this study are openly available in Open Science Framework at https://osf.io/ reference number 0009-0008-1265-6388.

Author Contribution Statement

Kathryn Davis: Conceptualization, Methodology, Formal analysis, Investigation, Data Curation, Writing - original draft, Visualization, Project administration; Carianne Bernadowski: Conceptualization, Formal analysis, Writing - review & editing, Supervision.