S. Michael Putman

Phonological Awareness Development as a Discrete Process: Evidence for an Integrative Model

The theoretical and practical implications of examining young childrens acquisitions of phonological awareness skills with specific and differentiated processing tasks are explored in this study. The study presents data from 269 kindergarten children completing a phonological awareness protocol that provided information on 14 discrete phonological awareness skills. The data supported the assertion that phonological awareness develops in a gradual and continuous fashion and illustrated the importance of measuring phonological awareness while controlling for the effects of task difficulty, linguistic complexity, and phoneme position within syllables. In addition, three general patterns of literacy development were confirmed in these analyses that frame the integrated model of phonological awareness development.

Promoting Change Through Professional Development: The Place of Teacher Intentionality in Reading Instruction

The current educational spotlight on accountability has helped create a focus on teacher practices and their subsequent effects on student achievement. Professional development has been shown to be an effective vehicle to impact practices; however, research has only recently begun to provide an understanding of its impact in literacy instruction (Anders, Hoffman, & Duffy, 2000). The Intentional Teaching Model (INTENT) was created to provide a method of professional development aimed at promoting change in the instructional practices of reading teachers. This article outlines the phases of the model and provides research-validated evidence of its effectiveness in promoting teacher change and increasing student achievement. Implications for practices of several levels of educational stakeholders are presented as a context for using INTENT.

Computer-Based Reading Technology in the Classroom: The Affective Influence of Performance Contingent Point Accumulation on 4th Grade Students.

Abstract The purpose of the present study was to investigate the relationship between the number of Accelerated Reader points accumulated by students and their level of self‐efficacy and value of reading. The fourteen week study examined 68 fourth grade students who attended an elementary school in a suburban location near a large Midwestern city. Self‐efficacy and value of reading were assessed using the Motivation to Read Profile (Gambrell, Palmer, Codling, & Mazzoni, 1996). Results of a pre/post‐test administration of the MRP showed the group of children who accumulated the largest number of points reported increases in reading self‐efficacy, while the students in the groups who accumulated fewer than 35 points showed decreases in the same field. All three groups demonstrated decreases in their mean value of reading scores.

Exploring Dispositions toward Online Reading: Analyzing the Survey of Online Reading Attitudes and Behaviors.

The Internet is having a profound impact on the literacy practices of todays students. Acknowledging the complex processes associated with reading online, the Survey of Online Reading Attitudes and Behaviors (SORAB) was created to further our understandings in this area. A factor analysis revealed the instrument included five factors that are hypothesized to contribute to students’ overall dispositions for reading online. Additional analysis revealed SORAB scores were strongly correlated with general attitudes toward technology and moderately correlated with context for Internet use. Implications are discussed in relation to future validation efforts as well as potential uses of the instrument.

The Culturally Responsive Classroom Management Self-Efficacy Scale: Development and Initial Validation:

This article reports on the development and initial validation of the Culturally Responsive Classroom Management Self-Efficacy Scale. Data from 380 preservice and inservice teachers were used to examine the psychometric properties of the instrument. Exploratory factor analysis results suggested a one-factor structure consisting of 35 items and the scores on the measure were highly reliable. Evidence of construct validity was obtained with two existing teacher self-efficacy measures. The results of the correlational analysis lend credence that the instrument developed by the research team was indeed measuring self-efficacy beliefs. The implications for teacher education and research are discussed.

Examining Elementary Education Teachers and Preservice Teachers’ Self-Efficacy Related to Technological Pedagogical and Content Knowledge (TPACK)

Self-efficacy is the belief people have about their capabilities to produce effective results related to the events and challenges that affect their lives (Bandura, Self-efficacy: The exercise of control. New York: Freeman, 1997). Self-efficacy represents a powerful influence on the behaviors of teachers due to its impact on instructional choice, effort, and persistence. Purposeful technology integration in teaching is an example of how choice, effort, and persistence converge as teachers make decisions about the types of tools they use to support their teaching. Such technology integration brings together technological knowledge, pedagogical knowledge, and content knowledge—known as the TPACK framework. Few studies have been conducted examining preservice and in-service teachers’ self-efficacy for TPACK. This study uses a survey design to examine preservice and in-service teachers’ (n = 89) self-efficacy to integrate educational technology in their teaching practice. The study also describes and reports on ways that teacher educators support self-efficacy development of preservice and in-service teachers.

Assessing the Validity of the Cross-Cultural Survey of Online Reading Attitudes and Behaviors with American and South Korean Fifth- and Sixth-Grade Students.

The Internet is having a profound impact on the literacy practices of students worldwide; yet, there are few instruments available to facilitate cross-cultural comparisons and conclusions specific to cognitive and affective variables related to Internet proficiency. This research was conducted to examine the measurement invariance of the Cross-Cultural Survey of Online Reading Attitudes and Behaviors (SORAB-XC) across a sample of participants from South Korea and the United States. Strong structural validity information was noted for SORAB-XC in each sample, and the results revealed measurement invariance of the item loadings of SORAB-XC between the samples, which justifies the comparison across the samples with respect to the relations between latent factor variables. Implications for future research address the use of the instrument in each individual context; however, additional refinements are required to enable cross-cultural mean comparisons.