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Purpose – To provide classroom teachers with an understanding of how children’s errors in reading provide evidence of sources of information that children draw upon to solve problems and monitor their reading.Design/methodology/approach – This chapter provides a theoretical discussion of sources of information found in text and their use during reading followed by examples from two case study children.Findings – One of the case study children primarily relies on meaning and syntax and ignores visual/print information. The other case study child relies primarily on visual/print information and ignores meaning and syntax.Research limitations/implications – Only two case study children are examined and only at the very beginning stages of reading in first grade.Practical implications – The decisions made by the teacher used in the examples provide valuable suggestions for classroom teachers who have a range of different readers in their classrooms.Originality/value of chapter – Teachers need information about how to shape children’s reading behaviors as they read text, solve problems during reading, and monitor their attempts.

This chapter presents a university’s School of Education partnership with three local elementary schools to provide learning and professional development opportunities for all stakeholders. Impacting student learning is the main goal of these collaborative endeavors, regardless of age. University pre-service educators perform a variety of activities with elementary students to extend hands-on learning experience beyond their coursework. Experiences focus on mutually beneficial activities for both parties which fulfills each one’s mission and vision for impacting student learning on both the elementary level and the teacher preparation program. Professional development includes activities that involve teacher-to-teacher initiatives that may be designed for teachers by teachers to share teaching strategies; research, both qualitative and quantitative, involving practitioners in the field using student-centered and innovative new instructional ideas in the classroom developing toolkits of best practices. Qualitative approaches are taken through interviews and teacher perceptions through the process and product of each professional development activity.

The use of differentiated instruction has increasingly become a part of the daily practices in classrooms across the country. This approach is important for many students with academic difficulties but can be particularly important for students with learning disabilities. Although differentiated instructional practices can have a positive impact on student learning, these strategies need to be implemented with fidelity to prove the most effective. The purpose of this chapter is to provide an overview of the various components and strategies that teachers can use to differentiate their instruction for students with learning disabilities. These components include the classroom environment, student groupings, tiered instruction, collaboration and co-teaching, and student assessment procedures. Applied examples are provided through the use of a hypothetical classroom scenario.

Purpose – This historical perspective highlights the evolution of reading clinics (also called literacy labs, centers, etc.) from medical-type clinics to instructional powerhouses for struggling readers. Of particular interest, also, is the development of teacher expertise while participating in reading clinics, particularly in the areas of reflection, a critical view of assessments, and using assessment to inform instruction. Furthermore, this chapter traces the history of research that has come out of reading clinics.

Design/Methodology/Approach – A brief history of reading clinics since the 1920s is followed by a deep examination of some of the themes that have shaped more recent reading clinics and research that has emerged from the clinics: assessment, mandates, teacher reflection, and twenty-first Century Literacies.

Practical implications – This chapter offers key information for stakeholders who are designing, establishing, or refining a reading clinic, either university-based or K-12 school-based.

Social implications – Struggling readers and writers deserve and need experiences that help them acquire literacy skills, including reading and writing for twenty-first century purposes. Teachers need support as they navigate mandates from educational policy-makers, enhance their skills as literacy leaders and literacy coaches, and reflect on best practices.

Learning disabilities (LD) and attention deficit hyperactivity disorders (ADHD) include one of the largest special education populations in the United States. These disabilities can range in severity from mild to severe and although these concepts were formulated in the United States, they are also being diagnosed across the globe in other countries. This chapter begins with an historical explanation of the origins of the term LD followed by the U.S. Federal Laws enacted to protect students with LD. Next, the identification of LD, the characteristics, diagnoses, and supportive services are described. Following this description is information about students with ADHD, their diagnoses, and supports in educational environments. Specific characteristics and difficulties students with LD and ADHD possess are then defined within academic activities including reading, math, writing, and social skills as well as overall difficulties students may experience are not defined within these academic subject areas. Some possible strategies are then offered to help ameliorate the effects of LD and ADHD and finally the prevalence of LD/ADHD and the supportive environments for these students throughout the world are described.

To demonstrate how teacher candidate narratives in response to videos depicting science and literacy instruction can be used to both teach and evaluate beginning teachers’ emerging conceptions of disciplinary literacy.

Teacher candidates viewed and responded to videos depicting exemplary practice in science education and then videos of their own practice. Qualitative discourse analysis was used to investigate the science teacher candidates’ interpretations of problems of practice, their views of scientific literacy and understandings of their students.

The teacher candidates displayed distaste for textbooks, reinforced by negative experiences with textbooks in school settings, and yet they viewed textbooks as essential for effectively teaching knowledge about science. At the same time, each viewed the natural world as the ideal “text” for teaching knowledge about science, at times compensating for the weaknesses of textbooks and at other times entirely replacing textbooks as the source of knowledge about science. We consider what this means for preparing teachers for effective subject matter and literacy practice.

Video reflections like these demonstrate that what teacher candidates understand about video representations of others’ and their own teaching are far from literal and are interpreted through the educational and background lenses of the teacher candidates’ themselves. We suggest that a great deal more work needs to be done to better understand how to use video reflection to best develop teacher candidates’ conceptions of subject matter and literacy practice.