Case Study of a Literacy Staff Development Program: Change in Pedagogical Practices of Two Participating Teachers

This is a narrative account, a story, of the impact an early literacy professional development initiative had on a school, told through the voices of two teachers in the school who participated in the program. Themes emerging from the interview data revealed that the teachers had changed their classroom reading instruction in three important areas. First, they increased their reliance on informal assessments (passage reading, phonics, and spelling). Second, based on their increased competence in assessment, both teachers were better able to differentiate reading instruction, forming flexible reading groups and pacing instruction effectively for individual children. Third, both teachers greatly increased the amount of contextual reading (at the correct level) that their students did during the school day.