Teaching Older Struggling Readers: Novice 4–12th General and Special Education Teachers’ Knowledge of Foundational Reading Skills

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

 

 

Thank you for the opportunity to review the manuscript regarding Teaching Older Struggling Readers. Overall, it is a very cohesive and well-written paper.  The literature review flows together nicely, providing an appropriate level of background knowledge for readers who may be less familiar with specific terminology and considerations in the field of reading pedagogy.

 

I do suggest that the abstract be slightly clarified to indicate that it is pedagogical skills you are investigating.  Upon the first read, I was unsure if it meant teachers’ skills in the act of reading.  It became very clear quickly in the manuscript itself, but a bit of clarity in the abstract might help interested readers. 

 

The expanded results regarding Stark and colleagues’ results (lines 149-159) were especially helpful in introducing readers to this important issue.  As the literature review continues, resources are recent, relevant and extremely well synthesized.

 

The Methods is concise yet clear, making it easy to envision the study’s well-defined procedures. 

 

The results are very thorough as is the corresponding discussion. Despite the study already being comprehensive and well-designed, a limitation was still addressed.

 

Table 2 is split between pages 7-8, making it difficult to refer to the heading of the chart when looking at the results.  Also, do I understand correctly that this shows the percent of teachers who scored each question correctly?  For example, 91% of teachers correctly identified that “ship” has three speech sounds?  Would it not be clearer to report these as percentages?  I’m having trouble understanding how this is the “mean” and not just the percentage.  Perhaps I’m missing something and maybe this can be clarified in the results and/or table.

 

While the table suggesting reading resources is very relevant and helpful, I do wonder if it would be better situated as an appendix, since it appears supplementary and not part of the actual study at this point. 

 

Again, overarchingly, I’d like to commend your work regarding this topic, and in the development of this paper.

Author Response

1. I do suggest that the abstract be slightly clarified to indicate that it is pedagogical skills you are investigating.  Upon the first read, I was unsure if it meant teachers’ skills in the act of reading.  It became very clear quickly in the manuscript itself, but a bit of clarity in the abstract might help interested readers. Thank you for this recommendation, we have added content and pedagogical content knowledge into the abstract to clarify the type of knowledge we investigated in our study. 
2. The expanded results regarding Stark and colleagues’ results (lines 149-159) were especially helpful in introducing readers to this important issue.  As the literature review continues, resources are recent, relevant and extremely well synthesized. The Methods is concise yet clear, making it easy to envision the study’s well-defined procedures. The results are very thorough as is the corresponding discussion. Despite the study already being comprehensive and well-designed, a limitation was still addressed. Thank you for your kind words and thorough review. 
3. Table 2 is split between pages 7-8, making it difficult to refer to the heading of the chart when looking at the results.  Thank you for this suggestion, we have moved Table 2 down so that it does not split pages. 
4. Also, do I understand correctly that this shows the percent of teachers who scored each question correctly?  For example, 91% of teachers correctly identified that “ship” has three speech sounds?  Would it not be clearer to report these as percentages?  I’m having trouble understanding how this is the “mean” and not just the percentage.  Perhaps I’m missing something and maybe this can be clarified in the results and/or table. Thank you for this comment. In the paragraph above Tables 2 and 3 we noted “In Tables 2 and 3, we provide mean percent correct scores and standard deviations for teacher demonstrated knowledge on all items for phonemic awareness and phonics and fluency in disaggregated groups.” However, to make that more clear, we have added “Mean Percent Correct Score” into the titles of Tables 2 and 3. 
5. While the table suggesting reading resources is very relevant and helpful, I do wonder if it would be better situated as an appendix, since it appears supplementary and not part of the actual study at this point. Thank you for this recommendation, we have made Table 6 into an appendix (Appendix A) and has been moved to the end of the manuscript.
6. Again, overarchingly, I’d like to commend your work regarding this topic, and in the development of this paper. Thank you for your kind words and thorough review.

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The article focuses on novice teachers skills for older struggling readers. It is an interesting theme because nowadays the literature explores more and more the digital skills of new alphabets but there is a lack about the old classic alphabets skills. Many times students have education needs about the reading and the language awareness and in a long period of time it could lead to a widespread functional illiteracy. It is interesting also the exploration of reading regards the special needs students.

The article presents a large analysis of the state of art literature about foundational reading skills.

The methodology is well adopted and deeply explained in the article.

The Survey of Reading-Related Knowledge and Perceptions is well built and the data analysis is correct.

The results, although not in general not totally overwhelming, show that many novel teachers overestimate their knowledge. They  could be useful to deepen the knowledge of the linguistics of the English (or other language) and the awareness about this knowledge lack in the higher education institutions.

I suggest only the following few correction:

 -Line 29: add a space “between 2022).” and “According”

- From line 379 to line 495 the text needs to be fully justified as in the rest of the article

- Line 532: “34” in italics

 

Author Response

1. 1. The article focuses on novice teachers skills for older struggling readers. It is an interesting theme because nowadays the literature explores more and more the digital skills of new alphabets but there is a lack about the old classic alphabets skills. Many times students have education needs about the reading and the language awareness and in a long period of time it could lead to a widespread functional illiteracy. It is interesting also the exploration of reading regards the special needs students. Thank you for your kind words and thorough review. 
   2. The article presents a large analysis of the state of art literature about foundational reading skills. The methodology is well adopted and deeply explained in the article. The Survey of Reading-Related Knowledge and Perceptions is well built and the data analysis is correct. The results, although not in general not totally overwhelming, show that many novel teachers overestimate their knowledge. They could be useful to deepen the knowledge of the linguistics of the English (or other language) and the awareness about this knowledge lack in the higher education institutions. Thank you for your kind words and thorough review. 
   3. I suggest only the following few correction:
      1. -Line 29: add a space “between 2022).” and “According”
         1. Thank you for this suggestion, a space has been inserted accordingly.
      2. - From line 379 to line 495 the text needs to be fully justified as in the rest of the article
         1. Thank you for this suggestion, the text has been justified.
      3. - Line 532: “34” in italics
         1. Thank you for this suggestion, 34 has been italicized.

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The article presented seems very interesting to me in terms of learning to read in people with difficulties and the role of novice teachers in this regard. The theoretical part seems fine to me (Introduction), but for me the most notable are the results obtained, from the use of an appropriate methodology (survey of knowledge and perceptions related to reading), being noteworthy that the teachers, on average, obtained scores below 50% in knowledge related to reading. Given this situation, the initiatives proposed seem appropriate to me, although perhaps the implications for practice could have been expanded. In any case, this aspect is correct as it is presented. It would be interesting if, in subsequent studies, the results were compared with those of experienced teachers.

Author Response

1. The article presented seems very interesting to me in terms of learning to read in people with difficulties and the role of novice teachers in this regard. Thank you for your kind words and thorough review. 
2. The theoretical part seems fine to me (Introduction), but for me the most notable are the results obtained, from the use of an appropriate methodology (survey of knowledge and perceptions related to reading), being noteworthy that the teachers, on average, obtained scores below 50% in knowledge related to reading. Given this situation, the initiatives proposed seem appropriate to me, although perhaps the implications for practice could have been expanded. In any case, this aspect is correct as it is presented. Thank you for this recommendation, we provided additional commentary about teachers scoring below 50% in knowledge related to reading. This expanded sentence can be found on p. 14, lines 404-406. 
3. It would be interesting if, in subsequent studies, the results were compared with those of experienced teachers. Thank you for this suggestion, we have provided this recommendation in the section on “limitations and future research.” Please see p. 15, lines 472-473.