Old habits die hard: literacy practices of pre-service teachers

Abstract

Reading methodology in pre-service teacher training may not be effective because of the literacy beliefs and practices of the trainees. This paper examines the reading practices of a group of pre-service teachers (n=29) in Singapore. Their personal approach to reading revealed that the majority split reading into two domains: leisure reading and academic reading. Trainees use multiple strategies in reading but these are confined to their leisure reading; for academic reading, they adopt a different set of strategies that are geared to remembering rather than comprehension or evaluation. These representations of reading and the associated strategies are developed and reinforced during their schooling. Due to the lack of congruence between the training and trainees' own representations, trainees fall back on remembered routines during their teaching.