Early Childhood Teacher Reading Profiles and Knowledge of Emergent Literacy Instruction ; Perfil lector de docentes de los primeros grados y sus conocimientos sobre la enseñanza de lectoescritura inicial

Students in the Dominican Republic have demonstrated a low performance with regards to literacy competence, influenced, among other factors, by their own individual attitudes towards reading and their teachers´ knowledge about emergent literacy. This study examines teacher reading profiles and knowledge as it applies to emergent literacy instruction for first graders in the Dominican Republic through a mixed, descriptive-correlational study. A stratified probabilistic sample was selected during the quantitative phase of the study with a confidence level of 95%. The sample consisted of 465 teachers who completed a survey on the study variables. Three of these teachers were also interviewed during the qualitative phase. Findings reveal that 55% of these teachers were occasional readers (had read one to three books in the past year) and 28% were apparent or false readers. Self-improvement served as the main driver for learning, since many teachers have little access to literature. Likewise, much of the faculty found it difficult to state a clear concept about the emergent literacy approach that should guide their teaching or which stategies should be used for improving student literacy. Yet, results reveal the importance of developing reading habits during teacher-training programs and promoting public policies that impact access to books and cultivating a culture of reading in schools and communities. ; El estudiantado dominicano presenta un bajo nivel de competencia lectora influenciado, entre otras variables, por el comportamiento lector y los conocimientos del profesorado sobre lectoescritura inicial. Esta investigación describe el perfil lector y los conocimientos sobre la enseñanza de la lectoescritura inicial del cuerpo docente de los primeros grados de República Dominicana mediante un estudio con un enfoque mixto, descriptivo–correlacional. Para la fase cuantitativa, se seleccionó una muestra probabilística estratificada, con un nivel de confianza del 95 %, conformada por 465 docentes, a quienes se les ...