The theoretical beliefs of effective teachers of literacy in primary schools: an exploratory study of orientations to reading and writing

Raising standards of literacy has become a key issue for education policy in many countries. A critical factor in any attempt to improve education is the quality and consistency of teaching: thus there has been an increasing interest in teachers themselves. This has included not only what teachers do, but also what they know and believe; and how teachers' knowledge and beliefs relate to classroom practice. This paper reports an exploratory study of the theoretical beliefs of a sample of 225 British primary school teachers who were identified as successful in teaching literacy. The research took place in England between 1996 and 1998. Its main aim was to examine the characteristics of effective teachers of literacy – in particular their background, experience, professional development, knowledge, beliefs and classroom practice – and to compare them with a sample of 71 primary teachers who represented the range of effectiveness in literacy teaching. The findings of this study indicated differences in theoretical orientation to literacy within the effective teacher sample, according to the type of teacher training course taken, the number of years' experience of teaching gained after qualifying, and the highest level of professional qualification. There were also differences in theoretical orientation between the effective teachers and the comparison sample. The paper concludes that these differences in beliefs about literacy and its teaching have implications for policy and professional development.