Reading Retreats: Faculty Efforts to Revive Their Reading Program

Abstract

In the United States, education and particular Reading education has undergone serious scrutiny over the past twenty years. From the Nation at Risk (1983) publication to the No Child Left Behind Act (2001), reading educators, who work directly with pre-service teachers, have had to confront several important challenges including establishing high academic standards for all students, developing and enhancing teachers’ knowledge of the latest and most effective educational practices and initiating systematic reform within the school system so that new curriculum frameworks are aligned to key state educational policy.

The following paper describes how faculty in a reading program at a large metropolitan university along the southeastern coast of the United States reflected on current practice and discovered a means of maintaining their professional integrity while at the same time using professional development opportunities to create a reading program which is current, dynamic and effectively able to prepare future teachers who thrive in an environment of change.