This paper reports on a study of the children’s book preferences of 82 Preservice teachers (PSTs) at one Western Australian University. The study found PSTs preferred older books published during their own childhood or earlier. Further, representation of people of colour was limited to only 8 of 177 titles listed by PSTs. Key influences on their preferences were their personal favourite books and those used by mentor teachers during practicum experience. The outcomes of this study have implications for curriculum development and implementation of Initial Teacher Education courses, and in turn, for equitable outcomes of the future students of PSTs.

Education policy in Australia and comparable countries requires that all secondary content teachers actively teach the literacy of their learning area and support the literacy development of students in their classes. In this paper we present evidence on the capacity of graduating teachers to meet that obligation. We review assessment data from 393 Initial Teacher Education students who completed a core unit in secondary curriculum literacy prior to graduation. We report that while the majority met the unit requirements, approximately 30% graduated as teachers with marginal or inadequate capacity to teach the literacy of their subject or support student learning through literacy. Approximately 12% of the sampled cohort failed the unit on their first attempt; yet 76% of those who failed went on to graduate. We show that such performance is consistent across the secondary disciplines included in the survey. We pose the questions as to whether secondary teachers with a marginal command of literacy strategies and poor literacy knowledge can be expected to provide effective literacy support, and whether education policy goals and provision of training in this area are therefore realistic. Recent Research and Policy Recent research in the field has been directed mainly toward extending and refining established policies and procedures in literacy support. This can be seen in work by May and

The Australian Government, in its Professional Standards for Teachers and Australian Curriculum framework, requires that all secondary teachers actively teach the specific literacy of their learning area. Yet achievement of that goal hinges on teachers having first acquired the pre-requisite literate competencies during their own schooling. There are reasons to doubt that this is the case for some graduate teachers, which means attempts to raise standards in schools are beset by a troubling circularity. Here we illustrate the problem with further findings from a Western Australian ITE Cohort Study (n=393), focussing this time on the word knowledge of secondary teaching graduates. Our analysis suggests that some secondary ITE students carry shortcomings from their own schooling that may hamper their ability to teach word knowledge or to self-correct. Current training and resources may thus have limited efficacy for some graduating teachers, placing limits on what can be achieved in schools. We consider the implications for literacy policies and for initial teacher education at secondary level.