Going beyond defining: Preschool educators' use of knowledge in their pedagogical reasoning about vocabulary instruction

Abstract

Previous research investigating both the knowledge of early childhood educators and the support for vocabulary development present in early childhood settings has indicated that both educator knowledge and enacted practice are less than optimal, which has grave implications for children's early vocabulary learning and later reading achievement. Further, the nature of the relationship between educators' knowledge and practice is unclear, making it difficult to discern the best path towards improved knowledge, practice, and children's vocabulary outcomes. The purpose of the present study was to add to the existing literature by using stimulated recall interviews and a grounded approach to examine how 10 preschool educators used their knowledge to made decisions about their moment-to-moment instruction in support of children's vocabulary development. Results indicate that educators were thinking in highly context-specific ways about their goals and strategies for supporting vocabulary learning, taking into account important knowledge of their instructional history with children and of the children themselves to inform their decision making in the moment. In addition, they reported thinking about research-based goals and strategies for supporting vocabulary learning that went beyond simply defining words for children. Implications for research and professional development are discussed.

Mathers (in press) Using video to assess preschool teachers’ pedagogical knowledge

“…The dynamic procedural knowledge of an expert teacher allows them to orchestrate these factors 'in the moment', applying strategies flexibly to maximise child learning (Knievel, Lindmeier & Heinze, 2015;Shulman, 1987). Studies of preschool teachers' language-related pedagogical reasoning shows that it is multi-faceted and highly contextspecific (Dwyer & Schachter, 2020). Static questionnaire scenarios are simply too remote from the complexity of real classroom interactions to capture the contextually-codified knowledge which shapes decision-making within them (Alonzo & Kim, 2016).…”

Researching Pre-school Teachers’ Knowledge of Oral Language Pedagogy Using Video

“…The work of Dwyer and Schachter on pedagogical reasoning in preschool classrooms offers more contextually relevant information. Their studies show that teachers draw on multiple sources of contextualised knowledge to inform their reasoning about language and literacy instruction, including knowledge of how children learn; knowledge of specific children, their learning goals for them and their instructional history with them; factors related to the school context; and ideas about themselves as teachers (Schachter, 2017;Dwyer and Schachter, 2020). However, since relationships with teaching quality and child outcomes were not analysed, this work cannot shed light on which facets matter for effective pre- school teaching.…”

Kindergarten Teacher’s Pedagogical Knowledge and Its Relationship with Teaching Experience

“…These five components are curriculum, pedagogy, assessment, contribution towards the school, and professional contribution. Therefore, to be a competent and professional educator, teachers must first master pedagogical knowledge ( Bakar, Maat & Rosli, 2019;Dwyer & Schachter, 2019;Naziri, Rasul & Affandi, 2019;Siraj & Ibrahim, 2012). The pedagogical knowledge comprises six components, namely classroom management, time management, classroom control, teaching strategies, and reflection on the teaching and learning process (Abdul Rahim, 2005;Sulaiman, 2003;Yunus, Kandasamy & Hashim, 2018).…”

“…They can also make the learning session fun and exciting. This approach has been proven to enhance children's engagement, attention, focus, and interest (Dwyer & Schachter, 2019;Nganga, 2020;Jantan, Fauzi, & Resad, 2016). Besides, the fun and exciting session with playful activities can help nurture and foster the interest of children towards learning (Oakley, 2020).…”