Beginning teacher development and mandated reading programs: A context for integrated teacher preparation and support between a university's teacher education program and a local school district

Mandated reading programs create a specific context for beginning elementary teachers' development and socialization into the profession. This situation affects the teachers themselves as well as two major educational institutions: teacher education programs and school districts; yet the literature on beginning teachers documents few efforts to address this situation. In addition, the theoretical base for research on teachers' interactions with mandated commercial reading programs lacks consideration for the individual agency of beginning teachers in mediating the development of their pedagogical practice.;In this study, qualitative research methods for data collection and analysis were used to investigate how elementary school teachers from one university's teacher education program experienced teaching literacy during their first year. The teachers took positions in the same school district, where a popular commercial reading program for literacy instruction had been adopted and mandated. The study also investigated, from the perspectives of those teachers and that of their teacher education program faculty and district literacy coaches, how the university and the district best met, or could best meet, their needs in this specific context. Data sources included: university and school district documents; a teacher questionnaire; personal interviews, reflective journals, and a focus group with teachers; and personal interviews with university faculty and district literacy coaches.;The study participants described how the mandated reading program both positively and negatively impacts beginning teachers. The teachers pointed to student teaching and school-site coaching as instructional practices that most benefit their learning to teach reading and writing in the context of a mandated program. Finally, the teachers, professors, and coaches recommended that the university and the school district consider more integration between their teacher preparation and support programs in addressing this specific teaching and learning context.