An observational study of Latino educator error correction strategies during reading instruction

Little is known about Latino educators' beliefs and responses to reading errors. The purpose of this study was to examine the nature of the responses Latino educators provide to students' reading errors and whether these responses vary by teacher background, grade level, and educators' belief system about reading and correcting reading errors.;Participants in this study were fifteen Latino educators from three distinct teacher backgrounds: Five newly credentialed teachers with a BCLAD, five paraeducators enrolled in teacher education programs, and five paraeducators not enrolled in teacher education programs. This design was adopted to permit comparison of the beliefs and practices of teachers and paraeducators as they moved through the paraeducator-to-teacher pipeline.;Collection of data took place in two large public elementary schools located in the inner cities of Southern California. Each educator was observed while working directly with students during language arts instruction. Descriptive notes were taken of educators' responses to student reading errors. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with each educator to gather information about their beliefs on reading.;Results of this study show that Latino educators' types of responses to students' reading errors were phonemic, word-supply, or wait-time and most of them believe in using more than one theoretical approach during reading instruction. The number and type of responses to reading errors in the lower grade levels favor immediate phonemic corrective feedback, whereas wait-time was provided for third grade students and word-supply for students in the upper grade levels.;Educators' beliefs strongly influenced the type of feedback provided to students reading errors. When comparing the consistency between beliefs and practices by educator background, credentialed teachers and paraeducators in an educational program had congruency between their beliefs and practices; however, paraeducators who were not in an educational program did not. Furthermore, credentialed teachers and paraeducators who were in a program for becoming teachers were more inclined to allow students time to self-correct, whereas paraeducators who were not in an educational program did not. These results are indicative that educational programs and teacher training do influence educators' awareness of their beliefs and practices.