Language, learning, and love: Preservice teacher meanings of emergent literacy theory in a language arts methods course

The future of education is resting in the hands of the teachers being prepared today. The teachers being prepared face unique challenges to the 'art' of teaching. They will be accountable to entities outside of the educational arena. They will be responsible for learning in disparate sociocultural conditions. This generation of teachers must be more than mere survivors in the education system. They must be reflective, transformative, critical professionals who are capable of articulating and acting upon their educational philosophies. Initial teacher preparation requires rigor and relevancy for the contemporary realities of teaching. This inquiry investigated such approaches.; The purpose of this inquiry was to document, describe, and interpret preservice teachers' meanings of emergent literacy theory through the experiences within an academic semester language arts methods course. Specifically, this inquiry investigates the preservice teachers' development of a pedagogical vocabulary and the theoretical understanding of emergent literacy. Additionally, this study is an inquiry into the investigator's own practice and efforts to structure a course purposefully to offer experiences that allow the development of a teaching lexicon.; This study was a multiple method design incorporating several research perspectives. Triangulation of qualitative data occurred through observation; audiotape and videotape of educative experiences; and documents that record student reflections, responses, and new learnings. Assertions to frame preservice teachers' meanings of emergent literacy theory were made. A survey instrument was designed to study the change in meanings the preservice teachers developed during the course. The pre and post course work results were analyzed using a two-tailed paired sample t-test.; The study findings resulted in implications for integration of personal narrative and life experience within each methods course; interactive, experiential learning; and immediate application of course content. The study suggests that environmental print be incorporated into classroom practice and home school connections. Environmental print reading and the role that it plays in building children's phonological knowledge demands further iterative study. The assertions are intended to encourage the reader to consider and raise questions about current teacher preparation, and to encourage rethinking current education reform efforts in teaching standards, reading initiatives, and accountability.