The report, Teacher Prep Review: Decoding Progress in Reading Preparation, published on June 9, spotlights Rocky Mountain College for meeting the standards set by literacy experts for coverage of the most effective methods of reading instruction. Specifically, this means the program is preparing aspiring teachers in all five components of scientifically based reading instruction, including phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, comprehension, and vocabulary, and avoids many instructional practices that research has shown to be ineffective or counterproductive for teaching children to read.
A child’s ability to read proficiently in the early grades shapes everything that comes next in school and in life, yet according to NAEP data, four in ten fourth graders in Montana cannot read at a basic level. Teacher preparation is one of the most direct levers available to change that—but only if it is aligned to the research-based instructional methods that have been proven to help most students become successful readers.
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Rocky Mountain College is part of a growing group of teacher preparation programs nationwide helping transform how future teachers are trained to teach reading.
RMC education program mission
Rocky Mountain College’s education program seeks to develop future teachers who are not only well educated in their disciplines, but who are also culturally responsive, caring, and knowledgeable in their interactions with students and their families. Rocky Mountain College’s education program produces educators who reflect on and continually refine their practice as they negotiate the ever-increasing challenges of the teaching profession. This is especially the case in foundational literacy instruction.
Our teacher candidates have been instilled with a deep content knowledge in each of their content areas of expertise, enabling them to plan and implement instruction, to monitor and assess student learning, and to adjust their classroom practice to increase their teaching effectiveness.
NCTQ’s methodology is informed by a panel of reading experts, teacher preparation faculty, reading advocates, and measurement experts. To evaluate the quality of preparation being provided, a team of experts at NCTQ analyzed syllabi, including lecture schedules and topics, background reading materials, class assessments, assignments, and opportunities to practice instruction in required literacy courses for elementary teacher candidates at Rocky Mountain College.
To earn an “A,” programs needed to demonstrate that coursework for future elementary teachers includes all five core components of scientifically based reading instruction and avoid teaching more than three instructional methods that are unsupported by the research on effective reading instruction. To earn an A+, programs needed to exceed those targets and not teach any instructional practices that are unsupported by research.
