Effective literacy teaching practices in Portugal: A study in first grade

Abstract

This article examines the effect of literacy teaching practices on the reading ability of first grade pupils in Portuguese, a semi-transparent orthography. First grade teachers (N=267) self-reported their literacy teaching practices through a questionnaire. Hierarchical cluster analysis revealed three groups with different practices - Language Experience, Phonic, and Balanced. Eight teachers from each group were randomly selected for classroom observation (N=24) to gain more in-depth information about their practices, namely by analysing classroom management procedures and materials used. Their pupils' reading abilities were assessed at the beginning and end of the first grade (N=465) through two tasks: word reading and comprehension. Multivariate analysis of covariance, controlling for mother's educational levels, showed that pupils of balanced teachers had better results than pupils in the other two groups. These results are in line with those described in the English literature, pointing out that the key term for describing successful literacy teaching practices is balance: balance in classroom management procedures, from more teacher-centred to more pupil-centred; balance in different types of reading materials, from more authentic materials to materials designed to work on specific skills; and balance between explicit instruction in grapheme-phoneme correspondences and reading and writing authentic texts.