Read, Baby, Read: Developing Content Knowledge to Positively Impact the Practice of Teaching Nonfiction Reading

The field of teacher research is increasingly including self-study as a valid and reliable method with which teachers can study and improve practice. In this self-study, I develop knowledge of myself as a nonfiction reader and use it to inform my instruction. Guided by the work of Schoenbach, Greenleaf, Cziko, and Hurwitz (1999), I use metacognitive reading logs to examine how I think when I read and to select reading strategies around which to develop lessons for my third-grade students. In three cycles of action research, I teach the lessons and analyze them through journaling and dialoging with two critical friends. I find that empathizing with a novice experience of reading helps my lesson content become more rigorous and my pedagogy become more authentic and inclusive of my students as co-constructors of knowledge. These findings have implications for my practice, for teacher professional development, and for the field of teacher cognitive psychology.