Similarities and Differences in Teachers’ Practical Knowledge about Teaching Reading Comprehension by Paulien C. Meijer, Nico Verloop, Douwe Beijaard

Article title : Similarities and Differences in Teachers’ Practical Knowledge about Teaching Reading Comprehension
Writer         : Paulien C. Meijer, Nico Verloop, Douwe Beijaard
Journal/Newspaper : The Journal of Educational ResearchVol. 94, No. 3 (Jan. - Feb. 2001), pp. 171-184
Date published : 2001         Number of words: 379
List no. : 353

This article is about the nature of teachers’ shared practical knowledge about teaching reading comprehension to 16-18- year-old students and the variation in practical knowledge exists among teachers. The method used in this article is survey that is questionnaire was developed that consisted of closed-format questions derived from a qualitative in-depth study on teachers' practical knowledge about teaching reading comprehension to administrators of 17 schools for pre-university secondary education in the western part of the Netherlands to contact all language teachers in their schools and ask them to fill in the questionnaire. The results indicate that although there was shared knowledge among the teachers, there were large differences in their practical knowledge. According to the teachers' scale scores; the writers identified four separate clusters of teachers. It can be concluded from that clusters that relatively large number of teachers appeared to focus on small components of teaching reading comprehension, and, furthermore, that a relatively large number of teachers appeared to consider reading comprehension as not being very important.
The writers put their selves as surveyors who conducted this study by mailing the questionnaire to the administrators. They observed the result to find the nature of teachers’ shared (similiarities) practical knowledge about teaching reading comprehension.
I would support the writers that even though there was shared knowledge among the teachers, there were large differences in their practical knowledge, because this practical knowledge of teachers is highly determined by individual experiences, personality variables, personal history, subject matter knowledge, and so on (Verloop et al., 2001). So, I am sure that every teacher has their own opinion about teaching reading comprehension.
The similar study has also ever been conducted in China to examine similarities (shared knowledge) and differences in teacher knowledge, and potentially relevant background variables at university of China. The result just remains the same as this study. It means that we cannot deny the differences among teachers in teaching reading comprehension.