Early Childhood Teachers' Enacted Epistemic Cognition: A Comparative Case in Literacy Instruction

• In Event: Literacy Strategies and Interventions: Reading and Text Comprehension

Abstract

We investigated aspects of epistemic-cognition that emerged when early childhood teachers (ECTs) selected children’s books and planned for literacy instruction using a rigorous qualitative data collection and analysis process. Within each teacher’s engagement of epistemic-cognition, we found evidence of shared and distinct processes demonstrated across four aspects of epistemic-cognition and of the cognitive interplay happening in the teachers’ minds amidst the interaction of aims, ideals, and reliable processes towards the final epistemic end. Findings can inform the field regarding how ECTs engage in thinking and pedagogical decision-making about literacy instruction by providing a rich description of the phenomenon as enacted in daily practice and help ECTs increase self-awareness of the cognitive processes they use during early literacy instruction.

Authors

• Kit Marie SaizdeLaMora, Francis Marion University
  Presenting Author

• Helenrose Fives, Montclair State University
  Presenting Author