Teachers, Teacher Education, and Professional Development
Teacher Education Specific to Reading
Professional certification is required to qualify as a teacher. Primary school teachersʼ initial training typically is provided by tertiary level institutions. Argentina reformed its teacher education policies in 2009, extending tertiary level programs from three to four years and moving teacher education into schools. In this way, teacher trainees are introduced to professional practice gradually, beginning with observing classes, then participating in lesson planning, and finally taking full responsibility for classroom management. Primary school teachers receive training in four main subject areas: mathematics, language arts, social sciences, and natural sciences. There is no specific initial training for reading instruction.
Requirements for Ongoing Professional Development in Reading for Teachers
Continuing education and professional development are guaranteed at the local and national levels. There is a national program for continuing education, and at the local level there is a special center for ongoing teacher education that delivers compulsory and optional training programs.
Primary school teachers working in state-run schools have incentives to participate in professional development. By participating in professional development programs, teachers accumulate credits that help them when applying to new and more senior teaching positions that offer higher compensation.
The cityʼs School of Continuing Professional Development for Teachers provides in-service and regular training to teachers in reading and writing. Some of the regular training offered in 2015 included:
- Writing as a Process: Teaching Strategies for Students to Learn to Write
- Writing Workshop: Fiction and Reality
- Playing the Media Game: Reading and Participation in the Twentieth Century
- Reading and Writing in Initial Literacy: A Proposal from the Classroom Library
- Dazzled by the Fantastic: Fantastic Literature as a Reading Opportunity
- Childrenʼs Literature: The Album Book (When Words and Images Talk)
- Teaching How to Read and Write: How to Organize Classroom Instruction
- Reading and Writing Proposals for Initial Literacy: The Literacy Environment
- Assessment of Reading and Writing Practices: What, When, How?
The in-service training for teachers in state-run schools consists of schoolsʼ participation in regional meetings, grouped by school districts. The meetings are monthly and involve four hours per week during eight months a year and focus on curricular proposals on reading and writing. This training is compulsory, and no score is given.
The School of Continuing Professional Development also offers a special program called Literacy and Language for the Second Cycle.