NCATE and Standards for Reading Professionals

IRA published its current Standards for Reading Professionals in 2003. (Read full text.) Faculties at postsecondary institutions, as well as staff in state departments of education, use these standards in planning preparation programs for reading paraprofessionals, classroom reading teachers, reading specialists/literacy coaches, reading teacher educators, and administrators. Standards 2003 is also used as the basis for evaluating candidates for these roles and preparation programs.

The standards answer the question “What should reading professionals know and be able to do?” Standards 2003 draws from professional expertise and reading research to identify the performance criteria relevant to assessing competence of reading educators and to suggest ways programs can be designed to foster this competence. (A companion volume to the standards, Preparing Reading Professionals, outlines the knowledge base.) Because these standards are performance based rather than “course based,” they allow flexibility in designing postsecondary teacher education programs.

Standards 2003 differs from earlier editions because of this emphasis on candidate performance. This change is a response to shifts in the field toward a focus on the outcomes of learning rather than on inputs.

Other changes from earlier editions relate to format, language, and structure. Tables replace the earlier matrices of competencies and relate elements of each of five standards to five different categories of reading professionals. The word candidate is used to emphasize that we are describing performance at the end of a preparation program and not what might be expected of a seasoned professional. The criteria for each professional category are specific and measurable. With the exception of paraprofessional and administrator, criteria for each category are cumulative—for example, the reading specialist/literacy coach is expected to meet the criteria for that category along with criteria for the classroom teacher and paraprofessional categories.

In response to calls for reliance on research-based practices in schools, Standards 2003 includes a bibliography of research syntheses that summarize numerous individual studies. Further, in acknowledging changing school populations, the current standards refer frequently to cultural and linguistic diversity and emphasize that all candidates must be able to teach responsively in ways that capitalize on students’ backgrounds. Finally, Standards 2003 emphasizes the use of technology for teaching children and preparing teachers.

The current IRA standards were adopted by NCATE in October 2003. Criteria for the reading specialist/literacy coach category are used in decisions regarding accreditation of postsecondary programs. As a specialized professional association, IRA reviews this category for NCATE accreditation.