An examination of teachers’ “learning to act on reflection”

Abstract This two‐year study examined three urban teachers’ efforts to implement guided reading and interactive writing lessons as they acted strategically on their reflections and mentoring. The purpose of the study was to discover how teachers learn to act on and move toward more advanced literacy teaching. The focal teachers were chosen by on‐site literacy coordinators as those who shifted most in their thinking and deepening literacy practices during an on‐going literacy project. Though the results are not generalizable, they reveal that “learning to act on reflection” is more effective when teachers have a clear sense of “which knowledges to teach when”. Such behavior is more strategic when teachers learn to integrate decision‐making procedures with knowledge‐based actions to advance learners’ literacy independence. These findings acknowledge the importance of incremental change in literacy instruction. A K‐2 developmental continuum for teachers’ literacy self‐assessment evolved from the data analysis and is included to facilitate teacher change processes.