| The purpose of this content analysis study was to examine how reading comprehension was addressed in professional literacy texts used with preservice teachers at five universities in Texas. The universities for the study were selected based on the number of teachers graduating with their initial EC-4 teaching certificate between September 1, 2007 and August 31, 2008 (State Board for Educator Certification [SBEC], 2008).;Two courses, an introductory Reading course and an ESL methods course were selected from each university the EC-4 Generalist degree plan. Equivalent courses were then chosen based on course descriptions from the current undergraduate catalog for each university. The required textbooks used for each section taught in the Fall 2008 semester at each of the five universities were found using the online bookstore. There were 17 books examined as part of this content analysis.;Textbooks were examined for definitions of reading comprehension and the presence of reading instructional incidents (RIIs) and reading comprehension instructional incidents (RCIIs). Of the 17 textbooks, only 7 contained a specific definition of reading comprehension.;Overall, there were more RIIs (suggestions, ideas, directions, and/or explanations of reading instruction than RCIIs (suggestions, ideas, directions, and/or explanations of reading comprehension. Findings showed that the Reading texts addressed reading comprehension more often that the ESL texts did.;Two different chi-square analyses were conducted to see if there was statistical significance. The first chi square test used the categories that emerged from the RCIIs as the lone variable. Another chi-square test was performed using the categories and the type of text as the variables. Both chi square tests corroborated that a statistical significance existed between the categories and the whether the text was used for Reading or an ESL course.;Additionally, a Cramer's V measures effect size and confirmed that 57% of the difference between the categories was due to the text type and not by chance. |
