Teacher education students also have a need for opportunities to explore their own reading and writing stances through biography and reflection to help them better understand their perceptions and approaches related to reading instruction. The mode of cognition of critical theory recognizes the innate possibilities that people have as they are able to be reflexive and can produce their own knowledge (Peters et al, 2003). Morawski and Brunhuber (1995) point out how pre–service teachers in the process of learning to teach typically rely on their past experience in classrooms to inform their practice. They speak about how "the beliefs and feelings which teachers hold about literacy activities, including the teaching of reading, can be found in their Early Recollections of Learning to Read (ERLRs)" (p. 316).

Morawski and Brunhuber (1995) also promote the practice of active reflection through journals and/or verbal interaction for teachers. They argue that this will help teachers to develop a greater awareness of their perceptions and their origin in order that they may be informed about what affects their own instructional practices. Thus, they recommend the inclusion of such opportunities in methods courses on reading along with activities that will allow the students to become self–directed and reflect on their conclusions.

Implications for Policy

The current literacy policy agenda may be somewhat misguided since it appears to advocate a single best practice model that fosters the myth that prosperity necessarily results from literacy. It is not to deny that investing in resources to help parents improve their literacy could have important payoffs for their children, it is just that there are so many other factors involved and these cannot simply be ignored. In order to move them to action, policy leaders must clearly recognize how education is inextricably intertwined with political, cultural and socioeconomic factors that have led to systemic inequalities. This is a problem for which both educators and politicians must work together to increase their understanding and attempt to remedy.