Very few topics have received as much attention in the education community as the question of how best to teach children to read and write. Equally important to this discussion is the question of how best to prepare new teachers to facilitate children’s learning of these essential skills. Understanding the nature of literacy teacher educators’ current practices is salient to any discussion of improving instruction and achievement in K-12 classrooms. In reviewing the knowledge base around learning to teach reading, Pearson (2001) has remarked that “we desperately need a basic database that will allow us to answer the question, What does reading

teacher education look like?” (p.18).