An Investigation into How Parental Literacy Experiences are Reflected in Literacy Tendencies and Experiences of Preservice Teachers

This study was undertaken to examine how parental literacy experiences were reflected in the literacy tendencies and experiences of preservice teachers. It is known that in order to offer an effective teacher education, it is necessary to know preservice teachers by analyzing their literacy practices originating from their parents and take into account their tendencies about how to develop reading skills of primary school children. The research presented here was a phenomenological study implemented with six senior preservice teachers of elementary education and their parents. The data of the study were collected through interviews with the preservice teachers and their parents and through observation notes. According to the results of the study, the preservice teachers' literacy experiences reflected their parents' characteristics, including parental literacy perceptions, literacy approaches developed by the parents for the preservice teachers, personal literacy experiences, general past experiences, number of literate people in the family, parental professional experiences, parental worldviews, and verbal communication within the family.