This review of literacy education scholarship examines the ways that children’s literature is used as a resource within literacy methods courses in the preparation of preservice teachers (PTs) as transformative intellectuals. The research indicates that the use of children’s literature in literacy methods courses has served two distinct purposes: (a) to engage PTs in learning literacy instructional practices and (b) to engage PTs in building sociocultural knowledge and learning transformative (e.g., culturally relevant) pedagogies. This review is framed by Giroux’s call for educators to disrupt technocratic approaches to instruction. The findings emphasize the importance of using children’s literature with PTs to broaden PTs’ understandings of their future student’s lives, so they might engage in transformative pedagogies as future K-12 literacy educators.

Our goal through this literature review is to report and synthesize the findings from research into literacy tutoring and literacy mentoring in initial teacher preparation. We identified a total of 62 published articles that met our selection criteria. We identified four conceptual areas of focus to organize and represent our findings: (a) the structural and design features of the one-to-one or small-group experiences, (b) preservice teacher learning and growth within the tutorial/mentoring experience, (c) preservice teacher learning and growth beyond the tutorial/mentoring experience, and (d) mediating factors associated with preservice teacher growth. We discuss the challenges and promises for this line of research for transforming teacher preparation through the attention to third and hybrid spaces for mentoring experiences.

Although children’s literature has been challenged and banned for decades, some U.S. states have recently enacted legislation limiting how teachers can address such topics as race, sex, and gender in classrooms, which may influence teachers’ selection of literature. To understand this phenomenon, this exploratory concurrent mixed-methods study involved a written children’s literature course artifact and survey responses analyzed through critical literacy and self-censorship frameworks. Findings indicate that preservice teachers reported avoiding conversations about gender and gender identity more often than those about sexual orientation or race. Further, despite legislative changes, participants mostly reported self-censoring due to lack of pedagogical knowledge, lack of policy knowledge, and fear of institutional sanctions, which are long-standing reasons for self-censorship rather than new ones. Comparatively, they self-reported little desire to promote the dominant political ideology. This research indicates that topic-restrictive legislation can influence classroom practice even when teachers do not share the ideology behind such legislation.

Dyslexia policy and practice have been rapidly outpacing research. Due to legislation and media attention, schools are under pressure to attend to dyslexia, but research provides few clear answers about characteristics, identification, or instruction. Most dyslexia research takes place outside literacy education, and teachers’ perspectives are heard only when their knowledge is questioned. Our research addresses these gaps with a qualitative study examining perspectives, understandings, and experiences of 32 Texas public school educators regarding dyslexia. Two major themes were evident: First, teachers felt responsible for meeting the needs of all their students, including those identified as dyslexic. Second, participants named barriers that interfered with attempts to support students, including limited information and confusing policies and procedures. This research provides new information about teacher’s understandings, experiences, and perspectives concerning dyslexia that goes beyond surveys. This study’s literature review provides information about the state of current dyslexia research, including its limitations.