The Influence of Pupil Behaviors and Pupil Status Factors on Teacher Behaviors during Oral Reading Lessons

The study investigates relationships among pupil reading behaviors and teacher responses with a sample of 106 primary grade readers. With student background traits such as sex and prior reading achievement controlled, seven different reading behaviors and pupil responses accounted for significant increases in the prediction of teacher behaviors. Pupil reading behaviors had the greatest effect on teacher corrections and word pronunciations. Conversely, pupil background factors had the greatest association with the length of reading assigned and the numbers of grapho- phonemic and prereading cues teachers provided. In view of the findings, the authors suggest that future study of classroom interaction examine the notion that teacher expectations may be at least partially due to then- responses to specific aspects of pupil behavior.