ABSTRACT
Historically, teacher research has not been valued within the academic community (Anderson & Herr, 1999), and thus there are few, if any, references to it in reviews of reading research (e.g., Barr, Kamil, Mosenthal, Pearson, 1991; National Reading Panel, 2000; Pearson, Barr, Kamil, & Mosenthal,1984; Snow, Burns, & Grif n, 1998). Although there has been more acknowledgement of the value of teacher research by its inclusion in recent research syntheses (e.g., Baumann & Duffy-Hester, 2000; Cochran-Smith & Donnell, 2006; Fecho, Allen, Mazaros, & Inyega, 2006; Lytle, 2000; Zeichner & Noffke, 2001), the research that still really counts in shaping educational policy is the NCLB-endorsed scientifi cally based reading research (Allington, 2002; Cunningham, 2001; Woodside-Jiron, 2003), which typically excludes teacher research (Allen & Shockley, 1996). Thus, teacher research may not often in uence decisions about reading instruction within Congress, state houses, or school district of ces. Is teacher research, therefore, ineffectual in in uencing reading instructional practices in schools and classrooms? Is Lenski (2008) wrong in arguing that “teacher research can make an important contribution to the eld of literacy” (p. 182)? We think not.
