Les pratiques d’enseignement de la littératie d’enseignants experts du premier cycle du primaire et la place accordée à la différenciation pédagogique

The present research document aims to describe the practices of literacy of teachers considered as experts in an early elementary school context in Montreal. Specifically, the three research objectives of our work are as follows: describe the teaching practices applied to written language used by some teachers considered as experts (N = 6) in an early elementary school context in Montreal (objective 1); describe the various types of differentiated teaching selected by some teachers considered as experts in a Montreal-specific context to teach reading and writing skills according to the varying needs of their students (objective 2); and investigate possible links between the teaching practices applied to the acquisition of writing skills used by teachers considered as experts and the progress made by their students (N = 100) in the first cycle of elementary school in a Montreal, in terms of their knowledge of phonographic relationships and the spelling standard (objective 3).    In order to meet these goals, we conducted two interviews with teachers, and ran two classroom observations, one in the fall and the other in spring. For their part, students were subjected to two writing tasks twice during the year (one aimed at word generation and the other at text production) to measure their progress during the year as it relates to their knowledge of phonographic relationships and to the spelling standard.    Results showed that teaching practices as well as frequency vary greatly from one teacher to another. The richness of the material presented in class also differs greatly.  In accordance with the multi-agenda model of Bucheton and Soulé (2009), the five components of the activity matrix of the teacher were found in all classes, but did not have the same importance for every one of the teachers engaged in our research. The results also indicate that all teachers differentiate their teaching, although at varying degrees. It seems that differentiation of processes, of contents and of structures is the easiest factor to implement in the classroom. In line with our adaptation of Caron’s model of differentiated instruction (2008), it seems that the elements that were most mobilized were diversification and the offering of choices. Adaptation measures were seldom emphasized in classroom practices, while no measures of individualization were observed.    In regard to student performance in writing tasks, our results indicate that two groups stand out among the six. Indeed, it is in these two classes that we observed the greatest increase. Practices used by the teachers in these two classes were very diverse and they were the only ones who used all of the methods discussed in interviews. Furthermore, the content of the course was rich, a characteristic of effective teaching practices (Hall 2003). Similarly, these two teachers offered their students a high quality scaffolding and mastered coaching tasks.    This research can be used to shed new light on the practices of literacy used by teachers that are considered as experts in order to better understand these practices, as well as the importance given to differentiated instruction.

Keyphrases: expert teachers, teaching practices, literacy, differentiated instruction, development of spelling skills