Over the past decade, a profound shift has reshaped early literacy education across the United States: the widespread legislative and institutional adoption of the Science of Reading (SoR). This movement prioritizes explicit, systematic instruction in phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension. As one of the pilot campuses in New York State's The Path Forward Literacy Initiative, St. Francis College's teacher preparation programs join many others in redesigning course syllabi in order to better align with the SoR research. Our work thus far has demonstrated that a challenge arises during the supervised student teaching semester. Student teachers are frequently caught between two worlds: the evidence-based frameworks taught in their college courses, and the practices often used by their cooperating teachers. This study examines this intersection, evaluating how student teachers navigate the mentorship of their cooperating teachers and how they ultimately perform when formally observed by college faculty members. Because the study will still be in progress, we are very interested in sharing the design of the study, including tools used, and our initial impressions and questions as the process unfolds.
