Teachers' Perceptions of Word Callers and Related Literacy Concepts.

The purpose of the study was to investigate teachers' perceptions of word callers as they relate to the concepts of reading fluency and reading comprehension. To this end, second grade students (N = 408) completed a series of reading fluency and reading comprehension assessments, and their teachers (N = 31) completed word caller nominations and a questionnaire regarding their concepts surrounding these issues. Our findings suggested that teachers often over nominated children as word callers. Further, questionnaire data indicated a great deal of ambiguity and inconsistency exists regarding teachers' understanding and use of the term word caller. By contrast, teachers seemed to possess a veridical understanding of the related terms reading fluency and reading comprehension.