Issues in reading practice. A study on how teachers adapt to the processes and topics of PIRLS

The present paper derives from the recent teacher training sessions that took place within a project in Romania that focused on an exploration of the students' misconceptions as revealed by the Progress in International Reading Literacy Study and the design and application of improved reading practice. The research strictly refers to how the participant teachers developed their online assignments for the course The Reading Challenge that took place on http://training.ise.ro, within the groups Univers and Ciric and explores the issues in reading teaching in grades I-VIII. The main aim was to analyse how teachers meet the requirements of the reading curriculum and address the learning needs of their students. A particular focus is on the teachers' ability to select motivating texts for the students, the design and implementation of reading activities in the class and the development of tests which could measure the level of the reading performance. (C) 2014 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.