Effects of teacher's individualized support on children's reading skills and interest in classrooms with different teaching styles Eve Kikas a, ⁎, Gintautas Silinskas b , Anna-Liisa Jõgi a , Piret Soodla a a Tallinn University, Narva mnt 25, 10120 Tallinn, Estonia b University of Jyvaskyla, Department of Psychology, P.O. Box 35, FI-40014, Finland abstract article info Article history: Received 31 May 2015 Received in revised form 12 January 2016 Accepted 22 May 2016 Available online xxxx The purpose of the study was to examine whether teacher's individualized support affects students' reading skills and interest in classrooms with different teaching styles. Groups of teachers with child-centered, mixed child- centered/teacher-directed, and child-dominated teaching styles were differentiated based on observed teaching practices. The participants were 552 children (273 boys) and their 21 homeroom teachers. Teaching practices were assessed in Grade 1, teacher individualized support and students' reading skills and interest in reading were assessed twice - at the end of Grades 1 and 2.The results showed that relations between individualized sup- port and students' later reading comprehension skills and interest differed between classrooms with different teaching styles. While idividualized support enhanced interest in reading in classrooms employing mixed child-centered/teacher directed style, it inhibited interest in classrooms with child-dominated style. Also, in the classrooms with child-dominated teaching style, higher individualized support was related to lower reading comprehension skills. © 2016 Published by Elsevier Inc. Keywords: Teaching styles Individualized support Reading Interest in reading Elementary school 1. Introduction Outside of home, teachers constitute the most proximal environmental context for young children's academic and motivational development (Hamre & Pianta, 2010), yet they differ in teaching practices, teaching styles (Hamre & Pianta, 2010; Hauser-Cram, Sirin, & Stipek, 2003; Rasku-Puttonen et al., 2010; Stipek & Byler, 2004) and how they individualize their teaching (Connor et al., 2013). Several researchers have differentiated between child-centered, teacher-directed, and child-dominated teaching practices (Lerkkanen, Kikas, Pakarinen, Poikonen, & Nurmi, 2013; Perry, Donohue, & Weinstein, 2007), and emphasized that teachers apply some combination of these practices (Stipek & Byler, 2004). So far, teaching styles as preferred combinations of teaching practices have rarely been examined. Exception- ally, Rasku-Puttonen et al. (2010) described subgroups of kindergarten teachers with child-centered (i.e., who applied dominantly child-centered practices), teacher-directed, child-dominated, and mixed child-centered/ teacher-directed teaching styles. Moreover, while studies have shown differential impact of separate teaching practices on children's scholastic development (e.g. Lerkkanen et al., 2013; Perry et al., 2007), the possibility that children develop differently in classrooms with different teaching styles has not been analyzed. Also, findings on the effects of individualized practices on children's scholastic development have been inconsistent. While some studies have shown that increased individualized instruction has a positive impact on children's skill development (Connor et al., 2013), others have not found this positive effect (Nurmi, Viljaranta, Tolvanen, & Aunola, 2012). Thus, more research is needed to clarify the con- texts in which individualized support enhances or inhibits development. Although a few studies have examined how student characteristics relate to the success of individualized support (Silinskas et al., 2016), the role of teaching styles is yet to be examined in such context. As teachers with different teaching styles may conceptualize and provide individualized support differently, this knowledge is paramount for better understanding how teaching styles are applied in real classrooms. Thus, the study aimed to examine whether the effects of individual- ized support on reading skills (i.e., reading fluency and comprehension) and interest differ between children in classrooms of teachers with dif- ferent teaching styles. We limited our research to reading because it is among the most important skills to be acquired at the beginning of school and the skill levels at the start of the first grade vary significantly (Soodla et al., 2015). Reading fluency was analyzed because it is an im- portant prerequisite for the ultimate aim of reading – reading compre- hension (Verhoeven & van Leeuwe, 2008). 1.1. Teaching practices, teaching styles and students' academic development Based on the active, leading roles of teachers or children, three di- mensions of teaching practices – child-centered, teacher-directed, and Learning and Individual Differences xxx (2016) xxx–xxx ⁎ Corresponding author. E-mail addresses: eve.kikas@tlu.ee (E. Kikas), gintautas.silinskas@jyu.fi (G. Silinskas), annaliisa.jogi@tlu.ee (A.-L. Jõgi), piret.soodla@tlu.ee (P. Soodla). LEAIND-01275; No of Pages 8 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.lindif.2016.05.015 1041-6080/© 2016 Published by Elsevier Inc. Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Learning and Individual Differences journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/lindif Please cite this article as: Kikas, E., et al., Effects of teacher's individualized support on children's reading skills and interest in classrooms with different teaching styles, Learning and Individual Differences (2016), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.lindif.2016.05.015