Good Readers, Good Teachers?: Subject Matter Expertise as a Challenge in Learning to Teach

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Abstract
In this article, Diane Holt-Reynolds critically examines the importance placed on subject matter expertise in the training of secondary school teachers. Recognizing that knowledge of subject matter has been a major concern in national calls for education reform, Holt-Reynolds explores the role that such knowledge plays in a prospective teacher's conceptualization of skillful and successful teaching. Through a case study of Mary, one subject matter expert enrolled in a college-level teacher training program Holt-Reynolds demonstrates how, for this teacher subject matter expertise does not translate into an understanding of how to model that expertise or share it with students. Providing extensive data to support her identification of Mary as an expert reader, she then shows hour Mary fails to see her experitise as learned and suggests that this failure causes Mary 's expertise to be "unavailable" for teaching literature as a subject. Drawing on her conclusions from this case study, Holt-Reynolds expands the definition of subject matter expertise to include an awareness of that expertise as learned. She ends with a clear challenge for teacher educators to help prospective teachers recognize their subject matter expertise and learn ways to share and model it with students.

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