Let the Buyer Beware: A Content Analysis of Freely Available Reading Lessons on Teachers-Pay-Teachers

TeachersPayTeachers (TpT) has been cited for publishing teaching materials that are both questionable in quality and problematic in implementation. Yet, pre-service teachers use educators on social media platforms like TpT as models to be emulated. Therefore, we conducted a content analysis of materials identified by their creators as being lesson plans for teaching reading, with the goal of providing more specific guidance and support to teachers who may be using these materials in their classrooms. We searched TpT for freely-available lessons for grades K-3, and conducted both qualitative and quantitative coding of their content and pedagogy. Our findings demonstrate that many of the resources for reading instructions adhere to, or at least do not explicitly deviate from, research-supported practices for reading instruction. However, findings also indicate that a certain level of teacher expertise is required for TpT to be used effectively. Our work illuminates some of the potential problems with TpT resources so teachers can adapt their use to provide high-quality reading instruction.