A growing body of research exists on preservice teachers' experiences in reading methodology courses in North America (e.g., Allen and Piersma 1995; Hayden 1993/94). However, their counterparts in the Caribbean in general and Jamaica in particular have not enjoyed similar attention. Lack of local investment in research may be because children of wealthy Jamaicans usually attend the more prestigious private schools, generally from kindergarten through grade 12, then resort to countries of the North for their higher education (Goulbourne 1988.