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This report illustrates the didactical concept and implementation of a theory–practice learning setting where preservice teachers counsel pupils from local schools on their self-regulated learning. The learning setting is part of the preservice teachers’ psychology curriculum embedded in their educational foundation studies and aims at fostering preservice teachers’ psychological literacy; specifically, to reflect their own and other’s behavior and to apply their psychological knowledge of learning and counseling principles into real-life counseling sessions. Besides describing the motivation behind the structure and content of the theory–practice learning setting, the report discusses results of a first qualitative analysis of the preservice teachers’ learning journals, which function as a reflection tool and are part of the overall evaluation design. Results indicate that the practice task (counseling session) is a complex and demanding, yet instructive and rewarding, learning setting that fosters certain attributes of psychological literacy. Practical implications and further research endeavors are discussed.

The report portrays a theory-practice psychology course on reading education in a German teacher education programme. Having completed a theoretical course phase that is largely based on knowledge from cognitive and educational psychology, pre-service student-teachers applied their acquired knowledge by working with a fifth-grader in five individual reading lessons. During the sessions, students were supported by a mentor and received individual video feedback as well as peer feedback. The students also kept a learning journal to document and reflect on their practical experiences. The results from a small-scale evaluation study suggest that the course format bears a high potential for meaningful learning experiences regarding both general teaching practice and reading instruction.