Curriculum Constructs and Assessment: Reading and Language Arts

This course focuses on the most current research, theory, and methods of reading instruction, while providing students with the background knowledge in language arts necessary to prepare an integrated unit of instruction. Various instructional and assessment techniques, including research-based phonics, are modeled. A practical application project, based on work with a student in a K-8 school setting, is incorporated into the course requirements.

*A Bachelors degree or higher is required for this course*

Topics and Objectives

Theories and Strategies for Reading Instruction

  • Analyze the reading process.
  • Identify theories and principles on which effective reading is based.
  • Examine the language components of phonology, morphology, semantics, graphophonics, and syntax.
  • Create comprehension learning activities to use in a tutorial/small group/classroom context.
  • Identify the effective components of a lesson plan/instructional routine.

Assessing Growth in Literacy

  • Analyze ways to organize and manage diagnostic information.
  • Interpret an Informal Reading Inventory (IRI) or Running Record to identify student strengths, weaknesses, and reading level.
  • Investigate the use of informal assessments.
  • Implement a program of remediation based on assessment findings.

Learning to Read

  • Examine the roles of listening comprehension and oral expression in the development of literacy.
  • Analyze the relationship of listening, speaking, reading, writing, and thinking.
  • Analyze the interrelationships among cognitive development, metalinguistic awareness, and language learning.
  • Examine the concept of beginning and early literacy.

Reading to Learn

  • Examine the elements of reading comprehension.
  • Analyze various study strategies and their application.

Language Learning and Literacy

  • Identify instructional strategies and activities for language acquisition.
  • Examine the value and importance of parental support and involvement in literacy development.

The Place of Explicit and Systematic Phonics in Learning to Read and Write

  • Examine word attack strategies readers use to process written language for meaning.
  • Investigate the utility of phonic and structural analysis generalizations.
  • Analyze the place of phonics in a reading program.
  • Analyze methods of evaluating phonics mastery.
  • Analyze print processing techniques and how they relate to developing appropriate and useful reading strategies.
  • Analyze student writing to evaluate application of phonic elements.
  • Examine the depth of present knowledge of phonic elements through pretest/posttest measures.

Comprehension Connections

  • Examine schema theory and how it relates to reading comprehension.
  • Examine pre-reading, during-reading, and post-reading activities that enhance comprehension.
  • Evaluate the use of pre-reading, during-reading, and post-reading activities in a tutorial/small group/classroom context.
  • Identify instructional practices and methods for teaching comprehension.
  • Deliver and evaluate lessons or instructional routines based on continuous diagnostic assessment.
  • Compare and contrast a directed reading activity with a directed reading-thinking activity.

Vocabulary Building

  • Evaluate pedagogical approaches in vocabulary development.

Applications of Writing in the Classroom

  • Describe the stages of the writing process.
  • Identify student and teacher behaviors during the various stages of the writing process.
  • Compare and contrast methods for evaluating student writing, including analytic scoring.
  • Analyze the integration of grammar, spelling, and handwriting during writing.

Children's Literature

  • Experience a variety of genres.
  • Integrate children's literature into content area instruction.
  • Examine the use of effective oral reading practices to support literacy development.
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