EDUC 244 - Elementary Instruction of Reading

Designed to provide pre-service and in-service classroom teachers with the research-based best practices, techniques, and strategies in reading instruction. Learners will explore how observation, interpretation, and evaluation result in effective, efficient instructional planning for each of the stages of reading (literacy) development. Learners will focus on strategies for managing and allocating instructional time while developing the five components of reading (phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension) as they relate to the implementation of a comprehensive reading program. This course meets the Maryland State Department of Education Reading Instruction requirements for an initial certificate in Elementary Education. This course does not fulfill any requirements for the A.A.T. PREREQUISITE(S): EDUC 243 or consent of department. Three hours lecture/discussion each week. Formerly ED 217.

3 semester hours

Course Outcomes:
Upon course completion, a student will be able to:

Identify and describe scientifically-based best instructional practices and recognize when such approaches should be applied or implemented.
Describe and support rationales for planning decisions based on observation, interpretation, and evaluation of real or simulated situations.
Select and analyze text for a ‘three tier’ model (core, supplemental, intervention) for organizing classroom instruction for students who are culturally and linguistically diverse or may have special needs.
Identify instructional routines and strategies for teaching the five major components of reading instruction (phonological and phonemic awareness; phonics, spelling, and word study; fluency development; vocabulary; and comprehension) suitable for various age and ability groups.
Develop or add instructional routines for fluency development to lesson plans and provide a rationale for planning decisions, based on real or simulated situations.
Describe word study routines found in systematic approaches.
Distinguish how text selection may influence the literacy development process.
Select decodable, ‘leveled,’ and appropriate texts that support successful strategic research-based instruction that lead to literacy development.
Use screening and diagnostic data to include fluency-based measures of letter recognition, phonological skill, whole word recognition, spelling, passage reading, knowledge of phonic correspondences, and comprehension.
Identify research-validated intervention approaches for students who are culturally and linguistically diverse or may have special needs.
Compare and contrast explicit, systematic instruction with implicit, incidental, opportunistic instruction.
Design, adapt, and modify lessons according to recommendations from scientifically-based reading research that are balanced between skill practice and composition with considerations for the needs of English Language Learners and students with exceptionalities.
Demonstrate the implementation of a lesson to teach the components of literacy development to include sound-symbol correspondence, recognition and production, and ultimately blending and reading words.

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