This field-based course is designed to provide foundation knowledge and strategies for understanding and promoting literacy development in young children through grade two. Using a balanced approach, reading, writing, and oral language skills are taught as developmental processes. Emphasis is upon beginning reading instruction and concentrates on developmentally appropriate teaching strategies and assessments designed to directly teach and assess phonological and phonemic awareness, the alphabetic principle, word analysis and decoding, reading comprehension, and reading fluency, as well as principles for creating a literacy-rich classroom environment and strategies for promoting life-long readers. This course will address the needs of students served in special education. Prerequisite:
EDUC 4328