ELA 902 - Developmental Reading Methods and Activities

Credits: 3
Discover how to engage your students in activities which promote reading skills and are easily adaptable to meet the various learning styles and needs found in the classroom. Developmental Reading Methods and Activities is designed for kindergarten through third grade teachers. Learn theory and practice, using innovative teaching strategies. This activity-based course provides the teacher with standards-focused instructional activities that range from phonemic awareness to fluency, all linked to children's choices in literature. The activities develop visual discrimination, oral communication, letter recognition, letter sounds, vocabulary, and much more. The activities are easily adaptable to meet the needs of whole class or individual students. In addition, the teacher will be provided with ways to determine if their students are able to recognize and decode words as well as check for comprehension through listening, speaking, recalling, and predicting. Many of the activities are game-type in nature with the goal being that the students develop a zest for learning and the efficiency for remembering what was learned is enhanced. Teachers will be presented with ideas for integrating the activities and concepts into other curricular areas and suggestions are offered for involving the parents of primary students and those whose first language is not English in the educational process of their children. NOTE: The course manual is in a PDF format. Users will need the free Acrobat reader to open and view the files (http://get.adobe.com/reader/) (In Progress)